MIP Fund Accounting vs Power BI For Office 365

Likelihood to Recommend

Well-suited for basic accounting, I would give it an 8. Drill-down would be nice on the general ledger to be able to look at the original entry. Maintaining the year codes and distribution codes is much too involved-this needs to be streamlined. Would be nice to be able to update information on encumbrances and purchase orders prior payment. The accounts receivable module is a bit of a nightmare-we don't use the invoicing function as it is too involved for our company. While the Accounting function deserves and 8, I would only give the payroll function about a 4.5-sorry.

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Eris Tanner

Sr. Accountant/Controller

Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Health BoardNon-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

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If you want to create a visual dashboard or report that utilises various data sources then PowerBI can do this. It is great in that it takes your on-premises data and stores it on Microsoft servers where it can interact with it faster, reducing load on your own servers, while being efficient in what it transfers out.We have found it not well suited if you wanted to publish a simple report to many staff as they may all need a Pro license which can get expensive. Even if embedding the report onto a shared platform like SharePoint, it will not display if the users doesn't have a PowerBI Pro license.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Computer Hardware Company, 11-50 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

MIP Fund Accounting

7.5

Power BI For Office 365

—

Pay calculation

8.8

—

Benefit plan administration

6.6

—

Direct deposit files

8.5

—

Salary revision and increment management

7.0

—

Reimbursement management

6.4

—

MIP Fund Accounting

8.4

Power BI For Office 365

—

API for custom integration

8.3

—

Plug-ins

8.6

—

MIP Fund Accounting

8.7

Power BI For Office 365

—

Single sign-on capability

8.6

—

Role-based user permissions

8.8

—

MIP Fund Accounting

7.6

Power BI For Office 365

—

Dashboards

7.0

—

Standard reports

8.0

—

Custom reports

7.9

—

MIP Fund Accounting

8.0

Power BI For Office 365

—

Accounts payable

8.4

—

Accounts receivable

8.2

—

Cash management

8.1

—

Bank reconciliation

8.5

—

Expense management

8.4

—

Time tracking

6.9

—

Fixed asset management

7.8

—

Multi-currency support

7.6

—

Multi-division support

8.6

—

Regulations compliance

8.3

—

Electronic tax filing

7.9

—

Self-service portal

7.3

—

Standardized Processes

7.3

—

MIP Fund Accounting

4.2

Power BI For Office 365

—

Inventory tracking

7.3

—

Automatic reordering

1.0

—

Location management

7.7

—

Manufacturing module

1.0

—

MIP Fund Accounting

4.7

Power BI For Office 365

—

Pricing

6.5

—

Order entry

7.2

—

Credit card processing

2.5

—

Cost of goods sold

2.7

—

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

8.6

Pixel Perfect reports

—

8.3

Customizable dashboards

—

8.9

Report Formatting Templates

—

8.7

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

8.6

Drill-down analysis

—

7.9

Formatting capabilities

—

7.9

Integration with R or other statistical packages

—

10.0

Report sharing and collaboration

—

8.6

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

8.2

Publish to Web

—

8.7

Publish to PDF

—

8.6

Report Versioning

—

9.0

Report Delivery Scheduling

—

7.6

Delivery to Remote Servers

—

7.2

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

8.7

Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)

—

9.0

Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization

—

8.9

Predictive Analytics

—

8.3

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

9.0

Multi-User Support (named login)

—

9.3

Role-Based Security Model

—

9.3

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

—

8.1

Single Sign-On (SSO)

—

9.3

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

7.9

Responsive Design for Web Access

—

8.2

Dedicated iOS Application

—

8.0

Dedicated Android Application

—

8.0

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

—

7.5

MIP Fund Accounting

—

Power BI For Office 365

8.3

REST API

—

6.0

Javascript API

—

9.0

Themeable User Interface (UI)

—

9.0

Customizable Platform (Open Source)

—

9.0

Pros

The interface and operations of Abila MIP Fund are fairly easy to utilize and learn.
It offers some excellent tools for managing a non-profit operation.
The software makes it easy to streamline operations into one system without dealing with separate departments working with different systems.

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Bruce Emmerling

Digital Media Specialist

Digital Media SpecialistInformation Services, 11-50 employees

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Easy to make visual dashboards from SQL queries. Previously we had to use a third party application that had to run on a web server that was so complex to setup and run. PowerBI removes all that.
Ability to control who/which group has access to each dashboard or report. Ties in well with the rest of the Office 365 ecosystem.
Has many connectors to allow pulling data from various systems, both onsite (via gateway) or external (via APIs), and join the data to create a report/dashboard.
Ability to show data but also export the data, if permitted.
Easy to show PowerBI dashboards on SharePoint or on other websites via embedded code.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Computer Hardware Company, 11-50 employees

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Cons

Sometimes support can be a bit off and challenging to get by phone.
Some of the reporting tools are not as robust as some competing products.
Vendor training costs can be high if needed by an organization.

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Bruce Emmerling

Digital Media Specialist

Digital Media SpecialistInformation Services, 11-50 employees

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Once a report uses a Pro feature, it needs a Pro license, but a lot of these are just basic features and the users are just viewing and not using any of the advanced features. It would be nice to have a Pro / Viewing license and Pro / Interacting license.
Limited amount of refreshes per 24 hours period. 5 refreshes as of Dec 2018.
The emailing of reports is there but kind of basic. It will do a screen grab of a report, which doesn't turn out very well.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Computer Hardware Company, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

MIP Fund Accounting 9.2

Based on 45 answers

It never gives us problems, and meets most of our needs.

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Jeffrey Chapman

Chief Financial Officer

Palm Beach Habilitation CenterNon-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

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Power BI For Office 365 9.2

Based on 4 answers

If I were a small business owner, I would likely use Power BI for Office 365 for the sheer fact that I would get the Office licensing I need, along with powerful capabilities. As a Microsoft Partner, we continue to see Microsoft invest heavily in the Power BI capabilities, and will continue to implement and support BI solutions around this product, as we believe this is in the best interest of our clients.

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Ken Raetz

Manager, DW/BI Services

LBMC Technologies, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Usability

MIP Fund Accounting 8.3

Based on 39 answers

Overall, the software has many useful features and is generally east to use, however, when the Data Integrity Check function identifies a problem, it is not clear what caused the problem (so we can avoid making the same error in the future) and it requires us to call Customer Support to resolve the problem. This last step is unnecessarily time consuming.

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Jeffrey Chapman

Chief Financial Officer

Palm Beach Habilitation CenterNon-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

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Reliability and Availability

MIP Fund Accounting 9.0

Based on 6 answers

I refer back to the previous questions. It has suddenly quit on me.

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Christine Frenzel

Fiscal Bookkeeper

St. Joseph's Pantry ShelfNon-Profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees

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Performance

MIP Fund Accounting 10.0

Based on 6 answers

We have had problems with MIP's ability to integrate with other software or systems. Just makes for a longer shopping time when searching for products we need to integrate with MIP

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Frances LeClair

Finance Specialist

Mid-West New Mexico Community Action ProgramNon-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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Support

MIP Fund Accounting 8.4

Based on 37 answers

I had to call support for an issue I was having to reverse a batch that was posted by mistake. The support lady was really helpful in guiding me to the correct steps in resolving my issue. I felt very confident in knowing I can call them to resolve my issues

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Luis Godoy

Bookkeeper

UNITE HERE Local 11Accounting, 51-200 employees

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In-Person Training

MIP Fund Accounting 8.0

Based on 6 answers

There are no specifics on what happens if you make one choice or another to know which is the best selection. This is true for JVs and AP. In training we were not given specifics of what happens when one possibility is selected over another.

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Christine Frenzel

Fiscal Bookkeeper

St. Joseph's Pantry ShelfNon-Profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees

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Online Training

MIP Fund Accounting 5.7

Based on 4 answers

Personalized training provided for our organization

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karen hoffman

Accounting Manager

Lenape Valley FoundationNon-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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Implementation

MIP Fund Accounting 6.1

Based on 22 answers

Make sure you know what you need and how to minimize potential errors due to training shortfalls

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Joan A. Cox, CMA CPA

Chief Financial Officer

Head Start of Greater DallasNon-Profit Organization Management, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Fund EZ is a product I found out about from a previous employment stint. It has a lot of the features MIP has but is not nearly as good. I would consider using this product if MIP continues to raise fees.

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Erich Koch

CFO

Tyler Family Circle of CareHospital & Health Care, 51-200 employees

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When you look at the whole MS BI stack, it is far and away the best solution. But if you are solely looking at PowerBI.com (Power BI for Office 365), it's features are limited to creating graphs and visualizations. For example, you create cubes and data models in Cognos, but you need SSAS to do this before sending the finished model to PowerBI.com.

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Andrew Failor

Data Analytics Consultant

Peters & AssociatesInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

MIP Fund Accounting 9.0

Based on 6 answers

Not real sure what you mean by scalability. It seems to be able to handle all of the funds we are currently working with. If you mean the looks of it, some things are small and it would be nice to increase the size according to the user.

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Frances LeClair

Finance Specialist

Mid-West New Mexico Community Action ProgramNon-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

I was not part of the decision making process. I do not know the overall business objective.
One must be very experienced working with integrated financial systems to get the best use of this software.

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Christine Frenzel

Fiscal Bookkeeper

St. Joseph's Pantry ShelfNon-Profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees

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As a Microsoft Partner implementing Business Intelligence solutions, Power BI has removed the barrier for our clients to begin the "BI journey". So often, projects get hung up in that early phase of procuring and installing/configuring expensive hardware and software. Just simply getting started and designing a beginning solution has allowed our clients to see results in 1-2 weeks using their data that might have taken months to achieve otherwise.
One significant ROI example is process improvement. In many cases, individuals or teams are spending days each month gathering data from multiple sources for reporting to their constituents. We are reducing these times to minutes by automating many of the data collection and integration processes that were previously manual.

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Ken Raetz

Manager, DW/BI Services

LBMC Technologies, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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