Sage Intacct for Nonprofits: Overview and Strategy

Nonprofits have unique needs, requiring them to optimize donations and grants and spend money wisely on programs advancing their mission. Non-profit organizations also have day-to-day back-office accounting responsibilities and a fiduciary duty to stakeholders, making accuracy and accountability with proper internal controls and global regulatory compliance important. 

This article describes Sage Intacct nonprofit accounting software and provides a recommendation for your non-profit organization to gain more efficiency and functionality through add-on finance/AP automation software seamlessly integrated with Sage Intacct. 

Sage Intacct for non-profits Overview

Sage Intacct for nonprofit users includes charities, foundations, and faith-based organizations. When you use specialized nonprofit accounting software from Sage Intacct, you’ll be able to account for, consolidate, and analyze multi-entity non-profit financial results. Sage Intacct’s not-for-profit software generates the required non-profit financial reports. With Sage Intacct, you get multi-currency and multi-entity push-button consolidation accounting. 

Sage Intacct nonprofit accounting software lets you perform fund accounting and grant tracking for grant management, and automates revenue recognition, following GAAP standards. Sage Intacct provides an audit trail. You’ll have access to financial reports and analytical insights for decision-making through Sage Intacct dimensions and real-time dashboards with metrics. 

Not-for-profit organizations can use the Sage Intacct Dynamic Allocations feature to spread costs across projects, departments, programs, and their other non-profit dimensions. 

The Sage Intacct accounting solution dashboards let you view essential KPIs, consolidation, and drill-down features for seeing each separate non-profit entity’s financials. Sage Intacct dimensions can be assigned to your non-profit programs. Your team gets role-based views of the real-time dashboard and can document collaborative operational change decisions on the dashboard itself. 

How Sage Intacct Helps Solve non-profit Challenges

Non-profit organizations strive to complete their missions by fundraising and finding solutions to overcome numerous challenges. Sage Intacct non-profit software solutions are cloud software helping nonprofits break through obstacles to achieve success.

Our recommended solutions include both Intacct nonprofit accounting software provided by Sage and third-party add-on integrations for handling AP automation, including supplier onboarding, digital supplier invoice processing, and controlling business spend. 

Non-profit Challenges Needing Solutions

Non-profit challenges include:

• Staffing issues
• Inefficient and siloed systems
• Changes in demand for services
• Fundraising goals and grants insufficiency
• Budgeting and spend management issues
• Not having immediate program results visibility

Staffing issues

Non-profit organizations have challenges hiring employees and preventing turnover. Employee turnover happens when overwork burnout due to system inefficiencies and chronic understaffing exists. Non-profit employee salary levels correlate with expected fundraising levels and grants. Salaries are also limited by the percentage of administrative costs to fundraising revenues needed to attract donors. 

Inefficient and siloed systems

Unfortunately, some non-profit organizations aren’t using the right systems. Nonprofits may run separate, inefficient siloed software systems for their primary goal of operational fundraising and an accounting software system that isn’t integrated. The result is duplicate data entry and manual processes rife with errors and a heavy workload for employees. The CFO may not have unified system visibility needed to support decision-making. 

Changes in demand for services

non-profit organizations may experience higher or lower levels of demand for their services, depending on economic conditions in the communities served and city or county programs available to change their circumstances. This necessitates the ability to make changes in spending levels and manage in real-time. 

The need for services is diminished, for example, when the city establishes a program to house the homeless in subsidized or no-cost housing. Charities then may not have as many homeless people needing their services. Or their non-profit programs providing job training may be needed instead to give the prior homeless population a path to re-entering the workforce. 

Fundraising goals and grants insufficiency

Nonprofits set fundraising goals each year. However, economic downturns interfere with these goals and may result in lower donations than the prior year’s or even this year’s forecast expectations. Government grants applied for may not result in funding, gutting planned programs. 

With inadequate donor funding and grants not awarded, the non-profit’s challenge then becomes: How do we reduce costs to operate with less cash? Which programs need to be shuttered or abandoned and which expense categories can be lowered?

Budgeting and spend management issues

Preparing a budget using manually prepared Google or Excel spreadsheets is subject to human error. Non-profit organizations, similarly to for-profit businesses, need to prepare accurate budgets and analyze budget variances vs. actual results. When closing the books to prepare accurate financial statements takes too much time, your results are delayed and you can’t make fast changes in operational spending levels. 

Find a way to record expenditures more quickly as they happen and close the books faster while keeping accuracy intact. The budget vs. spend analysis should be in real-time to take corrective actions quickly, while using better spend management controls on an ongoing basis. 

Not having immediate results visibility

Nonprofits may not have the right tools to see top-level results in a meaningful way and simultaneously drill down into results by each program (or other dimension) and each non-profit entity. Therefore, they need a multi-entity solution with consolidation to include results for all of their nonprofit entities (and any for-profit entities they operate). The nonprofit leadership team needs the right tools to course correct quickly. 

Software Solutions to Non-Profit Challenges

Sage Intacct non-profit accounting software can solve many of these non-profit organization challenges. With a helping hand from AI-driven, integrated finance and AP automation software, controllable challenges and your quick reaction to uncontrollable events like recessions or heated inflation patterns, can help you provide further needed solutions. 

Sage Intacct nonprofit accounting software lets nonprofit organizations use its dimensions feature to capture results by each of their formalized programs. This means using the simple general ledger chart of accounts in Sage Intacct with multiple ways to segment results. 

The Sage Intacct for nonprofits dashboard lets you view essential KPIs, consolidation, and drill-down features for seeing each separate non-profit entity’s financials and program results. Your team gets role-based views of the real-time dashboard and can document collaborative operational change decisions on the Sage Intacct dashboard itself. 

In the same industry-specific Intacct nonprofit accounting software, this Sage Intacct nonprofit finance software provides multi-entity and consolidated real-time views for added visibility. Access is controlled and granted to not-for-profit employees through authorized role permissions.

Seamlessly Scale with Sage Intacct Integration Add-Ons

To achieve your non-profit mission success and begin mitigating common challenges, start by using Sage Intacct for nonprofits integrated with your fundraising tools. But besides using cloud accounting software, your business still needs other layers of Sage Intacct integration for AI-driven AP automation of accounts payable financial processes and CRM for fundraising revenue processes.

Salesforce for nonprofits CRM software integrates with Sage Intacct for nonprofit customer relationship management, including fundraising sales force automation with visible actions and pledge/donation results status. 

Tipalti Finance Automation Software

AP automation streamlines workflows and adds automated invoice processing, automated global compliance, and stronger financial controls. Consider integrating other financial automation tools like Tipalti Expenses for employee expense report preparation, approval, and reimbursement. Tipalti finance automation software products work not only with Sage Intacct accounting software but also integrate with Sage ERP systems. 

AP automation from Tipalti works seamlessly as an accounts payable and invoice processing API integration add-on to the Sage Intacct for nonprofits accounting software. Tipalti AP automation makes multi-entity/multi-subsidiary/multi-instance nonprofit supplier invoice processing through global payment and reconciliation more efficient, with more functionality than traditional accounts payable software. 

Real-time visibility and AI /machine learning-driven queries and analysis help you better control organizational spending to achieve more with your available cash flow. 

Tipalti Add-on AP Automation Software Features

With cloud-based Tipalti AP automation for your non-profit organization, you get:

• Self-service supplier onboarding (reducing workload), including
  • Payment method information and IRS W-9 or W-8 form data collection before the first payment
  • Automated supplier validation to reduce fraud risks
• Automated invoice processing, including
  • Digitized invoice receipt using AI/ML-based OCR (optical character recognition)
  • Automated invoice verification 
  • Automatic 3-way or 2-way matching with PO and receiving report
  • Guided approval routings
  • Automated global regulatory compliance
  • Global payments with a choice of electronic payment methods in 196 countries and 120 currencies
• Automatic payment reconciliation/ accelerate accounting close by 25%
• Multi-subsidiary and combined entity accounts payable with multi-currency and multi-instance 
• Supplier payment tracking with 1099 and 1042-S preparation reports and an option to automate 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC e-filing using Tax1099 software from its partner

Tipalti AP automation software automatically provides payment status to you and your suppliers through the Supplier Portal. That improves communications and means your staff won’t get distracted and bogged down with constant, time-consuming supplier reminder inquiries about when you’ll be paying their invoices.  

Multi-instance deployment of Tipalti AP automation with Sage Intacct nonprofit means that you don’t share bank accounts or suppliers between entities. That helps you achieve your non-profit financial management responsibilities. 

Future-Proof Your Non-profit with Digital Transformation

For better financial management software, take the next step to transform and future-proof your non-profit organization by integrating digital AP automation from Tipalti with your Sage Intacct nonprofit accounting software.

Add-on Tipalti AP automation software scales with your non-profit’s organizational growth, improves productivity (eliminating 80% of payables workload) to achieve time and cost savings, makes financial management, employees and suppliers happier, reduces future payables staff hiring needs, and significantly lowers errors and fraud risks, with its financial controls and 26,000+ automated global payment rules. Schedule a demo.