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geilhufe
aspects of implementing and using NetSuite. This is is!
As always, the official NetSuite user group is the best place for
general NetSuite questions, but we can tackle the nonprofit specific
items here
David Geilhufe
SDFF
I'll use this as a check-in. Here is our organization background and a
little bit about how we use NetSuite:
The San Diego Futures Foundation is a 501c3 founded in 1999 to provide
technology and technical services to nonprofits, small businesses, and
families. We migrated from Quickbooks Pro to Quickbooks Online about 5
years ago, then moved to NetSuite as of Jan 1 this year. We've been
experiencing approximately 20% growth annually over the last five
years and needed a far more robust business management solution. We
presently have a staff of 23 and our income this year will be roughly
$2 million. We operate three main programs; hardware (including
donations, sales, and recycling), all aspects of technical services,
and community programs that involve youth and adult training and
employment services.
I'm sure our needs for an ERP system were common to others'. We needed
the ability to better manage our financials, particularly for grants,
improve and integrate our inventory processes, and most of all,
integrate payroll and labor expenses to report by program/project,
funder/customer, class, etc. The payroll aspect has helped but isn't
100% yet since not all costs are allocated by what is recorded on a
timesheet for all employees; we still have to create and edit journal
entries to allocate payroll expenses to programs. But we're light
years ahead of where we were.
We haven't integrated our website or the ecommerce features yet. We're
almost there but the process of migrating all the web content and
learning the NetSuite CMS is taking more time than expected. Once it's
done, we'll be able to offer our donation application and webstore on
our website and it will pull directly from the integrated inventory
system.
I'm hoping to learn how other nonprofits are using the software,
lessons they've learned, and best practices in use, particularly with
regard to charging and accounting for labor by funder, program, etc.
where a "match" is needed. I'm also curious to see if there are common
needs for customization. We've already written some code (we made some
Service Items billable by default) and see areas where more
customization could be helpful.
Jeff Hancock
Chief Operating Officer
San Diego Futures Foundation
http://www.sdfutures.org
Giving
Just so folks know the role I intend to play in this forum, this is a place for you to talk honestly with one another about what works and doesn't.
I'll chime in every once in awhile with a best practice or two and do a little work behind the scenes to get grantees I know are struggling with similar problems to share their challenges and successes.
David
David Geilhufe -- www.netsuite.org
Philanthropy Program Manager
NetSuite Inc.
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Giving
Jeff brought up grants management and I talk to folks about this fairly frequently. Recently I ran into one organization that had a heck of a time managing grants in NetSuite because of limitations in their approach. So to save you some struggling,
Best Practice: Working with Grants in NetSuite.
NOTE: This approach works for most folks, but not all. If you have a better approach, let us know about it!
1. Data Model.
The grant making organization should be a customer record (constituent record if you are using the Do Good Better Fundraising solution). If you are seeking a grant from the organization, you create an opportunity record to represent the grant proposal. Once a grant is funded, that opportunity turns into a pledge (sales order)- if you don't have the check in your hands- or a donation (cash sale)- if you do have the check in your hands.
But this isn't enough to track income and expenses by grant effectively. When the grant is *really* coming (i.e. before you enter the pledge or donation), set up a project record to represent the grant itself. You can now associate the transaction NOT with just the funder, but with the funder's grant.
Example:
Gates Foundation: 2010 Libraries for the Future
2. Assign transactions to the appropriate customer:project
When you record the pledge or the donation, rather than using the customer record "Gates Foundation", use "Gates Foundation: 2010 Libraries for the Future"
Use the same logic for expenses.
3. Use the built in project reports and filters to generate charity specific reports.
Now when you filter your financial reports, you can see the revenue and expenses for "Gates Foundation: 2010 Libraries for the Future". You can even run an income statement or a budget vs. actual report for JUST that grant.
Do you have a better way? Have you run into limitations with this approach? Please share!
david
David Geilhufe -- www.netsuite.org
Philanthropy Program Manager
NetSuite Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: netsu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:netsu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of SDFF
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 1:59 PM
To: NetSuite.org
Subject: [NetSuite.org] Re: Welcome to the NetSuite.org Google Group
--
SDFF
create sub-projects to break the grant down even further). In the
Project record we include due dates for reports, limitations on
spending, and any other important details. We haven't taken the time
to set up budgets for projects yet but that's something I hope to
learn how do as we prepare our 2011 budget.
In addition, we take it one step further. In the above example, the
grant might be supporting the organization's "Reading" program.
Chances are pretty good that the organization gets funds from other
sources for the same program. Just about every funder I've ever worked
with wants a "match" to their funds. We renamed NetSuite's
"Departments" to "Programs" and use this dropdown when recording time,
income, and expenses. This gives us the ability to run Income
Statements by Program, which includes all sources of income. Any
dropdown can be mandatory so you don't have to worry about some bills
or time not being charged to a Program.
The weakest part of the system relates to the timesheet issue I
mentioned above. For whatever reason, labor expenses for salaried
employees aren't allocated based on data entered in timesheets;
NetSuite bases those expenses on information in the employee record
(where you assign their class, program, and pay rate). This is
unfortunate because it means we have to run a process that allocates
those expenses, and then go in and modify the journal entries NetSuite
creates. It's a bit time-consuming but we used to do the same thing in
Excel for all of our employees and then split both the payroll and
benefits checks we cut to our payroll vendor, so this is still a huge
improvement for us.
Another note... you can create a report and filter it by customer/
projects, which allows for a quick view of grant balances for the
current fiscal year.
> On Oct 18, 12:24 pm, geilhufe <dgeilh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Grantees have been asking for a forum to discuss nonprofit specific
> > aspects of implementing and using NetSuite. This is is!
>
> > As always, the official NetSuite user group is the best place for
> > general NetSuite questions, but we can tackle the nonprofit specific
> > items here
>
> > David Geilhufe
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NetSuite.org" group.
> To post to this group, send email to netsu...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to netsuiteorg...@googlegroups.com.