If you are looking for flexibility in reporting and access FE is worth reviewing
Updated January 16, 2018
If you are looking for flexibility in reporting and access FE is worth reviewing
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Financial Edge NXT
We decided to go from FE & RE to the new NXT products for several reasons. Development officers can now access it remotely; we can log in from anywhere, we can have campus-wide reporting made available without the need to change each computer, reporting has more flexibility and auto bank reconciliation to name a few.
We are new to NXT but have used Blackbaud for several years in our organization.
We are new to NXT but have used Blackbaud for several years in our organization.
- Remote access is easy to use and so convenient. Development members can access funds and provide the most up to date information to the constituents.
- Access to project reports by our fund directors campus wide is something that we are working on implementing right now since the use of reporting is so accessible.
- The bank reconciliation module is a time saver.
- Logging into the data base view could be streamlined for faster login.
- Create a system that would allow groups of invitations for FE NXT all at once. We have FE NXT view only for our fund directors and development officers across campus and the need to invite each one individually and not have the ability to set them up at the same time is very time consuming and inefficient. Our fund directors change frequently so this is definitely something that I would be interested in seeing an update completed.
- Bank Reconciliation has streamline the ability to have real time banking information available in our system without all of the manual calculations needed previously.
- Having the ability to look up information remotely when away from the office has been a lifesaver several times for fund directors, development officers and donors.
- Operational efficiency
- Improved data accuracy
- Improved insight into your organization's performance
- Better ability to report to funders and key stakeholders
- Faster month-end process
- Automation of business processes
- Increased scalability due to cloud deployment
We are still in the process of working out many of our goals but the one thing that has been improved is banking reconciliation. We are also in the process of implementing campus wide reporting for each area to provide access to track their funds as needed which will be a huge time saver for our staff.
We use multiple software products from Blackbaud and others that are compatible with FE NXT. One that is being currently being implemented is Omatic's Positive Pay for banking. Blackbaud set it up in our system and already had a format for our specific bank so that we can add another layer of security in our bank accounts.
We looked at Banner but it was not as flexible or user-friendly as FE NXT. We are going into a campaign and need to have the ability to create reports, queries, graphs, etc. in a timely manner and FE NXT will assist us in that area through easy access and the ability to customize information for various areas and individuals.
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Feature Ratings
Using Financial Edge NXT
7 - Foundation fund accounting, development, donor stewardship, fund directors, annual audit and other various areas of campus. We process checks weekly for the campus fund directors, produce financial reports for all aspects of our foundation, we process all donations, sponsorships, grants, etc. through RE then post directly to FE NXT, we manage all privately funded scholarship funds through FE NXT. We also have Blackbauds Allocation Management as part of our FE NXT.
5 - We have a foundation staff of 5 individuals that all use FE NXT on a daily basis processing checks, posting deposits from gifts, sponsorships, grants etc., bank reconciliations, allocating investment income and growth, producing reports, tracking fund information and other various items. We have also started to use the media tabs much more now that we are cloud based to track fund agreements and usage which has been another time saving tool for our office with the information being available at our computers.
- Reporting - Fund accounting specific software
- Ease of Access for multiple areas of campus
- Security is definitely a positive with this system when setting up internal controls.
- We have been able to set up an import format for entering all of our scholarship payments with a spreadsheet. Without the need to enter each one individually it increases accuracy and has saved us approximately 3 days of work during each award cycle.
- We have also found it much easier to customize credit card entry for our monthly processing so that it can be done as the receipts come in and not wait until the end of the month. We are in the process of setting this up now.
- I hope that we will be able to produce annual donor reports with graphs that include both the endowment balance, the current restricted balance and the reserve balance of each fund along with the amount of scholarships awarded since inception.
Evaluating Financial Edge NXT and Competitors
Yes - FE
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
- Analyst Reports
We have been using Blackbaud products - both RE and FE for many years - and have found it to be user friendly and provides good customer support.
I'm completely satisfied.
Financial Edge NXT Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |