User-friendly, cost-effective accounting system every nonprofit of any size should have.

I have been using and endorsing FastFund to our foundation and its partners for 8 years now. We had seen how FastFund grew, and especially nowadays, the company is more aggressive in providing the best features at the best value. My work is focused on building capacity of grassroots organizations in their financial management starting generally on their accounting system. I endorse FastFund because I know the ease of use and its functionality which is perfect especially for an under-resourced organization and where they assign persons with no accounting background to handle accounting functions. FastFund has been instrumental in enabling these organizations to meet compliance from donors and has contributed to the sustainability of the organization. It has also steered interests from managers to look into the financial side of their activities because of the timeliness which FastFund was able to contribute and the flexibility to be able to generate budget reports, budget versus actuals reports, monthly trending of expenses, cash flows, expenditure reports for donor reports, and regulatory reports. Reconciliation has been very easy to teach from the features of the program and tracing of records is also very easy. Several donors who had seen the program had been expressing their sentiments that if only they had a program same as what we are using. Accounting functions has been greatly simplified and that the other freed time can be spent on strengthening other areas of operations such as documentations and policy reviews. I will highly recommend FastFund to any civil society organizations (CSOs) of any size. It will definitely add value to your organization and it will ease up the stress brought about by financial management issues from poor accounting system. If you are an international organization, you can also endorse this to your partners/subgrantees. I know of INGOs who were desperate on their subgrantee's accounting system and made the wrong decision of purchasing an accounting program not designed for nonprofits and worst, the program has a thousand features which is not useful for the organization. The subgrantee had no choice but to use a program which is not helping them and eventually, they stopped using it. Wasted resources and an unnecessary stress. Make that right decision and you will not regret it. That is for sure.

Pros

User-friendly, highly functional, cost-effective, customer service is great.

Cons

May not be accessible for groups based on countries where internet is not yet accessible.

great accounting software for nonprofits

We love that we are able to have both our orgs (a 501c3 and a 501c4) in one account with separate ledgers.

Pros

The reason we chose Fastfunds above Quickbooks was its focus on nonprofit accounting. Nonprofits have much different needs than for-profit businesses and Quickbooks does not make a good product for nonprofits, especially those that need to track and allocate grant funds.

Cons

The implementation of the software was rough. There were many issues in the data transfer from our old accounting software.

Controller

I like the fund raising, but it and the payroll could use more reports. Other that that, I'm happy with it.

Pros

It's easy to use!

Cons

Like most software for this purpose, this software is designed for fund raising and accounting is more secondary.

Fast Funds meets our needs!

We have used Fast Funds for over 12 years. During that time, our organization has become more complex. Fasts Funds has kept up with changes and is able to accommodate nearly all of our needs. Fast Funds online works really well. We never worry about losing data and response time is normal 99.99% of the time. Customer Service is very responsive. Often, we ask how use a function. The Fast Funds representative will remote into our computer and show us using our own data and login. This is really helpful. Recent enhancements have been really helpful. It would be helpful to have a little more flexibility on the content and sorting of client balance due statements. A fixed asset module that allows creation of fixed asset lists and depreciation amortization schedules would also be helpful. It is a great value for the money.

Pros

Very easy to learn and use. Never have issues logging into the online system and using the available functions. Price is very reasonable. Customer service is very friendly. The staff know us and remember some of our previous requests. This enables them to be very helpful when we have new questions or issues.

Cons

The AR functions have improved significantly over the years. Nevertheless, the customer statements are hard to read and cannot be customized. Invoices can only be identified by numbers not letters. We tend to prefer letters. There also isn't a place to keep collection notes. The only area of concern is fixed assets. There isn't a module. As a result, we keep our list in Excel and use Excel to calculate depreciation. Our auditors recommend we purchase a fixed asset system.

Why Outfitters4 uses FastFund Accounting.

Outfitters4, is a management services firm for nonprofits and one of our main services is providing full-service bookkeeping for nonprofit organizations. As we started our company and planned to offer our full-service bookkeeping services, we researched a number of accounting systems and ultimately settled on FastFund Accounting. We have found FastFund Accounting to be a true nonprofit, fund accounting system that gives us the functionality we need to help our clients demonstrate the stewardship and accountability that donors, auditors, and funding sources require. The basis of this true fund accounting system is a segmented chart of accounts that can be customized to meet each organization's unique structure and needs. The multi-dimensional, table driven account system easily generates financial reports that measure each of our clients' funds, programs, grants, projects, and activities. Using this system, we are able to create FASB-117 compliant financial statements that can be customized to report on all segments of our clients' organizations and provide our clients with the information needed to monitor program effectiveness. It also provides us the ability to report on grants and programs that fall within a fiscal year, cross fiscal years, and that span multiple fiscal periods. We have found that we can create custom reports without having to manipulate data using external spreadsheets, as well as use the comprehensive budgeting functions to create line item budget details for each revenue and expense account for programs, departments, grants, and funding sources. We can also create multiple budget revisions for a fiscal year for budget controls, reporting, and budget history tracking. Since we first started talking with them about using their system, the staff at Araize have been wonderful to work with. They have a great breadth of knowledge about nonprofits and their accounting needs and are always happy to help answer any question that we or our clients have. They also understand that there is always room for improvement and are responsive to requests for system enhancements. We have been and continue to be very glad we decided to use FastFund Accounting! Amy Justice President Outfitters4, Inc.