RSMUS.comNonprofit budgeting is a big responsibility…and a big risk.
Every year, nonprofits spend time and energy building their budget, usually by having multiple stakeholders contribute to shared spreadsheets, which takes careful communication and coordination. Nonprofits go to great lengths to get this right, sometimes putting everything else on hold. They must, because at a time of limited funding, strict oversight, and increasing transparency, nonprofits face great pressure to manage their finances effectively, starting by budgeting efficiently and strategically.
To put it differently, nonprofit budgeting is hard to get right and can easily go wrong.
Not anymore thanks to the integration between Martus, a budgeting and reporting software built specifically for nonprofits, and Sage Intacct. With these powerful solutions working together, building the best budget possible becomes easy for all involved.
Budgeting With Martus – 3 Key Features
Since Martus was purpose-built for nonprofit budgeting, it solves the most common and challenging pain points associated with this process while unlocking the dynamic potential of smart financial planning. Here’s how:
Budget Worksheets – Say Goodbye to Spreadsheets
Think of Budget Worksheets as the ideal tool for creating and collaborating on nonprofit budgets. Users will neither want nor need to ever again use shared spreadsheets because budget worksheets are better—simpler, smarter, synchronized—in every way.
Building a budget based off the previous year’s line items and actuals takes just a few clicks, and the numbers can be easily adjusted (eg. actuals + 2%) across the board. Once populated, Budget Worksheets give users intuitive tools and interfaces to add items, adjust numbers, and access reference data.
Spreadsheets may be capable of budgeting, but Budget Worksheets were built specifically for that purpose. So it comes as no surprise that the budgeting process runs smoother using Budget Worksheets or that managers prefer using them over any alternative.
Budget Widget – Complex Calculations Done Quickly
If Budget Worksheets make budgets easy to populate, the Budget Widget makes precise calculations easy to complete. Before, budgeting meant keeping a calculator and calendar open to crunch numbers on the fly, which only made the process less pleasant and led to extensive errors. Budget Widget automates all that.
Available inside all unlocked Worksheets, the Budget Widget feature appears as an icon next to each line item. Clicking it brings up tools to instantly populate each budget month with the correct amounts, allocations, and schedules based on simple parameters.
The Budget Wizard tool makes budgeting more efficient than ever. Yet despite proceeding faster, it’s less prone to errors that create financial problems for nonprofits and extra work for their employees. Plus, despite all the powerful things this tool can do, the straight-forward features make it easy for any budget builder to use Budget Widget with minimal training.
Planner Summary – See Everything at Once
Even harder than getting the numbers right is keeping everyone involved with a budget coordinated around the same documents, data, and deadlines. Martus offers a simple solution: Planner Summary collects all Budget Worksheets in one place based on the Dimension permissions of the user. Essentially, it’s the single-source-of-truth for the budget.
In addition to being the access point for all Budget Worksheets, the Planner Summary also helps users navigate the information with powerful reporting tools and flexible search features. They can search within or across Worksheets to quickly understand any aspect of past or future budgets. They can also easily build reports that analyze, summarize, or contextualize the current budget to study spending from new and objective angles.
While the previous two features make life easier for individual budget managers, the Planner Summary helps budget leaders turn individual Worksheets into an integrated budget. At the same time, it gives nonprofit executives a quick, clear, and comprehensive view into the budget, removing the barriers between the questions they have and the answers they need.
Add Martus to the Mix With RSM
Not only can RSM help nonprofits integrate Martus with Sage Intacct, but our team can also improve budgeting, planning, and accounting processes to take full advantage of the new tools available while supporting the current strategic objectives.
Before the next budget cycle begins, contact RSM.
