Nonprofit organizations face increased demands for services from their communities. But when it comes to internal needs, traditionally they have been tasked to minimize overhead costs. And unfortunately, the area that suffers the most is the investment in systems. This puts significant strain on their finance teams, as many now have corporate cards, shifting from traditional debit/credit processes. Expense management becomes a barrier due to more complete reporting needs.
These organizations face unique challenges when it comes to processing expense reports:
- Managing the manual process of reconciling credit card transactions
- Finding a system that provides visibility and control into spend
- Removing workflow bottleneck with multiple approval layers
So what can we do to help them get a “ROM (Return on Mission)”?
Most accounting software wasn’t designed with the nonprofit in mind. Nonprofits have unique financial reporting requirements which call for a software built for these unique needs. It’s important to choose an accounting ERP system, such as Intacct, that can accurately handle contributions from donors, grants, investments and fund raising events, and produce reports that make submitting IRS Form 990 and other tax reporting easier.
Next, choose expense report software that can easily integrate with your accounting system and avoid spreadsheet overload! A fully automated expense report process can be configured to meet the nonprofit’s unique needs, and multiple approval layers to remove a backlog of reports and integrate credit card data saving the accounting team hours of data entry. Implementing the right expense management software solution, such as Nexonia Expenses, can be simple and efficient, and will save time and money, both which can be reinvested to further the motives of your organization.
Expense management is no less important in the nonprofit sector. But by understanding the unique financial challenges that they face, such as with expense reports, we can let automated systems do the hard work. And this will give these organizations the best “ROM”.
For more information on automating your expense report process, contact info@jmtconsulting.com.
