A nonprofit ERP transformation rarely starts with software. It starts with a board waiting two months for numbers, a journal entry keyed by hand, or one person who is the only one allowed to post. In this CPE webinar, Buu-Linh Tran, CPA, SVP of Financial Solutions at JMT Consulting, walked through where to begin: diagnosing legacy bottlenecks, choosing a selection path, getting leadership on board, and sequencing the rollout.
Buu-Linh was joined by Grant Davis, Senior Financial Accountant at AccessHealth, a federally qualified health center in southern West Virginia with about 450 employees. Grant shared how his five-person finance team moved off a legacy accounting system and onto Sage Intacct, ADP, and Ramp in about six months, and what changed once they did. For the full project story, read the AccessHealth case study.
The short version
- Start with your pain points and your must-haves. List what is broken, and also what your current system does well, so the new one does not lose it. Keep the list to key features, not 450 requirements.
- An RFP and a direct consultation follow the same steps. Either way, set your criteria, choose a partner who knows your sector and size, and write your own demo script.
- Bring in leadership early. Engage your CEO or executive director and board during the visioning stage, and involve non-finance leaders when the change touches their teams.
- Implement the ERP first. Payroll, card, and AP tools built afterward connect to the new chart of accounts instead of being rebuilt.
- The result at AccessHealth: a close that once ran about two months behind now finishes by the third Monday of the next month. Read the case study.
The legacy bottlenecks that signal it is time
Buu-Linh opened with the patterns JMT sees most: systems that cannot track by entity, location, or grant; month-end closes that run 30 to 60 days; paper approvals and manual journal entries; and growing grant, federal, and donor reporting demands. Buu-Linh added a subtler one. The books can be accurate while the reports still are not decision-ready, so the finance team rebuilds everything in Excel. Add-on dashboards and extraction tools rarely fix that, because they depend on clean data underneath.
Grant recognized every one of them. At AccessHealth, everything was prepared on paper or in Excel, checked by a second person, and posted by a single staff member. Fixing a miscoded entry meant keying it twice more, which could cost someone most of a day.
"Typically, we were presenting about 2 months behind to the board."
Grant Davis, Senior Financial Accountant, AccessHealthBuu-Linh also named the triggers that usually prompt a change: rapid growth, new locations, heavier grant funding, and leadership turnover that exposes weak spots. AccessHealth grew from about 350 to 450 employees in two years.
How AccessHealth ran its search
Grant said the push started with AccessHealth's CEO, who nudged him and the CFO more than once that reporting and the speed of the financials were not where they needed to be. The two began a quiet search for options, which led them to Sage Intacct and then to JMT. They tailored the demos to their own questions, demoed other systems as due diligence, and took about six months before committing.
Buu-Linh ran one of those demos. Grant remembered that the demo showed something the team had not thought to ask about until after the first demo. Buu-Linh said that is what the demo is for: a chance to see whether a partner understands your sector well enough to raise scenarios you have not considered.
"The first time we saw Sage Intacct, we knew, hey, that's exactly what we need. But we didn't want to jump too fast. So we did our due diligence."
Grant Davis, Senior Financial Accountant, AccessHealthWhere to start a nonprofit ERP transformation: the selection decision
Buu-Linh said organizations come to JMT both through formal RFPs and through direct consultation. The path matters less than the steps. An RFP is just the formal version of the same four.
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1
Choose your path
Decide whether your board or funders require a formal RFP, or whether a consultative, direct selection fits better.
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2
Set core criteria
Address the gaps, and also protect the must-haves your current system already does. Do not assume the new system has them. Keep the list to key features.
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3
Align with a partner
Look for a partner who knows your sector and works with organizations comparable to your size.
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4
Write the demo script
Do not accept a generic demo. Give vendors your own transactions, grant allocations, and reports, and make them work for it.
Getting stakeholders on board
Buu-Linh has seen finance teams finish an evaluation and then stop because they never secured board approval. Because the process is so time-consuming, Buu-Linh urged teams to get buy-in from the start.
Engage leadership early
Bring your CEO or executive director and your board into the visioning stage, and connect the pain points to the growth they expect.
Involve the people affected
When budgeting, AP, or grant tracking moves into the new system, program and grant managers need a voice. Changing work for 400 people is a different project than changing it for four.
Plan for the next hire
Cross-train to remove single-person dependencies while keeping segregation of duties. For new employees, Buu-Linh recommends a five-minute recorded walkthrough and an FAQ instead of a 15-page manual.
At AccessHealth, one employee had been in the accounting department for 50 years, and the team had long-standing routines. Grant said the team put real thought into how to bring everyone along.
"Once we got everyone pulling the same way, everything was just so much easier."
Grant Davis, Senior Financial Accountant, AccessHealthWhat finance teams told us
Attendees answered three polling questions during the session.
- Month-end close: some attendees close in under 10 days, the target Buu-Linh recommends. About 9% said 45 days or more, where AccessHealth started.
- Where they are in evaluating a new system: most said they are happy with their current setup. Buu-Linh noted that is a fine answer, since a new ERP is disruptive and takes time away from a full agenda.
- Top operational priority for the next 12 months: most chose automating manual workflows, such as paper approvals, manual check signing, and receipt tracking.
Sequence the rollout: ERP first, then everything else
Buu-Linh's rule is not to put the cart before the horse. Organizations often change their chart of accounts during an ERP move, so a payroll, budgeting, or AP tool implemented first usually has to be implemented again. Buu-Linh also recommended making training as real as possible and holding it as close to go-live as you can.
AccessHealth staggered three go-lives so each one built on the last, with no added staff:
- April 1, 2025: Sage Intacct went live with a fully revamped chart of accounts and five years of history. The rest of its 23 years stayed on a server the team can still access.
- May 15, 2025: ADP payroll went live. Three or four payrolls ran in the legacy system during the gap and were brought into Sage Intacct. Each approved payroll now sends a journal entry with earnings, 401(k), HSA, and tax costs.
- September 2025: Ramp went live for credit card spending, after the summer rush. Approved, coded transactions sync to Sage Intacct with the receipt attached.
"Sage Intacct was done first, and then everything else was built on that foundation."
Grant Davis, Senior Financial Accountant, AccessHealth- Close by the third Monday
- Weekly revenue reporting
- Digital check approval
- 5 years of history migrated
- 3 go-lives in about 6 months
- Work from home when needed
A system is just a tool
Buu-Linh compared a new ERP to a faster car. If you keep taking the long route, you still arrive in 45 days. Results come from people, process, and tools together. Grant agreed, with one caveat from experience: AccessHealth could not redesign its processes until it had a system that supported them. In his words, "Without the system, we could not have transitioned our processes to be quicker."
Final takeaways
"If you're considering transitioning from a legacy to a newer software, whether it's Sage Intacct, whatever it might be, just do it."
Grant Davis
"Who you choose to help you with this transition matters."
Buu-Linh Tran, CPA
"It's not a 3- or 4-month implementation, this is a long-term relationship and partnership."
Buu-Linh Tran, CPA
About the speakers
- Buu-Linh Tran, CPASVP of Financial Solutions, JMT Consulting
- Grant DavisSenior Financial Accountant, AccessHealth
Quotes are from the live webinar and have been lightly edited for readability.
Nonprofit ERP transformation FAQs
Where should a nonprofit start an ERP transformation?
Start by listing the pain points you need to solve and the features your current system already handles well. Then engage your CEO or executive director and board early, decide on a selection path, and choose a partner who knows your sector and size.
Do we need a formal RFP to select a new accounting system?
Not always. An RFP is the formal version of the same steps as a direct consultation: set core criteria, align with the right partner, and run demos from your own script. Use an RFP when your board or funders require one.
Will a new ERP speed up our month-end close on its own?
Not by itself. A faster close comes from people, process, and the system together. At AccessHealth, the new system made it possible to redesign the processes, and the close moved from about two months to the third Monday of the next month.
Should we implement payroll and card tools before or after the ERP?
After. A new ERP often brings a new chart of accounts, so tools implemented first may need to be implemented again. AccessHealth went live on Sage Intacct first, then ADP about six weeks later, then Ramp in September 2025.
How much historical data should we migrate to a new ERP?
Often less than you might expect. AccessHealth had 23 years of data and brought over the last five, keeping the older records on a server the team can still access.
How do we get staff to adopt a new accounting system?
Secure visible leadership support, frame the change as an organization-wide benefit, involve the people whose work changes, and cross-train. For new hires, short recorded walkthroughs and an FAQ work better than long manuals.
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