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 Emburse Abacus is well suited for mid-market organizations that are open to - or embrace - the concept of real-time processing of expense transactions. Emburse Abacus takes a radically different approach from other platforms that rely on modeling paper-based monthly (or periodic) expense reports containing multiple expenses submitted simultaneously. Emburse Abacus allows each transaction to be very rapidly processed individually so that approving managers and accounting professionals are able to perform review tasks and identify potential problems throughout the entire month, relieving the massive monthly influx of large numbers of expense reports simultaneously.
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 User-Friendly Interface: Reviews from our employees (ages ranging from 20s-70s) are all positive in regards to the ease of submitting an expense and getting reimbursement on Abacus Timely Reimbursement: After final approval, money hits user accounts within 2 days Approval routing: ability to set up multi-tier complex approval routes Syncs with Sage Intacct: pushes entries on a day to day basis in to Intacct and it hits our GL accordingly Abacus is competitively priced compared to the competition Abacus utilizes "by expense" management. Getting rid of expense reports and batch reports (they do have an option where you can batch if need be) 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 When you upload a receipt to abacus it would be great to port in the information from the receipt to the text fields. It would be good to have a more automated way for Abacus to integrate in with other payroll systems. It would be nice to have more levels of permissions, e.g. manager level, administer level and employee level. 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 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 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 have never had to contact Abacus support and have not heard stories from any of my colleagues having to do so either. Our accounting department stresses the ease of Abacus and has not voiced any concerns with the software or the product support team or the product support process.
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 I chose Abacus because of its ease of use and flexible billing. The billing is based on the number of submissions rather than users in the system. Because we reimburse committee members, we have a lot of users in the system, but the activity can vary widely from month to month.
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 It is giving reliable services. I am happy with its user-friendly services. Since I have issued the virtual and physical cards, I am getting real-time, and end-to-end control over my employee expenses. They can now easily go to visits and this has built their trust too. Further through receipts and expense details, I can easily control the pre-set budgets and easily configure rules to control spending. I will also like to praise their customer care team they are very helpful and always ready to assist. Read full review ScreenShots Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Screenshots Emburse Abacus Screenshots