Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT vs. Financial Edge (legacy)

The look of the reports and the platform is great. It's easy to lookup vendors and find some information. I wish the flow to navigate around the system was more intuitive. We tend to do more going back and forth to move to another vendor. It must be an easier solution. But that's the learning curve piece we need.

Incentivized

• Financial Edge is well suited for traditional day to day accounting, accounts payable, and related needs.
• Financial Edge dashboard does not provide a snapshot view of data that I have found are available through other platforms (like QBO).

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Financial edge is able to be customized in a way that fits our organization.
• Financial edge is able to provide reports to our end-users on budget versus actual account balances.
• Financial edge is able to handle a large volume of transactions with ease, having built-in capabilities for batching and balancing.

Incentivized

• Queries is not fully set up yet and could use more functionality within the reporting structure
• Recurring payments do not seem to be moving forward and we have several annuities that run quarterly
• Queue appears to be going away and report scheduling is coming, however, you cannot send to users outside of your organization. We run so many monthly reports that we used to have emailed out via queue that now we have to run them manually and save them to a sharepoint site for our campus partners to access.
• A little concerned with printing checks once database view goes away since the one time I tried it the printing margins were totally off.
• Integration of papersave products and cash receipts.

Incentivized

• Customer service blames the customer, and never offers solutions other than "wait it out." I've always been told it's my computer, even though everyone else at my work has the same issues.
• Website is constantly "under maintenance" and it somehow never gets better.
• The Database View is outdated and glitchy. Honestly get rid of it.
• The Crystal Report is the only way to handle monthly recurring statements, and Financial Edge does not offer support for it anymore. Good luck figuring that out on your own.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

It's user friendly, when it wants to be.

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

Incentivized

I would give this a zero if I could. Here's the deal. Once you request a chat with a representative, they immediately respond. So responsiveness: 10/10. However, they have a tendency to (always) tell you that whatever problem you're experiencing is your problem, not theirs. They offer no solutions and never take responsibility for their website malfunctioning

The training is semi helpful if you have already been in the system. If you are completely new it does make it kind of hard since chart of accounts will be different among organizations. For a general idea it is helpful. One complaint on training would be that as FENXT is attempting to go fully to the web solution there were often times things that were moved or changed that even the trainer was unaware of and had to adapt on the fly.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Prior to using Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, a financial software package offered by Sage was used. Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is much more user friendly, and integrates with the fundraising software used by the Foundation, Raiser's Edge. The integration has eliminated duplicate entry of donor information into the financial software. In addition, the add-in tools provided by Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT make journal entries a much more efficient process.

Incentivized

Financial Edge is more economical than GuideStar, and more focused on the financial successes than simply the management of funds and general data.

Incentivized

• Record accuracy has gone up with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT. We are able to keep everything separate using both natural accounts and projects.
• The AP module has increased our speed in issuing checks. We are able to easily review and see where approvals may be stuck in order to get checks out promptly.
• The approval chains and easily viewed records of approvals have helped our auditors easily track processes for internal control walkthroughs.

Incentivized

• Like any enterprise software, there are costs/investments ahead of return. It isn't something you would implement without support.
• During the significant financial downturn, we were able to use FE to forecast trends and make budget adjustments easily. It transformed communication about forecasting and cuts with assurance.

Incentivized