We’re looking forward to attending the CFG Annual Conference being held in London on May 17, 2012.  Joining us will be our newest partner in the UK, Advantage Business Systems.  Together we hope to meet with financial professionals in the charity sector and share the benefits of our financial management software suite.

After three years of exhibiting at this conference, we’re thrilled to have made it into the main lounge (the Benjamin Britten Lounge).  It’s like moving up from the kid’s table over the holidays

The conference theme is “Inspiring Financial Leadership” and will feature prominent financial experts, Mark Watts, RSPCA, and Andrew Sentence CBE.  For more information on the conference, you can visit the CFG event site.

Make sure to stop by say hello.

We’re getting ready to unveil our latest version, 6.00.02.  This release will include some great enhancements to Serenic AwardVision, our grant management software for Nonprofits, NGOs and the public sector.    The new features are based on feedback from our current users and consultants.

Serenic AwardVision enables nonprofits to successfully compete for grants and awards, providing a single repository for compliance information, program monitoring and financial data.  Full Microsoft Office integration makes it easy to edit and store Word documents, such as grant application templates, within the system and import data to and from Excel.   It helps to meet each funder’s unique tracking and reporting requirements, even in multiple currencies and languages.

Knowing how important grant management is, we’ve focused on the following enhancements to further help nonprofits:

• Import proposals and awards

• Set up relationships so customer and funder records automatically sync

• View an award summary on just one page

• Create user-defined fields specifically for each AwardVision document type: Proposals, Awards and Sub Awards.

We’ve also added the ability to pick different currencies within awards and sub awards.  Now, not only can users view the same transactions in three different currencies:

1)      The receiving organization’s primary currency

2)      The currency of the country from which the award originated

3)      The currency in which related reports must be generated…

But they can also view sub awards in yet another currency.

Lastly, AwardVision users can now decide whether they want to receive a message each time an expense doesn’t meet specific grant restrictions.  These messages are very helpful when managing an award with multiple spending rules specified by the funding source.  This feature can now be turned off for awards with fewer or more flexible restrictions.

Thanks to all our end users for their feedback.  We’re happy to incorporate your recommendations and make Serenic AwardVision even stronger.

Look for more updates in the next couple months on the release.

Serenic is looking forward to showing a sneak peak of DonorVision 2011 at the AFP 49^th International Conference on Fundraising.  DonorVision 2011 is the newest offering in our financial and operational product suite, being release later this summer.

If you’ve ever attended AFP, you’ll know it’s a great conference for nonprofits to learn and hear about fundraising best practices.  Plus who wouldn’t want to visit Vancouver, BC?  The AFP website describes the conference:

“It’s a place to gain insight from industry and world leaders, a chance to learn breakthrough fundraising tactics, and an opportunity to share your own successes and challenges while meeting colleagues from across town and around the globe.”

While you’re there stop by Serenic’s interactive booth.  We’ll have fun give-a-ways and scratch cards with instant winners of Hip Hop Laptop bags designed to keep the busy executive on the go.  If you have an extra 30 seconds and fill out a quick three question survey, we’ll enter you into a drawing for an XBOX.  And of course, we’d also love to show you some highlights of the new DonorVision 2011.  You’ll come for the prizes and stay for the excitement!  See us at booth 840 located in the Plum colored carpet area.

If you’re unable to make it, but someone from your office does, tell them you want one of the iPad microfiber cleaning cloths .

We recently sponsored a special report in the February 2012 issue of Accounting Today.  The article, “Challenges and Opportunities with Nonprofits,” talks about the unique scenarios each nonprofit segment encounters and the skills and expertise required of the CPA firms with which they work.

For instance, health care providers face different challenges than educational institutions, social services organizations, religious organizations, and public sector entities.

Some of these challenges may be obvious, but if you’re a CPA firm looking to enter the nonprofit & public sector niche, check out the article.

Challenges:

• Managing capital spending on facilities & equipment
• Nonprofit accounting that facilitates third-party reimbursements
• Endowment and investment tracking
• Audit compliance requirements for state and federal funding
• Transparency and reporting to boards and donors

We’re happy to share some news from Carla Feagan, our Channel Sales Manager based in Edmonton, Canada.  Carla’s daughter was asked to sing the Canadian national anthem at an anti-bullying event held at Rexall Place in Edmonton last week.  Carla’s daughter did a great job!   About a quarter of the arena was filled with screaming school kids ranging from 3rd to 7th grade.  Local TV stations covered the event and despite this being  the first time she has ever sang in front of more than 15-20 people, and having a camera in front of her, she never missed a beat, or note!

The event, hosted by the Edmonton Rush Lacrosse Club, was called “Rise Up Against Bullying” and promoted by 92.5 JOE FM.  It was designed to, “engage youth with an interactive and exciting approach to bullying prevention … Empowering them with the important facts and knowledge that they can use moving forward towards their peers.”

Listen and watch for yourself (singing begins about 1:28):

Congrats to Carla and her daughter. We see a budding recording star in the future, as well as a possible performance from Carla herself, assuming it’s in the blood!

We’ve teamed with Zap to create an integrated nonprofit business intelligence (BI) solution.  There are a number of benefits that this partnership brings to nonprofits.

Our solution, Serenic Navigator, provides a wealth of financial data. BI software helps organizations automate reporting, alerts, report scheduling, and what-if analysis.  Together, you can apply advanced analytics to uncover valuable new insights, make better decisions, and empower your mission.  You can move beyond reports that only tell you WHAT happened, to ask WHY. Set goals, make them visible, and easily identify changes in performance.

This is possible because we’ve enhanced Zap’s existing BI solution to include a nonprofit financial management cube.  The cube includes a set of pre-packaged analytics specific to the nonprofit sector, including reports, dashboards, KPIs, and scorecards. With Serenic and Zap you can:

• Automate reporting workflows and save time and money spent on manual reporting.
• Analyze your business from any angle, including unlimited multi-dimensional analysis and cross ledger analysis.
• Make performance information pervasive with user-friendly dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators. Drill through any analytic to find the reasons behind changes in performance.
• Create a single, organization-wide analytics portal by extending the solution to non-Navigator data sources.

Turn financial transactions into valuable insight!

We’re happy to share how Serenic Navigator helped solve APA’s need for integrated nonprofit financial and supply chain management software.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has over 150,000 members and over 500 employees with executive and administrative offices, a publishing operation, five substantive directorates, 54 divisions, a 501(c)(6) companion organization and two real estate LLCs.

The APA was looking for a financial management software solution for a nonprofit association and supply chain management for their publications division. Some of the goals of the accounting system included:

• real-time financial reporting capabilities
• improved workflow
• automated integrations between systems

AVF Consulting presented Serenic Navigator, our fund accounting software built on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform.

“Serenic provides us with the ability to integrate our financials and supply chain management for a single, centralized, up-to-date customer ledger and accounts receivable,” says Jerry McGlaughlin, Senior Director of IT Planning and Business Management for the APA . “We anticipate significant workflow efficiencies, better access to data, and improved inventory management.”

Thank you to AVF Consulting for bringing this latest client aboard and implementing our software.

Evaluate your existing financial solutions with these questions:

1. The USCCB recommended the use of the FASB standard financial presentation. Does your current system facilitate this type of reporting?

2. Catholic schools are being challenged by increased operational costs and an economy in which families are opting to send their children to public schools because of the cost. Have you reviewed the administrative operations of schools and parishes to find potential economies of scale by centralizing functions such as payroll processing?

3. Would centralizing each organization’s fundraising activities and/or providing more detailed information on how funds are managed /spent assist in securing larger contributions from parishioners? Do you have such a centralized system in place?

This concludes our series about how Serenic can save time on financial and accounting tasks for diocese, and help you focus on your core mission.

Access the “Achieving Financial Transparency for Dioceses” FREE whitepaper.

The Serenic Navigator financial software offerings may appear as separate, individual offerings, but are in fact interconnected and interrelated. Guided by our commitment to serve not-for-profit organizations, Serenic Navigator is a family of products designed to grow with you and give you the features and functionality your nonprofit or NGO needs to achieve its mission in a highly efficient and effective manner.

Once you have determined which purchase model you want to follow – license or subscription – you’re ready to determine what fund accounting version is the best fit for the needs of your nonprofit.

• Basic, only available in under the Subscription model, is designed for smaller organizations with very basic processes and needs. It includes all the necessary core functionality as well as some moderately advanced functionality. For example, Purchase Requisitions are not supported in this version, but Purchase Orders and Purchase Invoices are available.

• Business Essentials, or BE, is available under the Subscription and License models and builds off the Basic version by adding functionality, including Purchase Requisitions and Batch Allocations. Also included are two additional modules: AwardVision Basic and BudgetVision.

• Advanced Management, or AM, is available under the Subscription and License models and is our most advanced version. The additional functionality included in this version is designed for larger nonprofits and NGOs with more complex processes and accounting needs, and includes Workflow Management, a transaction approval module, and the advanced BudgetVision features “Calculations & Assumptions” and “Approvals.”

View a list of some of the features and functionality available in the Serenic Navigator family of products. For a full feature comparison, download the full fact sheet on our website.

Contact us if you have further questions about the License vs. Subscription models, and the Basic, BE or AM versions. Lots of options; we’re here to help you navigate through them!

Last week, we took a look at some of the benefits of installing one integrated financial management system across a diocese’s central office, its parishes, and schools. This week, we’re looking at a few more of the benefits that can help increase overall operational efficiency.

Thanks for learning more about how Serenic can save time on financial and accounting tasks, and help you focus on your core mission.

Access the “Achieving Financial Transparency for Dioceses” FREE whitepaper.