Likelihood to Recommend Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is great for an independent/private school. It integrates well with enrollment and student information systems sold by Blackbaud. For example, you could send data from the student information system straight into the Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT. The caveat of course is that you would need to be using other Blackbaud products to leverage this integration. However, all Blackbaud products utilize open APIs so with a little programming, one can share data across many systems.
Read full review Wave Accounting was used for a small practice without a lot of the accounting considerations a large company would have. For the price, you really can't beat what Wave offers out of the box. All of the basic tools for things like invoicing and expenses are all easy to use. End of year accounting is easy with exports of data.
Read full review Pros Uploading and inputting information is easy due to a clear format and outline. Researching and finding past information is quick and easy to navigate due to searching and filtering options as well as the ability to name the files for quick searches. Pulling project titles and accounts - you can have a large amount of projects and accounts and are able to know them through the system without having to memorize each individual title. Being able to export a general ledger for an account to excel while still being formatted correctly. Having the ability to filter in what transactions are pulled in the general ledger. You are able to easily look at all the activity or only activity in a certain time frame or other specific filters. There is always access to help from Blackbaud services for any sort of difficulty. Learning and the ability to attend Blackbaud classes are readily and easily available so you can increase your knowledge and ability to serve well in your organizations' role. Read full review Reconciliation is very difficult with multiple Wave transactions that need to be deleted or merged before it can be matched to a bank transaction. Payroll worked fine for us but took several days to get it set up. We have switched to another bookkeeping system and another payroll system. Canceling with Wave took several days and they charge $6 for something even though the month was paid for in advance. Credit card processing is nice and worked fine for us. Read full review Cons Takes some time to set-up for an organization and there is a learning curve Features & updates are constant due to the online cloud nature. An option to update certain features on demand would be nice or an option to delay. Certain credit card bank feeds are not currently compatible Read full review I know that credit card processing is a way for Wave to make money, but I really wish they offered ACH payment on Invoices. I do cash-based accounting, which means I have to make little journal entries at the start and end of each year to get my books to balance because Wave wants to do everything differently. This should just be a setting to flip, whether you want cash-based or accrual-based. They use Yodlee for bank connection, which doesn't play nice with 2FA. Pretty much every time I log in I have to re-enter credentials, get a code sent to me, reauthenticate, and know that I'm going to have to do it again next week. Not really on Wave, but wish they could get it together nonetheless. Read full review Likelihood to Renew BB seems to forcing changes on customers at a faster rate. This company needs stability because it is understaffed in accounting. There isn't time to drop everything and work up workarounds or even try to judge effects. There also isn't the time to find a replacement suite unless things get really bad.
Read full review Easy to use for clients with no accounting background and the price is right.
Read full review Usability I don't have much to compare it to but if I speak of just the reporting options; sometimes there are so many options I spend more time finding the "perfect" report when a basic report with minimal columns is needed. But I know I can always add to the report if asked.
Read full review I am a professional bookkeeper and I have no problems using Wave and all of it's features. I can see that certain individuals who have no accounting knowledge might struggle with a few different features and entries, but that is why Wave has an emphasis in connecting users to Wave Pro's who will walk them through things
Read full review Reliability and Availability WAVE is always available when we need it ! Peter
Read full review Performance Wave does tend to slow down when filtering your transactions screen especially by date. This is more of an issue when trying to trouble shoot certain transactions or clean-up a set of books.
Read full review Support Rating No one is perfect, but this support team is as close as it gets. They respond promptly and if the person I'm talking to doesn't have the answer they find someone that does. They also provide documentation and/or resources to support their responses to my questions. The online chat is awesome and usually all I need
Read full review I never had to call Wave Support as we barely experienced any support-related problems on our side. However, I do know a few people that complained about Wave support. It would be nice as well, though if they could have more in your face tutorials for new users or how-to videos should we struggle to do something
Read full review Online Training easy to use and east to train on ! Our WAVE clients enjoy the ease of use
Read full review Implementation Rating The implementation can be easy depending on how familiar you are with Blackbaud products. It is cloud based so there is not a need for IT involvement but you do need to know your business requirement.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is far superior to CYMA. We used CYMA for over 20 years. It was tough to transition because Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT follows GAAP, while CYMA did not the way we had it set up. Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT has more robust fund tracking and allows us to create custom reports.
Read full review Wave is FREE for most functions. Payment processing costs no matter where you go (as does payroll or taxes). Wave rises above tools like
QuickBooks Online because they know that for our small firm, being nimble is the name of the game. We don't need exhaustive reporting and management like QB offers and we certainly don't want to pay for it
Read full review Scalability Once they out grow what is ability to move up to a more robust system?
Read full review Return on Investment The reporting features that include unposted entries and can be run on-demand to see a year to date budget comparison, have certainly made it easier to stay on task and within budget. We have been able to integrate some of the fundraising features into Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT; consolidating to one system for tracking all key financial parameters, has been invaluable. The budget partner (Zai?) is absolutely terrible and a huge waste of time and money; it does not integrate as advertised and is constantly "broken/down" on our end. It is not as advertised and honestly shouldn't be promoted by Blackbaud - it's that terrible. Read full review Wave has been ROI positive for our company. With not having to pay for the service we can use our money for growing our business. The fees on credit card transactions for invoices are reasonable especially as we don't pay a monthly subscription. The invoicing feature has made our lives easier for us and our customers. The invoicing piece and AR tracking has been ROI positive as well. Read full review ScreenShots Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Screenshots