Adopting a new fund accounting solution proves
seamless for USF Foundation.

After identifying gaps in its former legacy accounting system, which often
resulted in additional manual work for its 27 users, the University of South
Florida Foundation team knew it was time to make the switch to a new,
innovative cloud accounting solution.

“It was clear to me Blackbaud continues to innovate in the nonprofit fund
accounting space and is committed to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT,” said
Rob Fischman, USF Foundation chief financial officer. “When comparing to
other options, we could see Blackbaud took the time to develop a cloud
solution that was scalable to be used by anyone in finance, from data entry
to management analysis.”

Even amidst a global pandemic, with most of the team thrust into a remote
environment, the USF Foundation was able to implement Blackbaud Financial
Edge NXT on time and under budget. The incredible effort of the USF
team armed with the right tools and training helped ensure a smooth and
successful implementation for the team.

“There was great cooperation between our conversion specialist, consultant,
and our Blackbaud project manager, which allowed us to quickly resolve
any issues discovered through our design and testing phases. They worked
very hard to collaborate with us on a system design to take advantage of
the robust capabilities within Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT,” said Michelle
Cummings, assistant vice president and controller.

Empowering Staff

To effectively accomplish required core tasks when using the previous
system, staff had to both rely on tools outside of the system and manage
inefficient processes that resulted in delayed access to information. Fischman
recalled an example of it taking months to produce a quality report with the
old system. “Being able to create a valuable report with actionable financial
data in half the time is a huge advantage.”

USF Foundation houses information for its alumni association but was unable
to grant secure access for them to self-serve, requiring the foundation’s
finance office to take on the additional work of managing the alumni
association’s accounting needs. Now using Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT,
the association can manage its own accounting needs in a self-service form.
“Having more information available on demand for system users is one of the
many ways Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT empowers us to be better stewards
of the funds contributed by our donors,” said Cummings.

With an intuitive interface that enhances the user experience, Blackbaud
Financial Edge NXT equips staff with the tools needed to effectively manage
their program data. “We previously had a dedicated resource to manually
enter journal entries, Now users can easily load the entries themselves into the
system with the Excel add-in,” said Cummings. “Our users prefer working in
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT and want to be working and completing as
many tasks in the web view system as they can.”

Planning for the Future

Blackbaud user groups foster peer collaboration and help institutions
optimize their use of Blackbaud solutions as well as implement best
practices. “While I’ve already seen the benefits, we are looking forward to
collaborating with other finance professionals using Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT,” said Fischman. “I know it will be really impactful for our staff with the
way Blackbaud encourages the user community and supports it.”

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT will enable USF Foundation to better serve its
constituents because of the ability to run queries and produce meaningful
reports for data analysis they were not able to do with their old system.
To achieve its future vision, the USF Foundation’s finance team realized they
needed to have more of the power in their own hands. “Blackbaud Financial
Edge NXT does just that for us,” Cummings said. “It’s an accounting solution
that empowers us to expand our offerings, whether it be reporting, more
efficient business services, or paperless transactions.”