Nonprofit Finance Automation – Resources List
Fully Automating your Nonprofit Financial Systems: A Tactical Guide
Below, you can find the resources we referenced in our recent webinar, A Tactical Approach to the Automation of Your Nonprofit Finance Function. First, you’ll find the video and the accompanying slides. Then, you’ll see various resources that you may find useful in charting your own path. Finally, there’s a link to the chat that accompanied the webinar, which records the wealth of information participants exchanged that day. This chat is not closed; feel free to add to it. Any information you have to share on this important topic is valuable—that’s why we placed it in our public forum.
Video:
Accompanying Slides: Download here.
Transcript: Download text here.
Insights
How to Prioritize Your Tasks Using the MoSCoW Method
At MakeUseOf.com, this 2017 article from Lando Loic offers an introduction to a task prioritization system known as the MoSCoW method, developed by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994. It breaks down projects into things you Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won’t have. It’s most effective when you want to capture a broader perspective and eliminate the risk of bias among your team include your team (or few representatives) and other stakeholders. It also makes clear how much effort and resources each category should be allotted to make sure the project succeeds.
Read the article. Or see this brief overview.
NTEN Equity Guide for Nonprofit Technology
Nonprofit technology is marked by inequities in both the technology sector and the nonprofit sector. You can see this in staffing, processes, and the way technology tools are implemented. These inequities within our organizations and our sector must be dismantled if we want to address our communities’ needs permanently. Whether you’re a user, builder, or funder, you have a responsibility to ensure the equitable use of technology.
Are Your Processes Innovative or Merely Electronic? Leverage Technology the Right Way
This BDO resource helps to distinguish between innovations that leverage transformation and mere incremental electronic additions to old systems.
Decades of innovation have transformed the finance office from a mindset of processing transactions to a mindset of strategic financial management. But even with this advancement, nonprofit organizations are operating in an increasingly complex environment that requires them to balance routine and new tasks and a higher volume of information.
When the topic of efficiency is raised to an organization whose finance team is at capacity, it is not unusual to hear that the team is already using technology and that, perhaps, no further innovation is possible. However, asking a few questions helps to uncover whether the tools they have implemented are really transforming their processes or whether they have merely replaced manual processes with electronic ones.
The Business-wide Benefits of Financial Automation
This report from Bill.com serves as a guide to who and what is affected by an organization-wide financial automation process:
Automating your financial operations can deliver wide-reaching benefits for your team, ranging from time savings, improved accuracy, and better visibility and control over your finances. Automation also has the ability to provide better coordination and clarity—both within your finance teams and with other key stakeholders. But how do you go about gaining buy-in from the rest of your organization?
This guide provides insights into how financial automation can benefit not only your finance team, but other departments throughout the organization as well as strategic partners. Having these benefits at your fingertips will help others embrace the possibilities of streamlined financial processes.
Download the report (requires site registration).
Tools
Financial Management Software System Needs Assessment
This easy-to-use, nonprofit-oriented needs assessment helps you organize your list of areas in which financial automation is called for. It’s a good place to start planning—though, as always, it’s best done by a team to spark the needed collaborative approach.
Technology Solution Implementation Plan
This is a short checklist of the tasks and process points needed to implement any new solution. It pairs well with the needs assessment above.
Forum Conversation
Visit and add to the Nonprofit Financial Commons ongoing resource exchange related to this topic.
