Best Practice for NFPs – Microsoft Dynamics GP GAAP Reporting, Automating Allocations & More

As Director of Sales for The TM Group, a Michigan Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM partner, one of the things I enjoy the most is learning about our potential clients’ business challenges and going to Microsoft Dynamics demonstrations.  The other day I attended a demo for a not-for-profit (NFP) organization.  Because this NFP had an existing membership and donation tracking systems, our demonstration centered around reporting, the general ledger, accounts payable, bank reconciliation, and integration capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Many NFPs are attracted to Dynamics GP because it is a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) solution.  Once a transaction has been posted to the system, you can not intentionally or accidentally change the transaction. This is very important to NFPs that have to accurately report their income and expenditures to their board as well as government agencies. Utilizing non-GAAP compliant systems can result in the frustrating experience of monthly financial statements not matching what was reported the previous period and then having to spend many hours or days trying to figure out why.

Fixed and variable allocation accounts functionality is also an important time-saving feature for NFPs.  Currently many NFPs will manage these in Excel Spreadsheets where they calculate allocations across departments and programs areas of such expenses as insurance, rent, and mortgages and then key them into their accounting system. With allocation accounts the system does this for you.  If you have an fixed expense like rent where the same amount are allocated to departments based pre-established percents or dollar amounts, then when the expense is entered and posted to a fixed allocation account, the system will automatically split this expense across departments for you.

Our recent prospect allocated their mortgage based on wages over the past six months by location and department.  We showed them how they can use variable allocations and unit accounts in the GL to spread these automatically.  Unit accounts in Microsoft Dynamics GP allow you to base variable allocations on things such a square footage, unit sales, head counts, ect. (our training classes for Dynamics GP are designed to help users learn more about General Ledger and all the GP modules).

This data often comes from other line of business applications.  We also showed the NFP org how easy it was to bring in their data using Dynamics integration tools from CSV, text or Excel files.  By using our integration tools, we showed how they could eliminate time consuming data entry and eliminate the mis-keying of data.

The TM Group has over 25 years experience working with non- profits to help them more effectively manage their organizations with rigorous reporting,  streamlined processes, and making sure their staff is empowered with easy-to-use business software.

By The TM Group, a Michigan Microsoft Dynamics Partner for Dynamics GP, Dynamics SL, Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM

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