FastFund Online from Araize is an SaaS system that integrates nonprofit, fund accounting, fund raising (CRM) and payroll in a single solution. The vendor says FastFund Online is designed to help nonprofits take control of their fiscal and development responsibilities in order to be more accountable to donors and funding sources, and be more prepared for audits. FastFund Online covers the various management responsibilities that are essential to running a successful…
$35
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Financial Edge NXT is a cloud accounting solution tailored for nonprofits that provides a general ledger, projects, grants, endowments, accounts payable and receivable, fixed assets, banking, and more. It offers real-time reporting, with one-click drill-down functionality and export capability.
N/A
Pricing
Araize FastFund Online
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Editions & Modules
FastFund Online Basic Accounting
$35
FastFund Online Fund Raising
$35
FastFund Online Payroll
$35
for 5 employees
FastFund Online Premium
$75
FastFund Online Premium Multi-User
$100
for 5 employees
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FastFund Online
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
Additional Details
FastFund Raising is priced based on number of constituents in the database. Pricing starts at $35 a month for up to 5,000 constituents. FastFund Payroll is priced bases on number of active employees. Pricing starts at $35 a month for up to 5 employees. Special bundle pricing is available.
Blackbaud is currently offering the first six months of Financial Edge NXT free for new customers. Limited conditions apply.
I have found FastFund to be a flexible yet easy-to-use accounting and donor support software. Of course, it does not have all the power of something like SalesForce, but then again, I don't need that and my more technically challenged users would be overwhelmed with something like that. FastFund allows us to track donor support, issue receipts for tax purposes, and even record notes of interactions with donors. We create mailing lists and can easily allocate donations to the specific project as designated by the donor. We use FastFund for our accounting software. We pay bills, make deposits, cut checks, and allocate expenses to the appropriate projects. We also use the newest module of FastFund which is the Payroll module. I am not involved with using that module, but I do know that it is great to have everything in one package.
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.
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.
We are satisfied with the software and on-going costs. Moving to something else would be an investment and cost that would be difficult to justify given our satisfaction with FastFund.
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.
I find FastFund to be easy to use and, for the most part, intuitive in its user interface and options. Sometimes new features are added or updates are made which causes some changes. Araize is good at holding short webinars to introduce these.
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.
I have always had my questions and issues responded to very quickly and addressed in a timely fashion. Araize is good at notifying us when the support desk will be closed for company holidays and the like. They are responsive to suggestions for new features and in helping when we have questions.
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
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.
Araize FastFund was already implemented when I joined the organization so I cannot comment on how it compares to other products or why it was selected.
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.
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.
