Feedback from Nonprofits on Accounting Solutions
Two Products Honored with Campbell Awards
Author: Justin Cross
May, 2008
Several months ago Campbell Rinker invited nonprofit executives and staff members who use accounting software and online solutions to complete a survey about these products. Just over 2,390 people completed the survey.
The survey looked into what solutions people are using, how satisfied they are with the solutions, what they want solutions to provide, their purchasing process, and many other topics. This is Campbell Rinker’s third edition of the study.
Product Adoption
By far the most popular solutions used by nonprofits are the QuickBooks family of products. By our estimates, one in four nonprofits using commercially available solutions for accounting use the for-profit or not-for-profit versions of locally-installed QuickBooks software. QuickBooks Online is gaining in popularity.
Products provided by Sage Software, Microsoft, and Blackbaud are also very popular with nonprofits.
Satisfaction & Recommendation
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Responding users rated their satisfaction with eighteen features of the solutions they use. They are most satisfied with their solutions' reliability and ability to track expense and revenue by department or program. They are least satisfied with their solutions' ability to work with other programs and accessibility via the Internet.
Congratulations are in order for the two companies whose products have received coveted Campbell Awards – Blackbaud and Sage Software. The Financial Edge from Blackbaud and MIP Fund Accounting from Sage Software both earned User Satisfaction awards based on their high rates of customer recommendations within the survey.
Looking Ahead
We asked responding users what specific features or services they would like accounting solution providers to offer. Below are the most popular responses, with the features cited most frequently at the top of the list...
- Easier to use, more robust reporting
- Improved user friendliness, especially regarding looking things up
- Better support and training materials
- Online access, data storage, and integration
- Improved importing and exporting between Excel
- Improved budgeting functionality and tools
- Fund accounting
Many of you are probably shaking your head in agreement right now. See, you're not alone!
While accounting solutions aren't perfect, there is no denying that developers have been busy over the past decade. Developers as a whole are constantly expanding online functionality. These days there are many solutions that provide fund accounting while staying very affordable, so it's just a matter of smaller organizations taking the plunge. As for reporting capabilities, it's hard to imagine this ever being perfected, as the bar is constantly being raised.
For further results, you can download a summary report HERE.
