Q: Tell us about the time savings you’ve experienced since transitioning to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT.

A: First and foremost, when we hosted our Financial Edge database, complex
reports could take 25-30 minutes to run—this may have been our server, I
don’t know, but it was grueling to do reporting. In Blackbaud Financial Edge
NXT, any report I run is completed in less than a minute. This time savings
alone is worth the price of admission.

Within Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, we have imported signatures for check
printing, established Bank Feeds, and Credit Card Feeds. This makes the
process of doing a check run, processing daily bank/credit card transactions,
and reconciling the bank account a 2—3 minute job. Our daily bank deposit
process alone has been reduced by hours per week.

Q: Have you experienced cost savings as well?

A: There is no doubt in my mind that the additional cost of Blackbaud
Financial Edge NXT will pay for itself. Intangibly this will happen with “saved
time,” but even less abstractly, using Expense Management takes away
the need for another system, which was quoted at $900 per month for the
number of users that we have. Plus, we canceled our “treasury management”
platform at our bank, which saves us about $450 per month. The “special
features” we paid for in treasury management (mostly reporting options) are
easily replicated in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT by setting up the Bank
Feeds. By eliminating these two platforms, my increased cost for Blackbaud
Financial Edge NXT is already more than paid for—let alone all the time,
flexibility, and efficiencies we have gained.

Q: How have you improved your processes?

A: Blackbaud University and the Financial Edge certification process were
a dream when I needed to replace two staff accountants. I’ve hardly had to
be involved in their systems training because they are taking live instructorled courses, doing online courses, etc. Since we are shorthanded, this has
allowed me to stay current on the accounting work while they are getting
up to speed. They have only been on my team for a month, and by training
through Blackbaud University, they are already processing payables, invoicing
receivables, attaching source documentation, etc. Given the cost and time
required for hiring and training, I am so glad we had access to Blackbaud
University. We have decided that we are going to incorporate training
modules into our monthly routine, which we would not have had time for in
the past.

Q: What are your favorite features of Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT?

A: What I really like about Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is the ability to add attachments. This has allowed me to
make procedural changes while still having a high degree of confidence in our controls process. Every deposit has
a source document attached. Every check (deposited or written) is attached with supporting documentation. Our
auditor recently told us that she will be able to conduct most of our audit remotely because all the documentation she
needs is attached in the system.