Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Erfahrungen

My review of Financial Edge NXT

Kommentare: I like Financial Edge NXT and I couldn’t imagine doing my job without it!

Vorteile:

I like that this software is for finance and accounting professionals. It has helped me to perform the daily functions of my job with limited interruptions.

Nachteile:

I haven’t been able to understand the allocation module, and so we are still doing our investments manually. The guide that is provided seems to work more for people who have an overall understanding of how it should work.

Review of Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT

Kommentare: Our overall experience has been great. Tech support and our implementation team were fantastic to help us get everything in place and have been a great resource as we have continued to learn the program. Having a solution that is not installed on the network , but on the cloud has given us more flexibility. And information is shown in a more user friendly display to easily see data all in one place.

Vorteile:

Blackbaud being a Non-Profit Financial accounting system works well for us in the non-profit/ government sector as a library. They truly understand the needs non-profits have and work to create solutions for those problems and needs. Blackbaud is easy to use, and easy to train new employees with. The training Blackbaud provides can not compare to many other products. There are 20+ classes that can be taken with an online instructor or through E-learning . This training has helped us implement this software across multiple locations and make sure our staff was prepared for their duties within Blackbaud.

Nachteile:

As a government/non-profit agency we are required to use Purchase orders. Blackbaud's purchase order system is not as user friendly as the rest of the software. They are working to move the purchase order system to the WebView and we have been told it will make several changes to make the PO portion easier to use. We also need to be able to multi level approvals on an invoice and the solution Blackbaud was able to provide until they get everything in WebView didn't work for our organization, as we are required to have a pre-audit statement on all purchase orders and invoices that are paid

The product you are sold is probably not what you will actually get

Kommentare: Our experience with FENxt has really been terrible. It is soooo slow. Features we were promised at implementation do not work or have never been rolled out (where is A/R??). It does not sync with our bill pay system (we were told it would!) so bills have to be manually entered into two systems. It takes a very long time for support and usually the ineffective solution is that we should clear our cookies or history, or we are sent something to read. One of our databases has had problems from the start. Every excel report has to be reformatted to be useful.

Vorteile:

It is good to have project tracking capabilities and to have the ability to work from home if needed.

Nachteile:

The sales team will give you a lot of promises that are not reality. The biggest overall problems are how slow the system is, and features we were promised that never happened.

Great Fund Accounting Software

Kommentare: We moved from QuickBooks to BlackBaud because we needed a fund accounting program and it has performed well for our organization. Our department heads now have access to the site and can see their financials more than just once a month which is game changing for financial decisions.

Vorteile:

The cost of this software verses the others in the market is very affordable. The implementation went very smooth and it has been working very well. Support is usually really quick and helpful to get problems solved.

Nachteile:

The reporting functions are time consuming to set up but most reports can be built to suit your needs and work great after the initial build.

Good product - backward implementation

Kommentare: The worst part is implementation. We had to make decisions about setup that cannot be changed before we fully understood how we wanted to use the software. They should have allowed us to use our own data in a "sandbox" model to learn how things work.

Vorteile:

I love the fact that you can create journal entries and invoices and include that information in reports before posting them. This helps to avoid mistakes. The web view is user friendly and fairly intuitive.

Nachteile:

The database view is archaic and not user friendly. Many functions have not yet been converted to the web view and must be done in the database view.

User review

Kommentare: Has been positive but still learning the system since "go-live" migration about 7 months ago.

Vorteile:

Migration from previous version was seamless along with BB team to assist where needed. Ability to "copy previous" is very helpful. Helpful training opportunities via on-demand or BB U taught courses. BB support is usually always quick to reply & direct when needed.

Nachteile:

Understanding parameters that need to be set (i.e. post, etc.) can be confusing. BB support does not seem to have access to your org file when issues arise...that was a bit shocking. I would think behind the scenes that would be able to access & walk through critical problems that need to be addressed. I realize it may be a data security issue but having to add a BB staff as user seems akward.

This product really can only get better

Kommentare: Our finance and marketing departments use Blackbaud FE and RE daily and they get the job done. Migrating to something else at this point would be a monumental task, but it still may well be worth the effort.

Vorteile:

Interfaces with our Fund Raising software (Raiser's Edge, I am equally thrilled with that too, and mostly for the same reasons cited herein). Blackbaud offers a good training program (which considering the product license fees all of which should be free).

Nachteile:

The reporting is cumbersome. Lack of a self-service audit trail. The interface is not intuitive.

Aid me connect

Vorteile:

This is the most advanced tool for accounting and documentation of all financial transaction an organization should have. Easy to used

Nachteile:

Has limited features this make it a bit second option for multipurpose organization

Excellent!

Vorteile:

Easy to Use and access. I would recommend Raiser's Edge to anyone. Once you have aligned your system with Finance reports are really easy to produce.

Nachteile:

Raiser's Edge has so many fields that can be used or created, if you don't have an established process things can get messy like any database.

We use the full suite of modules and like the integration and support. Payroll is more challenging.

Vorteile:

Help and support tools / resources are great. Chat support is responsive and gets a solution to the problem.

Nachteile:

Payroll leave time management configuration is challenging for our organization that has a complex leave time structure.

Great product for Non Profits

Vorteile:

The versatility of the product was great. You are able to track data on several levels using account numbers, and several transaction codes that you are able to define yourself. Despite all of that information that was housed individually, the software also would allow you to consolidate information across multiple entities. Report writing was fairly simple as were day to day processes of entering journal entries, AP invoices and AR invoices. A nice feature of the reporting was that you were able to create one report and filter it by the transaction codes before running the report. This meant you did not have to have 100s of reports for different scenarios. Instead you could create one report and filter it each time by the transaction codes or entities you were interested in viewing. We also integrated the software with PaperSave which allowed us to go paperless.

Nachteile:

The support was not always the best. If you had an issue, sometimes the support had a difficult time understanding your issue and resolving it in a timely manner.

A top accounting software for non-profit

Kommentare: Blackbaud really values users' opinions. It connects all non-profit users together. It also emails me helpful tips every week.

Vorteile:

Very good customer service. Comprehensive training program. I took all courses and mastered the software within 3 months. Those courses gave me an in-depth view of the software and simplify my work process. Financial Edge has easy-to-use features that meet our organization needs. I like the query function, VCO and various reports. VCO allows me to build reports in certain format, and query allows me to extract data quickly. The query function helps me survived this year's auditing. When an account was off, I used query and easily found the problems to fix it.

Nachteile:

It logged me out and ran very slow sometimes. I'd like it to be able to communicate with excel easily.

Financial Edge

Vorteile:

FE is great for a fund accounting software. It does all the basics. A/P is simple and easy to accomplish. The fixed asset module works great. the ledger is fine. It can get more complicated than necessary due to the ledger structure

Nachteile:

FE is too hard to get help. There is a lot online, but sometimes you just need to have someone talk you through an issue. I have had an issue once where I needed to have their IT dept. fix a corruption in their software when I was closing a fiscal year. This software simply costs too much for maintenance and support.

FENXT - Changing with the times

Kommentare: Keep listening to your customer base. This is a great product and it's getting better all the time.

Vorteile:

FENXT is a very robust product. This web-based product is being enhanced constantly. The folks at Blackbaud have been very responsive to customer feedback and if there is a functionality that isn't there, they do their best to make sure that if it's possible, it is implemented. Very happy with how the product has evolved.

Nachteile:

My suggestion at this time would be to wait until features are closer to being released before announcing them. Very frustrating when you know that something you need is going to be added but then it take six months for it to be ready.

Good Software but Pricey

Kommentare: Financial Edge does everything we need in office except for a few minor things. However, because the annual cost has gotten so high, it does not feel like we get much value for what we are paying anymore.

Vorteile:

Software is powerful and fairly easy to use. Support is generally quick and helpful. Can do everything from payroll, to AR to AP.

Nachteile:

Very expensive. Annual cost has gotten to the point where it almost matches what it would cost us to implement another software suite entirely.

Blackbaud for Nonprofits

Kommentare: Overall this is a great product. We are very pleased with Blackbaud and do not plan on changing vendors any time soon.

Vorteile:

This software is perfect for our organization. It continues to implement updated features to make our jobs easier.

Nachteile:

The expense tracking sometimes appears to be offline and causes our staff a good amount of time to enter their expenses.

Database Administrator

Vorteile:

The FE NXT webview is a great improvement over the database view and I am looking forward to the continued delivery of new features as they role them out.

Nachteile:

Cost. The software does allow for more complex reporting than some others I have used but the cost continues to rise and due to the development and we continue to review the ROI year over year.

Kommentare: I work for The ALS Association Greater Philadelphia Chapter. We provide support and services to persons with ALS and their families. We also support research to joining in the fight to defeat ALS. We've been using Financial Edge for over 10 years. We also use The Raiser's Edge and other Blackbaud products. We moved from an old DOS based accounting system so we could use a real chart of accounts and produce great financial statements. We researched many options, but decided that FE would meet our needs best. I think we are somewhat unusual in that we moved to FE before we chose RE. We keep up the patches to stay on the latest version of FE and RE. The two systems are integrated and provide a great way to assure that we get our revenue from RE into FE. We have a wonderful audit trail and good processes. The implementation went very well. In fact, we were so impressed with FE it helped make our decision on using other Blackbaud products. Blackbaud's excellent support and customer service convinced was one of the convincing factors. Other benefits come from ease of use and the link between applications. In the last few years, we moved to accrual accounting and really started to use FE fully. We even purchased F9 to allow our new Controller the ability to write custom reports for our Board that update every time FE is changed. We're very happy with FE and all of our Blackbaud products - we now use BBNC, Sphere FAF, ResearchPoint and many of the data enrichment offerings. We also benefit from using partner applications such as Papersave and Import-O-Matic. It's a total solution for us.

We Love Blackbaud's Products

Vorteile:

Blackbaud has created a real community. You can talk with people in your industry, from others, and anyone who works for Blackbaud. Support is great and their followup is refreshing.

Nachteile:

I wish they were based here in Atlanta. BB HQ is awesome and I wish they were closer, but it gives me a destination when I am looking to go to SC.

The Cadillac of Nonprofit Software

Vorteile:

Financial Edge is both user friendly and robust. It has significant available features to tailor your needs for reporting, querying, lookups, and of course importing and changing journal entries. The additional modules such as AR and AP are a must and integrate seamlessly for GL posting. Raiser's Edge, Blackbaud's sister product, posts directly into FE and contains significant available data for our development team. The two systems are fully linked, so that if there is a RE batch posted in FE, I can click on it in FE and bring up the record in RE.

Nachteile:

The only big drawback with Financial Edge has been cost. The initial install and annual maintenance are a hefty price for a nonprofit struggling to serve its constituents.

Need for consolidation in one software.

Kommentare: Would really like to see Blackbaud come up with one software for Fundraising, Finances and Budgeting

Vorteile:

On Line Resources: We seem to be able to get some good on line resources but extra service fee for a call.

Nachteile:

Too many clicks to get what is needed. Too many modules which are interrelated causing a larger expense which at first was less.

Does What I Need, But Not the Easiest to Use

Vorteile:

The reports are fairly easy to generate, and have many customization options. Setting up templates and favorite reports is very helpful.

Nachteile:

It's not the most user-friendly or intuitive of software. I can't stand the bank reconciliation (which could just be my own problem, to be sure). I don't often work with invoices and printing checks, but when I need to I have difficulty determining how to do so (again, could be my own limitations, I just wish it were more intuitive).

Good training program

Vorteile:

Really enjoying the training available for leArning financial edge. Accounting software is easy to use.

Nachteile:

Customer service tickets could improve. I placed a ticket and they could not help me. But I met someone at the conference and he is going to push the issue forward.

I work mostly in the AP portion of the program, some journal entries

Vorteile:

I love how this software integrates with it's Raiser's Edge program. We are able to easily move information from there into Financial Edge, which limits the potential for errors. Plus, we are utilizing less time by not having to type the same information over.

Nachteile:

Finding your way around in the beginning takes a little time. Especially when you are looking for something specific.

Very intuitive

Vorteile:

The Visual chart organizer makes it easy to shuffle our numbers into different formats depending on the purpose and the audience.

Nachteile:

I don’t like having to click multiple tabs to see all related information abt something (budget and actuals for an account, or vendor info and payment activity) but looking forward to NXT which will solve this.