How much time is spent finding the menu items for entering data into your accounting software?

How much time does it take to find your favorite reports?

How much time does it take to find the spreadsheets that you use every day?

How much time do you or staff spend thinking about what to do next?

How many times are tasks completed in the wrong order?

The amount of time that it takes for the above questions would probably surprise you. A few seconds here and a few seconds there don’t add up to much, until you multiply that by 10, 20, or 50 times per day. Then multiply that number by 250 days a year.

Tool bar icons and customizable tool bars were invented as a way to resolve some of the problems posed by the questions above. However, in most programs you have to memorize what the tool bar icon represents in order to use it effectively. Sure, you can hover your mouse over the icon to see what it is for, but that takes valuable time.

Another method is short cut keys. But again, you have to memorize them.

In order to help improve your organizational efficiency and effectiveness your accounting and business software program should allow you to build your own customized menus for you and your staff. The menu building features to consider include:

• The ability to order menus items according to workflow.
• The ability to rename menu items, so that they are understood by the person performing the tasks.
• The ability to create groups of menu items.
• The ability to copy outside program links as menu items (ex. a favorite spreadsheet).
• The ability to create a separate menu for each staff member.

There are many basic accounting programs that work great for a period of time. After awhile, data entry can become cumbersome and you may not be able to pull the information you need. These are signs your organization may be ready to move on to more advanced fund accounting software. Here are five signs your nonprofit is ready to move from a basic application to fund accounting software.

You have to pull fund information from several different databases.

Are you tired of inputting information several times and into many different databases? This can become work intensive when you are using a basic accounting software system. Many fund accounting systems allow you to maintain all of your funds in the same database. This still allows you to report on each fund separately, but allows for sharing some setup information such as vendors, customers, and more, without having to set them up in each fund.

Terminology and reports seem inappropriate for your nonprofit.

Nonprofits customarily deal with specific terminology which basic programs do not address, such as fund vs. company, department vs. profit center. Also, reporting in basic systems is intended for general business and does not provide the reporting and budgeting capabilities specific to nonprofits. For instance, the Statement of Revenue and Expenditures is more suited to a nonprofit than an income statement. By providing your software users the tools they can understand and relate to, you can ensure they really understand what they are doing, increasing system performance and accuracy.

Department heads are not getting the information they need.

Are managers requesting department details that are not available, whether for accounting transactions or payroll? Is it difficult to track revenues and expenditures? Basic systems cannot typically handle the detailed information tracking needs provided by fund accounting software. By moving to fund accounting software, you gain the ability to track revenues and expenditures, as well as payroll by department, location and project.

You want a better audit trail.

Are you worried about the possibility of fraudulent measures by personnel within your accounting system? Some of the more basic accounting systems do not offer a solid audit trail, leaving you open to corrupt information. Many fund accounting systems will offer a sound audit trail, where the history of each and every transaction is recorded.

You need more budgeting flexibility.

If you are like most nonprofit organizations, the budget you start with goes through changes. Many people want to view financial statements against the original, or have the choice of comparing it against one or all of the revised budget versions. A good fund accounting system allows you to keep your original budget intact, as well as revised versions, so you can compare to the version of your choice.

Moving from your basic accounting system to a nonprofit fund accounting system can provide more detailed tracking, reduced margin for error, detailed reports for those who need them, and peace of mind, knowing that the information your nonprofit needs is always available when you need it.

Managing payroll seems fairly simple when a business starts up, but once a company grows and must manage the payroll for multiple locations, things become exponentially more complex. There are several locations, employee types, departments, and more that must be managed and maintained. And then there is the method of distributing pay to employees at all locations. Payroll software can help you manage this process and make multiple company payroll run like a top. Consider these tips for handling payroll for multiple companies.

Track employee locations.

Set up your payroll software system to track employee locations by profit centers, departments, companies, or a combination of these. Then when it's time to run payroll reports, you can filter out the area(s) you have tracked. For example, you could see the pay by department in one location, or your payroll costs by profit center, etc. This is also helpful for check printing, since you can print all your pay checks and sort by department and employee, or print paychecks for employees by the company they work in, which makes distribution much simpler.

Run payroll for multiple departments under one company.

If you are a single employer with multiple locations and want to run payroll for each location, setting them up as companies under one employer or by department can be extremely useful. This allows you to post the payroll data to the appropriate account, so you can keep track of expenses by location, and more. For instance, departments could be used across companies, so you could have an "office" department that could be used by all companies. Then when you process payroll, you can filter out and pay all office departments from all companies and pay them in the same pay run.

Pay employees via direct deposit.

By setting up your employees to be paid via direct deposit, you eliminate the worry of having to mail or deliver paychecks to multiple locations. Pay is simply deposited into employee accounts on pay day, and they receive a direct deposit pay advice, which is a sheet of paper representing their pay stub. Make things even more efficient by offering your employees the option of receiving and accessing pay advices electronically.

Take the time to learn more about what your payroll software has to offer, and you may just find ways to make your job of running payroll for multiple companies a simpler and faster process.