It has been almost five years since Proverbs 24:3 Consulting was formed and open for business. Prior to that I was a pastor of a small church, and while holding that office we faced the challenge of finding the right software to not only manage our church, its members, donations and contributions, but also all of the accounting and financial reports that was involved in the church. During the time we spend researching accounting software for churches we found ChurchTrac, Xerox ,Aplos Non Profit Accounting and Quickbooks for Nonprofits. What I was looking for was a software solution that was online, easy to use for some one that did have the experience in accounting and bookkeeping that I have. It also had to produce the financial and donor reports.
While all of these accounting programs have its good points and bad points, the one we chose was Aplos Non Profit accounting Software .
How we came to this conclusion?
As an accountant its easy for me to manipulate software to get the results I was looking for, this is not the case for everyone, especially those with out an accounting or bookkeeping background, so I reached to friends and families and had them use the software for me. In every case no matter the software Aplos was by far the easiest to use.The reason for this is that it had all the features that we were looking for, accounts payable, accounts receivable as well as donor management, it also had the reports we were looking for .
What i like about Aplos
It is rather simple for the non accounting or bookkeeping professional to use. The report titles are exactly what the reports show. For example, most people know what a Profit and Loss Statement or Income statement and a Balance sheet are, however they do not know what a Statement of Financial Position or Statement of Financial Activity is or what they show. The accounting modals are straight forward and easy to use.
The runner up was QuickBooks online for Non Profits .
QuickBooks for Nonprofits is packed full of features, and the only reason that we choose not to use this program was that setting up the different funds can be a bit difficult for some one that is not familiar with this software also there is no easy way to print donor statements. However I do have many clients that use QuickBooks just fine.