SAN JOSE, Calif., March 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- When it comes to managing finances, nonprofit accounting presents unique challenges that can't be addressed with outdated spreadsheets and manual processes. Over the past year, a growing number of nonprofit organizations turned to Intacct, a leader in cloud financial management and accounting software, to move their financial applications to the cloud for greater efficiency and insight.

In a recent survey by TechValidate, the top challenges nonprofit organizations struggled with prior to switching to Intacct included a reliance on spreadsheets to support financial processes and reporting (65%), limited access to reports and information to drive decision making (60%), excessive manual data entry/re-entry (55%), and difficulty in adapting existing software to new business requirements (45%). [Source: TechValidate. TVID: B03-D61-E32]

When evaluating Intacct against other competitors, including Blackbaud, FinancialForce, Microsoft, NetSuite, and Sage, the TechValidate survey found that the top three reasons nonprofit organizations selected Intacct were ease of use (62%), superior reporting capabilities (48%), and the depth of Intacct's accounting and finance features (43%). [Source: TechValidate. TVID: 5F3-409-40F]

Since switching to Intacct, the surveyed nonprofit organizations are seeing outstanding success. Three out of four organizations have freed up at least 20% of their finance team's time to focus on more strategic activities and 74% of the organizations have reduced the time needed to complete their month-end close process by at least 20%. In addition, Intacct's reporting and dashboard capabilities have provided faster access to information needed to make strategic decisions (68%), reduced reliance on spreadsheets for reporting (63%), improved visibility in underlying data behind summary trends (58%), and faster creation of management reporting packets (47%). In fact, nearly three out of four (72%) said they wish they had made the switch to Intacct sooner. [Source: TechValidate. TVIDs: A90-9AD-E2A, 4D1-E1A-27B, 79A-0E0-D30, and 237-C30-D27]

Nonprofit Organizations Showcase Their Success with Intacct
Since deploying Intacct in 2009, Faith Promise Church has dramatically and continuously improved productivity. Aaron Goin, CFO at Faith Promise, and his assistant previously spent 40% or more of their time entering data, but today he estimates the finance team spends only 5% of its time inputting information – despite the organization's growth and a substantial increase in spending. As a result of this increased efficiency, his office has been able to take on additional responsibilities, including human resources, facilities, legal, IT, a retail store, and construction project management.

"Most churches our size have five or more full time finance staff," commented Goin. "With the efficiencies we've gained through Intacct, we've been able to keep our staff low even as we doubled in size. By using the system to manage all of our day-to-day bookkeeping, we're saving $85,000 or more a year in salaries and benefits, while doing deeper analysis and reporting."

Merrimack Education Center (MEC), an educational nonprofit that had been using Sage, evaluated Intacct as its potential cloud financial management system. MEC found that Intacct had superior reporting capabilities and better depth of accounting and finance features. By making the switch to Intacct's cloud accounting software, MEC has gained faster access to information for strategic decision making, improved drill-down visibility into underlying data, and reduced its month-end close process by about one-third.

Carla Fogg, accounting director at Merrimack Education Center, commented: "We recently transitioned to Intacct and are thrilled with the great functionality and capabilities that this system can offer. We have found that it has streamlined many of our processes and is saving us significant time."

The California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to protecting, enhancing, and advocating for California's magnificent state parks, had been using BlackBaud Financial Edge, but struggled with excessive manual data entry/re-entry, a reliance on spreadsheets for reporting, and inadequate controls around their financial processes. Since switching to Intacct in 2012, the foundation has streamlined several key processes, including its month-end close and project accounting – freeing up the finance team's time by about 25%. Intacct's reporting capabilities have also provided them with faster access to information, increased visibility, and allowed more employees and managers to make data-driven decisions.

Michael Bankert, vice president of finance at the California State Parks Foundation, said: "The California State Parks Foundation found the perfect solution to its financial reporting needs with Intacct. The Intacct system provides the essential capabilities to support growing nonprofit organizations. It offers the flexibility to meet the challenges of a complex institutional structure, as well as the reporting functionality to meet the needs of its staff and board."

To learn more about how Intacct helps nonprofit organizations, be sure to visit http://us.intacct.com/nonprofit-accounting-software.

About Intacct
Intacct is the cloud financial management company. Bringing cloud computing to finance and accounting, Intacct's award-winning applications are the preferred financial applications for AICPA business solutions. Intacct accounting software, in use by more than 8,500 organizations from startups to public companies, is designed to improve company performance and make finance more productive. Hundreds of leading CPA firms and Value Added Resellers also offer Intacct to their clients. The Intacct system includes accounting, cash management, purchasing, vendor management, financial consolidation, revenue recognition, project accounting, fund accounting, inventory management, and financial reporting applications, all delivered over the Internet via cloud computing.

Intacct is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.intacct.com or call 877-437-7765. Connect with Intacct on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube.

Intacct and the Intacct logo are trademarks of Intacct Corporation. All other company and product names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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