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Financial Edge (legacy)

Score6.8 out of 10

34 Reviews and Ratings

What is Financial Edge (legacy)?

A legacy software offering, Blackbaud now instead offers and supports their cloud-based accounting solution, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT as a modern alternative.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Financial Edge (legacy) has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 34 ratings of Financial Edge (legacy)'s features
View all features

Top Performing Features

  • Pay calculation

    Pay calculation provides for computation of employee pay with state and federal deductions.

    Category average: 8.3

  • Benefit plan administration

    Benefit plan administration is administration of health insurance plans and 401k plans, and other benefits.

    Category average: 7.6

  • Direct deposit files

    Direct deposit is the ability to electronically transfer pay to an employee’s personal bank account.

    Category average: 7.9

Areas for Improvement

  • Order Orchestration

    Define and execute order fulfillment processes for products as well as services on the same order.

    Category average: 7.1

  • End-to-end order visibility

    Get updates on orders, inventory, shipments, planned supply, and invoices, and improve the quality of decisions through in-context analytics

    Category average: 7.9

  • Order exception Resolution

    Monitor fulfillment tasks and resolve issues, view and evaluate varios options via what-if analysis and define and enforce change order rules

    Category average: 7.2

Reviews

What users are saying about Financial Edge (legacy).
View all reviews

Financial Edge Spoiled Me

Incentivized
Wendy JohnsonView profile
Executive Director in Corporate at Justa Center (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • Grant Management - nothing is more harrowing than grant reporting, and FE does it best. It allows for layered budgets and limitless division of expenses among grants, overhead, or other projects/programs.
  • Reporting - Most financial software tries to adapt for-profit accounting into a non-profit mode without addressing the unique needs of a nonprofit for reporting and auditing.
  • Multiple projects and/or cost centers within a budget and system - nothing is more challenging than trying to manage expenses over several cost centers and FE is a champ at allowing that complexity.

Cons

  • Not for "out of the box" users - Financial Edge is a great system, but implementation requires support or even an consultant. You want to make sure you have set it up correctly - not duplicating what you have always done, but in a way that makes the robust reporting in FE work for you.
  • Better exported reports - Reports exported to Excel always seem to have too many lines and columns as well as at least one column that is off one cell to the right. Not a huge issue, but it takes a little time to reformat.

Return on Investment

  • 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.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Pro

Other Software Used

The Raisers Edge, Blackbaud CRM, Blackbaud NetCommunity, Salesforce for Nonprofits

Financial Edge - Stable, traditional, but not forward thinking

Incentivized
William (Bill) Sanders, CPAView profile
Accounting, Management, Tax & Nonprofit Consultant, CPA in Finance and Accounting at Kohl Children's Museum (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Stable Platform
  • Understandable to our users

Cons

  • The dashboard is not robust.
  • The online version (FE NXT) seems to operate slow to often.

Return on Investment

  • Positive - Data security, system stability, and user understandably
  • Positive - Great at looking backwards (traditional CFO)

Alternatives Considered

Altru

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online, Paylocity, ADP Workforce Now

Do Not Recommend

Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Financial Edge daily. As the Accounts Manager, I create invoices, manage monthly recurring statements, processing reimbursements, you name it. Everything Receivable and Payable is my territory.

I have to say, Financial Edge is a joke. Their website is constantly "under maintenance", and until it's done, the website is frozen.

They have this plug-in, essentially, called the Database View, which is used for reporting and posting things. It looks exactly like Windows 98 did, and I've never seen it in a state that's not buffering.

The most frustrating part is to create monthly recurring statements, we have to use what is called the Crystal Report. This generates all the data we've input for the year, and it puts the data in a template that we can then print and mail out. It was acting crazy one day so I contacted customer support, and they told me that they're not offering support for it anymore. Meaning, they carry and advertise this part of their software, but when it doesn't work properly and you lose data, it's not their fault. Okay bro.

Pros

  • Responsive customer service

Cons

  • 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.

Return on Investment

  • I don't wish to answer this question.

Alternatives Considered

Sage Intacct

Usability

Financial Edge

Incentivized
Jennifer BradshawView profile
Manager of School Accounting in Finance and Accounting at Great Hearts Academies (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Non-profit accounting
  • Flexibility - NXT or database

Cons

  • All functionality needs to be available in NXT
  • Integration between RE and FE needs to be easier to manage

Return on Investment

  • Reduced man hours in posting donations
  • Reduced man hours in calculating depreciation

Alternatives Considered

Sage Intacct, Sage 300cloud (formerly Sage 300 ERP), QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, PeachWorks and Shelby Systems

Other Software Used

FloQast, Adaptive Insights, a Workday company, Microsoft 365 Business

Financial Edge, Use It!

Incentivized
Stephanie Ulmer
Senior Director of Operations at The Bloomsburg University Foundation (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • While the program is highly customizable, it would be helpful if there was more direction on best practices of how to set everything up.
  • Expand on reporting.
  • Ability to report on "open" years.

Return on Investment

  • We have been able to more effectively track utilization of budgets
  • Scholarship management has more than tripled over a five year period

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions

Other Software Used

The Raisers Edge, Raiser's Edge NXT, Target Analytics