Most accounting software is oriented toward profit-making enterprises, with a very strong focus on the business environment. With such software, emphasis is placed on sales, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and large volumes of purchases of items for resale, or of raw materials for manufacture. Instead of such an orientation, non-profit organizations need what is sometimes called "fund accounting". The organization receives its revenue from grants and/or government budgetary awards received at comparatively infrequent intervals. These awards must be accounted for, with separate reports to each source of funding. Instead of "sales", these organizations perform services, often gratis, for clients which are usually negligible financial entities. Non-profit organizations are labor-intensive, and often have large personnel and payroll sectors with part-time and special pay arrangements.

Fund accounting, however, is different only in degree from commercial accounting. It must follow the same basic rules as general commercial accounting, and the same three basic annual or quarterly financial reports (Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Changes in Financial Position) should be produced.

In these reports, The labels may be different for government and non-profit organizations, but the content and objective of the reports are practically identical. Banking practices and accounts must be strictly traditional. Payroll practices must conform to national laws, including withholding of taxes and management of fringe-benefit programs on behalf of each individual employee. Non-profits often collect revenues from fee-for-service, from sales of publications, and from investments. Thus, pure fund accounting is comparatively rare; more common is a mixture of commercial and fund activities. In providing services, the non-profit organization must make purchases and consume materials. It usually has fixed assets which must be depreciated responsibly. It can engage in advertising and other "marketing " campaigns, and in a particular year it can show a "profit" or "loss " of revenues over costs, even though it is expected to be non-profit in the long run. Although it cannot declare dividends, a non-profit organization can make gifts or return funds.

Good accounting software for government and non-profit organizations is not necessarily designed for fund accounting only. It should be flexible, and capable of managing standard accounting requirements as well as having the ability to add new dimensions that may not be expected from conventional accounting software.

New Views can meet all these requirements, and more.

The NewViews Approach

Most accounting software programs provide a list of standard accounts, and structure these accounts into a standard set of reports. This approach offers limited latitude for flexibility and modification. If special non-standard reports are required, such as separate accounts of expenditures for specific types of funds received, these types of structured systems tend to become unwieldy.

NewViews is unique in that it is designed to give the user the freedom to create reports that are needed to meet both standard and non-standard accounting requirements. Any number of standard or special accounts can be added to reports, and the sub-totaling and totaling structure is completely under user control. In this way, a non-profit organization can satisfy its unique reporting requirements while complying with the local legal and customary accounting practices.

NewViews provides the user with the option of starting with a traditional accounting setup. A non-profit organization can easily modify this setup to suit its own particular needs, or custom design reports from "scratch". Once created, reports can easily be modified to meet changing requirements, and new reports can be added at any time. This is very useful when dealing with reports for specific projects, which may be of limited duration.

Advantages of NewViews to Non-profit Organizations

Registered non-profit organizations are funded by many sources, which are as diverse as the organizations they are funding. Municipal, provincial/state and federal governments, and other donors, all provide funding to non-profit organizations. Therefore, non-profits can not only be receiving support from many different government sources, but also from different levels of governments. Reporting to these departments is critical for the non-profit organizations to maintain their funding. Since the government departments usually work independently from each other, reporting requirements are not only distinct to the program being funded, but to the government agency funding the program. Finally, the Board of Directors of each non-profit must have sufficient knowledge of the organization's progress.

In addition to submitting the required government forms, non-profit organizations must monitor their expenditures carefully, since each category of expense must not exceed the budgeted amount that was originally approved. In many non-profit organizations, the various programs are the responsibility of different staff groups. It is critical that these groups are able to monitor the costs associated with their programs, to ensure that they stay within their particular budget constraints.

The flexibility that characterizes NewViews allows non-profit organizations to satisfy the needs of their board, staff, government funding sources, and accountants. Best of all, this can be accomplished without extensive, time-consuming record keeping and manipulation of data.

With New Views, customized reports can be created for:

NewViews is a "real-time" accounting system, which means that every transaction updates the accounts affected by that transaction, automatically and instantly. Therefore, when posting a transaction, no additional work is necessary to update all of the reports. Current data can always be reported for any period that is required.

Budgeting is essential to any non-profit organization. NewViews' extensive budgeting capabilities easily manage reporting of budgets, actuals and variances for any period. For example, costs for the month, budgets for the month, variance between actual and budgets for the month, costs year to date, budgets year to date, and variance year to date are all easily viewed and printed. Budgets amounts can also be adjusted at any time. This gives the non-profit organization the ability to do "what if" calculations for subsequent years' budgets. In addition, budgets can be posted on submission, and adjusted when approval is received.

NewViews can accommodate subsequent and prior period adjustments, so that a non-profit organization can post its monthly government receivable amount at the beginning of its budget year. Monthly fixed costs, and/or prepaid or deferred amounts, can also be posted at the beginning of the year. This eliminates the need to post recurring transactions month after month, and provides additional control of funds.

Financial history is also important for non-profit organizations when applying for future funding. NewViews produces reports for a 10 year period, and maintains transactions on-line as long as desired. These features enable the user to quickly make comparisons of prior periods, and to view historic data at any time.

Reporting Requirements of Non-profit Organizations

Reporting requirements in the non-profit sector are unique. Different groups associated with non-profit organizations require specific information on a timely basis. These various affiliates may include:

Funding Agencies' Requirements

With NewViews, reports can be customized to replicate government reports, which can then be printed and submitted straight from the accounting system. This eliminates the need to transcribe figures onto reports. If government forms change, reports can be modified, and accounts moved from one report to another. It is seldom necessary to make major changes to the original accounting setup.

Board of Director's Reports

NewViews can consolidate any accounts on any reports, so customized reports can easily be produced to accommodate the Board's specific requirements. Separate reports can also be created if more detail is required by the Board's sub-committees.

Project and Staff Group Reporting

With NewViews, customized reports specific to the program can be created, and accounts on these reports can be consolidated to produce reports relevant to the government funding source. The accounts on the original reports (i.e. those specific to the program) should be the posting source, thereby giving the program coordinators the details of revenues and expenditures for each account. This report can provide staff with a more detailed breakdown of costs by using more accounts than required on the funders' reports.

Accountants' Financial Statements

NewViews can provide a conventional trial balance, which includes all posting accounts from various reports. Grouping of specific accounts may be required by the accountant, and this is easily done. The balance sheet and income statement can also be customized to match the format used by the accounting firm, and working papers can be prepared from printouts of the activity in each account.