Salesforce recently introduced Accounting Subledger, a new product that aligns fundraising and accounting data. Accounting Subledger can save significant time on reconciliation tasks, and provide a single source of truth for your organization’s data. For nonprofits this means big savings in terms of time and money, plus increased accuracy within your records.
What is Accounting Subledger?
Accounting Subledger is a component that sits on top of the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). It allows organizations to prepare fundraising information for their accounting system, and can be thought of as an integration or “add-on” for your existing Salesforce configuration.
Accounting Subledger works by creating records in the style of standard journal entries with support for double-entry accounting, or both debits and credits. As such, it recreates a history of changes made to create an audit trail. Accounting records are sent to third-party accounting software with minimal data manipulation by design, eliminating the need to manually re-enter gifts into a separate accounting system.
Accounting Subledger only creates records for the final corrected state, as opposed to every edit made in a single day, leading to fewer contradictory journal entries and less back and forth between the accounting and fundraising teams. The product also comes with customized templates for widely used accounting systems including Blackbaud Financial Edge, Sage Intacct, and Quickbooks.
Accounting Subledger departs from traditional Salesforce configurations that only care about “what is” and do not keep a record when a change is made. Subledger, like accounting departments, cares about “what was” and retains a more detailed record for audits.
Why Use Accounting Subledger?
Accounting Subledger helps streamline processes and reduce errors, saving time and money for your organization and freeing you up to focus elsewhere. It also simplifies and optimizes processes organization-wide. Some benefits of Accounting Subledger include:
- Saves time on manual reconciliation tasks by automatically translating donations and gifts into accounting journal entries
- Reduces errors that can occur during manual entry
- Reduces number of contradictory journal entries
- Transforms Salesforce data for easy integration to external accounting systems via iPaas tools
- Save time generating reports for accounting with report templates that transform Salesforce data for easy mapping into accounting systems
Is Accounting Subledger Right for You?
Accounting Subledger may not be the appropriate tool for everyone. When you’re considering if it’s the best choice for your organization, it’s important to look at factors including your entry volume and how your processes work.
Accounting Subledger is a good fit for organizations with a high volume of entries, or organizations that deal with many reversals. It is also a good solution for organizations which already have streamlined processes in place and want to further streamline or automate.
If your organization has a low volume of entries or your process and culture are “high touch” with many exceptions to rules, however, then Accounting Subledger may not be the best tool. If you don’t currently have a streamlined process in place, Subledger will simply be another manual step rather than a value-added automation.
Accounting Subledger and Raiser’s Edge Migration
Accounting Subledger is a good choice if you are migrating from Raiser’s Edge. This is because it’s similar to amendments records that Raiser’s Edge has. Implementing Accounting Subledger means when you migrate from Raiser’s Edge, you have an option of where to put your data — without building out a custom solution.
If Not Accounting Subledger, Then What?
If it turns out Accounting Subledger is not the correct solution for you, you might want to look into the KELL Fund Allocations Pack as an alternative. The Fund Allocations Pack is a good choice if you need to track reversals, lock Salesforce records after posting and need to report on allocations alongside cash payments received. It’s slightly lower-cost, and may be an approachable choice for smaller nonprofits.
Ready to Get Started?
Think Accounting Subledger sounds like a good fit for your organization? Still not sure if Accounting Subledger is right for you and want to learn more? KELL’s highly-experienced team is here to help. Contact us today!