MIP Fund Accounting vs. Zoho Books

MIP Fund Accounting works very well for general fundraising. The form creation process is easy and allows you to set parameters and add fees, quantities, images, etc. This process is smooth on the customer (forward-facing) side as well. Reports are generated once the transactions have gone through, making tracking and reconciliation with accounting easy.

Incentivized

If using other cloud applications and you wish to create Zoho Books transactions via APIs, Zoho Books is great. The overall UI and flow of the application are great. If you need a detailed job cost accounting solution and robust reporting there is some room for improvement here.

Incentivized

• Easy to obtain check register for select periods
• Easy to do bank reconciliations
• Easy to log in for remote work, for anywhere I need to access it from!
• Easy to pull vendor, chart of accounts and other pertinent information, also easy to add information to those sections.

Incentivized

• Zoho Books invoicing and receipting features are second to none. We find it easy to quickly invoice clients and add items to their bills and also for our own receipting internally.
• The accounting features are great for our accounting team to be able to see where we are financially and how the business is doing.
• The ability to add contacts and run a mini CRM channel with clients within Zoho is invaluable. Since we use this in conjunction with our other CRM channels, it helps to have a centralized place to follow up and see through a sales funnel.
• Zoho Books allows us to take payments from clients around the globe a feature we didn't have when we used another accounting system.
• The pricing for Zoho Books is fairly reasonable for an SME organization which is a great for us as it pays itself back many times over every month.

Incentivized

• With the payroll process, if there is an error in sending the stubs through email, there is no option to resend without a restore. That really needs to change.
• Being able to void encumbrance at the same time as a PO would be an incredible time saver.
• When processing W2 the system deletes info.

Incentivized

• Zoho Books is only available in Texas and California. There is no integration allowed for paying employee expenses. The absolute worst aspect is the fact that if you make even the slightest error in data input there is no backing up. You cannot undo an error.
• The system does not allow change once implemented, so you must get every one of your beginning balances perfect. The practice of Journal Entries is cumbersome. When reconciling, Zoho Books has adopted a number of required steps that significantly overcomplicate reconciliation using practices that are not consistent with general accounting principles in the US.
• On the customer side, you must look in two places to see the beginning balance and the current receivables that might exist for current invoicing.
• The way the system works, you must avoid having much trust with the balances depicted. So far, it appears that Zoho Books uses what we called in school "that new math."
• It would be terrifying to rely on this bookkeeping system to support an IRS Audit. The system violates too many fundamental accounting principles.
• The software is used by so few people that there is concern that we might never find a skilled bookkeeper.

I give MIP a 10 because Our organization use MIP Fund Accounting ever since I've been there and that's been for over 20 plus years for all of our accounting and payroll. MIP has stayed on the cutting edge of technology, ever evolving to meet the needs of the times, especially post pandemic, while many are working remotely! MIP support staff are very knowledgeable and efficient. Even new users can get up to speed quickly with MIP Fund Accounting.

Incentivized

I have used this system for about 12 years now and I still learning how to use it. It always surprises me how there is another report to learn to achieve my data reporting goals. It is great to have a system that you have used long enough to feel comfortable with but also a system that allows you to learn new ways to report and enter data into the system

Incentivized

Customization is the biggest struggle for us and most of the time we need to involve a tech person. The chat support is a great feature and very helpful. It would be great to be able to customize and create invoices and correspondence (templates) such are reminders in multiple languages within one organization. The currency (USD) would be the same. We have clients in different countries that don't speak English but pay in USD.

Incentivized

I have rarely encountered any issues accessing MIP Fund Accounting over the years. On the rare occasions when availability was interrupted, the reasons were always found in-house when using the on-premises version. Since we have migrated to the MIP cloud, we have had no issues with availability. Any maintenance or updates are always communicated to us and are usually done outside of business hours.

Incentivized

We have 18 programs and the CFO has the ability through MIP Fund Accounting to generate separate and/or collective reporting for those programs. Each program has its own grant or funding source. Each has its own reporting guidelines that must be met so the ability to run reporting separately or collectively is a plus.

Incentivized

I have not reached out to MIP for technical support; however, their website offers great help resources so I can solve an issue on my own. Another team member reached out to MIP for support and was helped quickly. The transition process took longer than expected due to a lag in communication.

Incentivized

The support team feels very disjointed. We have filtered through a number of "lead" contacts and are frequently spammed by other Zoho members. Once getting an appropriate support contact on the phone - the team is very helpful, it just takes a lot of hoop jumping to get there. We actually unsubscribed from their support package as we were not getting the value we were looking for.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Denise O'Malley provided training for the HR module when we added it to our system. Denise also gave us a demo of the EWS module which we were able to see that it would not meet our needs. She was very kind about and understanding regarding the functions we needed with a time clock system.

Incentivized

Don't waste your time with MIP. There are plenty of other softwares out there that will do the job better. Do your homework. Get references from actual users. Make sure that what you choose will truly integrate. Make sure that there is local support. Get training. You will be glad that you passed this one by. Trust me.

Incentivized

I've utilized other ERP accounting software like Infor, NetSuite, and MS Dynamics, to name a few. MIP Fund Accounting offers flexibility and room for growth while not being overly heavy on your team to maintain it. And, we're now learning more about the add-on's and more advanced capabilities to leverage with our team.

Incentivized

We had a lot of problems with Exact Online, support-wise and price-wise. So Zoho Books wins on every point there. While Exact offers way more options, it tends to be really slow... and complex. Again Zoho Books wins. If you want an easy-to-use tool and not pay a lot of money, or if you are a small administration office with a few clients, this tool will be perfect for you.

Incentivized

The flexibility to create certain features are helpful and are designed to be easier on MIP Accounting Cloud. It has been easier than the MIP Accounting classic version. I may have not fully utilized the software to deploy across multiple departments other than generating revenue reports or expenses. As well as developing budget worksheets for our departments. Which are great as it is, but have not gone farther than that.

Incentivized

• We converted to the cloud version a few years ago to reduce our dependency on a dedicated internal IT server which needed to be replaced. The cost of the product switched to a monthly fee which increased cost somewhat but probably is matched with IT savings over time in doing upgrades.
• We have an efficient team of two people doing the transactional work, so we don't really have much incentive to further automate our processes. And with the turnover in the CFO position we have had, has helped us maintain consistency in our processing.
• Once I learned how to memorize and recall transactions it was a huge timesaver and increased the accuracy and consistency of our entry.
• The cost of training is sometimes prohibitive. Example is my accounting clerk MIGHT benefit from additional training but at about $200 for a lot of the courses, it is more than we have budgeted.

Incentivized

• Integration: Zoho Books offers out of the box integrations to extend the functionality and connect with the applications you love like MailChimp, Microsoft Outlook, PandaDoc, and Quickbooks, etc.
• Flexibility makes Zoho Books great!
• Since I can use forecast reports, I can create customizable sales forecast data from the dashboard to accurately measure revenue forecasts and establish sales quotas.

Incentivized