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.
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Microsoft Dynamics AX, discontinued
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (or Dynamics AX) was an ERP product in the Dynamics family. It has been split into separate Dynamics 365 products to provide more flexibility to customers, allowing users to pay only for the functionality they need. Microsoft Dynamics AX will reach end of support in 2021, and end of extended support in 2023. Financial tracking and budgeting features are now found in the newly launched
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Pricing
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Microsoft Dynamics AX, discontinued
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Microsoft Dynamics AX, discontinued
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
No setup fee
Additional Details
Blackbaud is currently offering the first six months of Financial Edge NXT free for new customers. Limited conditions apply.
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.
It integrates fully with the other Microsoft software we use daily, and this coordination speeds up our work and gives us the agility to run easily. For example, in a purchase inquiry, the customer, after submitting a request, identifies the teams that should work on the project, and if they need further review by other people, they are added to the process, and everything is managed seamlessly rather than the sales process. Get the result as fast as possible.
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.
Microsoft Dynamics AX's scalability to meet our regional office needs provide flexibility to the team's requirements.
Combined with Citrix Xenapp, the application offers seamless access for users on high latency unreliable network connection to the application.
Application maintenance and updates are easy which makes it possible for us to manage remotely considering the servers are located in a remote Asia site.
MRP can be slow to adapt to changes in actual production or supply chain transactions.
Setting up number sequences seems a trivial matter, but these numbers ID transactions once they are in the ledger and are key--easy to miss this point in the implementation process.
Bank rec being easily automated and able to quickly plug into a bank back end to get data is not the best.
Payment processing can be 'clunky' based on checks, ACH, Wires...as some of these items are not triggered out of the box in AX, bur are easily added --talking ACH and Wires specifically.
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.
Microsoft Dynamics continues to evolve by bringing more functionality to the customer. Also there are several independent software providers that offer a wide range of solutions for vertical markets.
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.
Overall the product does what we need it to do in order for us to function as a company. While there are some concerns over ongoing costs, the belief is, once we have it fully acclimated to our business the cost should settle into alignment with our original expectations. The new features that are consistently being added do add value to the product as they are usually customer request directed.
Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
Some integration and high volume ramping challenges, particularly with BizTalk and SQL Server, but getting sorted out. Outages over time appeared to be more dependent on integration complexity than AX MES.
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
We use a 3rd-party Microsoft Partner for the system. They are responsive and very knowledgeable. While costs have been mentioned several times in this review they are very aware of costs and have developers who are more economical they use to help offset the level of work required to meet our changes and fix our issues.
It took a lot of work, but Microsoft ultimately did a good job with in-person training, including being onsite in multiple global locations for extended periods.
Our solution deviated from a number of key out-of-the-box standards that were included in Online training. We just used that for introduction to the general functionality.
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.
Some rough spots, but ultimately worked out. The contract didn't appear to be structured to support the level of overlapping facility deployments required to meet timeline commitments. Merging cultures on the program was also challenging. Overall, not an easy implementation by any stretch. Everyone did the best they could.
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.
I was not part of the decision making process to select Microsoft Dynamics AX, however, I do know that an exhaustive search was done and many options were considered alongside Microsoft Dynamics AX and I feel that the right decision was made in choosing this solution.
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.
