QuickBooks for Non-Profits – How to Leverage It?
Nonprofits are arguably the most difficult organizations to operate and maintain. While they do get tax benefits, they certainly need to have sufficient funds to keep the organization operational. This includes funds for maintaining their infrastructure, pay their employees, marketing drives and other miscellaneous expenses. With decreasing government support and a growing proclivity of people to divert donations to combat poverty directly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for nonprofits to maintain a stable income and make accurate budgets.
Powerful accounting software like QuickBooks for nonprofits can be especially beneficial while combating some of these problems.
Capabilities to look for in accounting software for nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations must keep accounts differently than for-profit businesses. There are a different set of tax implications and consequently, records have to be kept differently. These practices reflect in the way financial reports are prepared for nonprofits.
The revenues and expenses of nonprofits differ from other businesses. The accounting software must have provisions to keep track of charitable contributions in their various forms. Budgeting would require greater flexibility to allow for the variability in incomes. Similarly, the software must have an efficient method for keeping track of receipts. in-kind donations, and disbursements for saving time.
QuickBooks for Nonprofits – Features
With a set of dedicated tools and features, QuickBooks for Nonprofits is certainly one of the best accounting tools available in the market. Broadly speaking, QuickBooks for small nonprofits can help them with several features that simplify accounting, tracking, and reporting.
Accounting
Accounting is one of the most complex tasks for nonprofit organizations. The tax requirements are different, and the source of funds will vary more often than not. To add to the woes, many non-profits can’t have accountants on their payroll. QuickBooks for nonprofits considers all these shortcomings and has included handy accounting features to overcome these issues.
- Automated workflows
QuickBooks allows the automation of several tasks. These tasks can be categorized based on different factors. Income and outgo can be classified based on funds and programs to simplify the recording and reporting of recurring transactions.
- Customizable lists
Nonprofits can create separate lists of members and donors for simplifying data tracking. These customizations allow keeping transaction trails and help in better budgeting. Depending upon the version the organization opts for, budget details can be tracked at a granular level involving programs or funds. This will help nonprofits manage their finance better.
- Extensible features
As with all organizations, non-profits also have to scale up operations. With these operations, the complexities involved in data handling and security increase as well. Organizations can upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit Edition to cope up with these demands. With the upgraded version, users get added functionalities, increased storage capacity, and better safety features. The Enterprise version processes data quickly even for large datasets apart from implementing additional permissions for protecting sensitive data.
Tracking
QuickBooks makes tracking of several different types of data simpler. While the list of donors can be edited dynamically with a few buttons clicks, their donations made through different payment methods such as credit card, debit card, bank transfer, cash, or check can be recorded even using mobile phones by employees and volunteers. QuickBooks also supports other donation apps and syncs with the seamlessly import donation details into the nonprofit organization’s database. The same is true with bank accounts as well. Nonprofits can link multiple bank accounts and map the details along with information on transactions.
Reporting
If you are a part of a not for profit organization that has to file an information return with the IRS, QuickBooks for nonprofits has provisions for recording all kinds of expenses involved in fundraising, events, administrative purposes, and miscellaneous costs. The readymade templates for reports such as Company Snapshot, Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss statement, Expenses and so on will help your non-profit record and provide details about your organization to the public and the IRS quickly and transparently. Not only can the reports templates be customized to meet the specific requirements of your organization, but they can also be scheduled to be generated and mailed to different stakeholders.
Why QuickBooks Desktop Nonprofit accounting software?
Nonprofits can either subscribe to one of QuickBooks Online plans or purchase QuickBooks Desktop Nonprofit Accounting Software. The Desktop version has specific tools and features for saving time and increasing the efficiency of the accounting process. Reports specifically designed for non-profit organizations with features like autofill and help portal improve accounting efficiency significantly. These include reports that document budgets, donor details, grants and programs, simplified financial income and expenses statement apart from the Functional Expenses-990 for the IRS. Accountants can directly transfer data into IRS forms with the inbuilt Nonprofit Chart of Accounts.
Additionally, with all the integrations and customization options available with QuickBooks, users can prepopulate data in letters and nonprofit reports to increase efficiency, maintain consistency and minimize errors.
Where is the Nonprofit Menu in QuickBooks?
QuickBooks offers simple customization options for nonprofit organizations. The process to set up the nonprofit menu in QuickBooks can be done with a few clicks:
- Choose “Nonprofit” from the drop-down list in “company industry”
- One more time, choose “Nonprofit” from the drop-down list in “company type”
Once the above process is carried out, the terminologies that are used by nonprofits are displayed in the basic menu items, instead of the default terminologies that are set for corporate businesses.
For instance, the term “donor” appears in place of “customer“; “statement of activity” appears in place of “profit and loss,” and “pledge” replaces the word “invoice.” These are the words one would hear in any nonprofit organization, rather than business jargons used in the corporate.
If you are a nonprofit using QuickBooks, you can save costs with the cloud accounting version of QuickBooks. Though you can use QuickBooks Online, it doesn’t have the full-fledged functionality of a QuickBooks Desktop version. The best option would be to host your QuickBooks software in the cloud. Look for an economical QuickBooks hosting provider that ticks all the options of your nonprofit organization. Here’s why QuickBooks hosting can be beneficial for nonprofits.
How Does QuickBooks Hosting Benefits NonProfits?
With QuickBooks cloud-hosted software, nonprofits can get the versatility of the Desktop app along with the accessibility of the QuickBooks Online version. This flexibility is particularly useful for small nonprofits.
Small nonprofits often have employees who might have to access information account-related information and send across reports to prospects and stakeholders while on the move. They might even avail of the services of volunteers who might not be able to physically be present in the office for accounting tasks. Moreover, they are unlikely to maintain a long-term commitment to the nonprofit organization they might be associated with.
With tight constraints, uncertainty around workforce commitments and volatile balance sheets, nonprofits must outsource as many operations as possible. Not only can outsourcing reduce expenses but also access better equipment, services, and expertise at a fraction of the capital investment required they would have to pump in for acquiring each of them individually. Most importantly, they can improve their financial ratios by minimizing capital investments which are crucial indicators of the financial health of nonprofits that are seeking donations from donors, grantors and the general public.
Among the most capital investment expenses for any organization is infrastructure. With applications like QuickBooks for nonprofits, such organizations do not have to invest heavily in either purchasing expensive software or expensive systems that are required for supporting them. Instead, they can subscribe to desktop-based QuickBooks Pro hosting services that will give them access to all the tools they need at a fraction of the cost of purchasing the entire suite. By doing so, not only will small non-profits be able to preserve their capital but also get the benefit of 24/7 support and high-end security features without a dedicated team on their premises. Apps4Rent provides cloud-based QuickBooks for nonprofits at affordable prices.
If you are looking for a QuickBooks hosting provider for nonprofit at budget prices, contact experts now!
