The Best Accounting Software For Nonprofits | Top 9 Tools
As your nonprofit grows, it becomes less sustainable to maintain your accounting information in a spreadsheet or a small-scale generalized software solution. Soon, it’ll be time to look for accounting software that can meet all of your needs.
Accounting for nonprofits differs drastically from that used by for-profits. You need to focus on accountability to your donors and fundraising success rather than profitability. So why would you choose a software solution that is geared toward for-profit organizations’ needs?
We’ve compiled a list of the best accounting software for nonprofits to help nonprofits like yours make an informed investment decision.
These top solutions include:
- MIP Fund Accounting
- Intuit QuickBooks
- Blackbaud Financial Edge
- Fund EZ
- Nonprofit Plus
- AccountEdge
- Freshbooks
- Xero
- SmartSimple
Let’s dive in to learn more about these incredible nonprofit accounting software solutions!
1. MIP Fund Accounting
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
MIP Fund Accounting is a comprehensive, configurable fund accounting solution built with nonprofits in mind. It was designed to manage the unique reporting, budgeting, and security demands of nonprofit fund accounting.
The MIP Fund Accounting standard solution features include a general ledger, accounts payable, bank reconciliation, forms designer, and configurable reports. As your nonprofit grows, you can invest in other modules such as payroll, human resources, allocations, multicurrency, electronic requisitions, and more.
The available ledger and dashboards make it easy to find and evaluate the most relevant information to your nonprofit.
With MIP Fund Accounting, your nonprofit can make informed financial decisions based on your in-depth analysis of grant progress, fundraising campaigns, and past and current budgets.
Why We Recommend It
We recommend MIP Fund Accounting as the best nonprofit accounting software because of the customization options offered as a part of the solution.
Fifty-five percent of nonprofit finance professionals say that as their organization grows, it is somewhat to very difficult to make sure that technology will meet their expanding needs. MIP Fund Accounting takes this into consideration and has built a solution that grows with your organization.
The flexibility to choose add-on modules directly related to your needs enables your nonprofit to grow and expand software features as needed. Plus, their reports are built to be FASB compliant for easy auditing as your organization grows.
Pricing
Community Brands offers affordable subscription or perpetual license payment options for MIP Fund Accounting. Contact their team to discuss these pricing options for your organization.
2. Intuit QuickBooks
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
QuickBooks is trusted by small businesses everywhere to handle finances. Now, they expanded their software to handle fund accounting for nonprofit organizations.
With QuickBooks Online Plus, you can track your budget by programs or funds and manage your nonprofit’s bills. This nonprofit accounting software covers all of your basic needs, but you also have access to an add-on library for any additional functionality you find yourself in need of.
Why We Recommend It
The ease of use of Intuit QuickBooks is the reason it makes our list of the best accounting software for nonprofits. This is an affordable option to get nonprofits started with their fund accounting needs.
Plus, the QuickBooks mobile app enables employees or volunteers to record donations from anywhere. Therefore, your nonprofit can easily collect donations by credit card, debit card, bank transfer, cash, or check.
QuickBooks integrates with other key donation apps for nonprofits such as Fundly and DonorPerfect, further streamlining your finance data collection processes.
Pricing
Intuit QuickBooks has a variety of pricing options from SimpleStart to Advanced. We recommend starting with mid-tiered QuickBooks Online Plus option to access fund accounting needs. This option is regularly priced at $60/month. However, QuickBooks often provides discounts to get you started.
3. Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is a complete financial solution designed for nonprofits. With this software solution, you can monitor and manage your financial planning, grant accounting, fundraising campaigns, and nonprofit expenses in a single solution.
The internal controls of Financial Edge allow your organization’s system administrators to allow or deny access to specific information within the software. This supports the confidentiality of your donors’ personal information, maintains security, and prevents financial fraud.
Why We Recommend It
One of the most prominent advantages of Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is their ability to streamline information and nonprofit processes through the use of integrations with other Blackbaud products.
While Financial Edge has the ability to stand on its own, it is best employed when paired with other products like Raiser’s Edge, Luminate CRM, and more. Integrating these systems makes it easy for your organization to transfer donor information from donation pages to your CRM to your accounting ledger.
Integrations save your organization valuable time importing and exporting information from one solution to another. Plus, specialized Blackbaud consultants can help guide you through these integrations.
Pricing
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT offers Starter, Essentials, and Pro packages for your nonprofit to choose from. Contact Blackbaud for a quote.
4. Fund EZ
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
Fund EZ software was written exclusively for nonprofits to automate functions for accounting, fundraising campaign, grant management, and more in real time. Menus and customized toolbars make it easy to navigate this software and quickly access the information your nonprofit needs.
Segmenting funds with Fund EZ helps your nonprofit financial advisor budget per segment, compare expenditures per fund, and create and print reports according to separate or consolidated sections.
Why We Recommend It
Fund EZ is a great software solution for small to medium nonprofits. It doesn’t matter whether you have a full-time financial professional on staff at your organization. The dashboard tools make it easy to create visual representations of important financial analytics for administrative staff to track for your nonprofit.
Protect your nonprofit’s financial information by setting up authorization controls to limit your organization’s employees who have access to certain data. This helps prevent fraud and creates a more accountable system for monitoring financial information.
Pricing
Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Fund EZ before you make your final purchase. Then, contact their product specialists to discuss the features of your nonprofit’s ideal solution and receive a custom quote based on your organization’s needs.
5. Nonprofit Plus
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
Nonprofit Plus offers full accounting, financial management, and procurement management suites that help your nonprofit track and budget for internal and external expenses and operations. This software solution is built for nonprofits to keep them accountable to their donors and legal fund reporting regulations.
The financial management suite offers tools such as a general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, cash management, currency management, fixed assets, and time and expense management.
Why We Recommend It
Nonprofit Plus allows your nonprofit to manage your one-off donations but also has functions to manage your recurring revenue. Because recurring donations provide a consistent revenue stream, the best accounting software solutions for nonprofits will take this into consideration while budgeting.
Plus, the enhanced audit trail in the nonprofit accounting suite prepares your nonprofit organization for audits now and into the future.
Pricing
Contact Nonprofit Plus for a quote.
6. AccountEdge
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
AccountEdge was built for small businesses but expanded their services to serve nonprofit accounting needs. Their full-featured software advertises itself as being affordable for organizations of all sizes. While their main software solution is desktop-oriented, they offer an optional cloud app for your organization’s on-the-go needs.
AccountEdge provides all of the necessary accounting tools your nonprofit needs to succeed including accepting donations, providing donation receipts, recording expenses, and processing payroll.
Why We Recommend It
With AccountEdge, your nonprofit can easily manage your donor contacts and track your donation sources.
Track donors’ contact information such as their address, email, phone number, and other information on contact cards with AccountEdge. Then, if your donor has a donation agreement, you can attach that information to the card and set reminders to contact them on a specific date.
Your organization receives money from multiple locations. Therefore, the ability to track donation sources in your nonprofit accounting software helps you make future decisions about your fundraising and grant campaigns. For instance, if you see that your events aren’t doing as well as your other fundraising campaigns, you might choose to boost your event marketing.
Pricing
AccountEdge is determined to help nonprofits spend hundreds rather than thousands on accounting software. Therefore, their one-time payment starts at just $149 for the basic plan.
7. Freshbooks
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
Freshbooks is built for small businesses but has enough functionality to accommodate nonprofit organizations as well. Their easy-to-use interface makes it easy to track and manage expenses and fundraising campaigns.
Their form builder tools allow you to create invoices customized for your nonprofit. Include your logo on the top of the invoices to create a professional appeal. You can also create customized thank you emails for donors with these tools, making it easy to maintain relations with your donors.
Why We Recommend It
Freshbooks is an incredibly helpful software solution for nonprofits focused on minimizing overhead costs and tracking internal operations. They offer time-tracking and management tools to make sure your team is on the same page.
With Freshbooks, your employees can click a timer when they begin working on a project and stop it once they’re done. This gives you an accurate perspective on the amount of time it takes to complete projects and tracks productivity.
Freshbooks’ project management tools allow your organization to assign tasks to individual employees and manage their time productively. Plus, you can manage your volunteers using these tools too!
Pricing
Freshbooks offers a tiered pricing system with a nonprofit discount. The nonprofit discount allows nonprofits to pay the price of the tier beneath their chosen solution. For instance, their lite plan is $15/month and plus plan is $25/month. As a nonprofit, you can pay $15 for the plus plan.
8. Xero
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
Xero was built for businesses but expanded to accommodate nonprofits. Xero for nonprofits kickstarts the accounting processes for organizations looking for their first software solution. It creates a simple solution that allows your organization to easily share critical financial information with donors, board members, and volunteers.
Nonprofits without financial professionals on staff are often overwhelmed by more complicated solutions. However, Xero has all the functionality needed by nonprofits on an easy-to-use platform. This frees up your nonprofit staff to spend less time on the computer worried about finances and more time focusing on your organization’s mission.
Why We Recommend It
Xero makes it easy to monitor and manage your accounting needs from a simple dashboard interface. You can monitor your expenses, your cash flow, checking and credit accounts, bills, and account watchlists directly from your dashboard screen.
The Xero mobile app makes it easy to record donations on the go. This is especially helpful for small nonprofits who want their staff members to spend as much time as possible out in the field helping their constituents.
Pricing
The tiered pricing system for Xero starts at $9/month for the Early plan, $30/month for Growing, and $60 for Established. Plus, nonprofits receive a 25% discount at the end of a free trial.
9. SmartSimple
Nonprofit Accounting Software Overview
SmartSimple is a grant management software that can help your nonprofit with various aspects of your accounting needs.
When it comes to managing your grants, SmartSimple can help you through every step of the grant application process. Once you receive grants, use SmartSimple to create budgets and ensure you’re using the funds appropriately. Their post-grant reporting features will help you report back to the funding organization with helpful and accurate reports.
Why We Recommend It
SmartSimple offers robust budgeting tools that help automate post-award grant activities. You can create payment schedules, PRI repayment schedules, reports, and outcomes.
Plus, they provide a variety of documentation templates for your organization to use. These templates span from meeting dockets to GDPR-compliant applications.
Pricing
SmartSimple offers a tiered software plan, each with a different implementation fee, starting at $5,000.
The majority of nonprofits plan on expanding their services. Be sure you’re ready to handle the additional financial demands by investing in the best nonprofit accounting software now.
Additional Resources
Check out our other pages to learn more about nonprofit software and how it can help elevate your organization:
- Fundraising Software: 11 Types Your Nonprofit Must Know. Fundraising plays a huge role for nonprofits and their budgeting processes. Check out these top 11 fundraising software to see how they can bring your fundraising efforts to the next level.
- Top 9 Donor Prospect Research Software for Smart Fundraising. Prospect research is necessary to reach out to potential major donors. These 9 donor prospect research software solutions will simplify this process for your nonprofit.
- The Best 13 Software for Nonprofits [Rated & Reviewed]. If you’re not sure what software will fulfill which need for your nonprofit, no worries! Read this article featuring the top 13 software solutions for nonprofits and their functions.
