MIP Fund Accounting™ is a configurable fund accounting solution. The solution includes functionality for fund accounting, procurement, budgeting, payroll, human resources, timekeeping, fixed asset management, grant management, and dashboards for nonprofits and government agencies.
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Negotiatus
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Negotiatus is purchasing software from the company of the same name in New York, that aims to transform the way business administrators and users place orders, control spend, and submit payment across their vendors. The platform is built for the entire purchasing process, and is designed to provide a consistent experience from sourcing through payment across every vendor and website.
MIP Fund Accounting works very well for general fundraising. The form creation process is easy and allows you to set parameters and add fees, quantities, images, etc. This process is smooth on the customer (forward-facing) side as well. Reports are generated once the transactions have gone through, making tracking and reconciliation with accounting easy.
Negotiatus is well suited for multi-location--many locations doing the same thing, such as a franchise model. However, if you really want to have tight control on costing, the reporting is not robust enough that, with scale, it would make more sense to bring this in house and create your own vendor relationships
General Ledger processing, including journal entries and reports
Ability to download all reports directly to Excel and PDF formats
Use of Grant codes to enable grant reporting by month/quarter/year
Ability to have multiple departments and consolidate into groups for reporting
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable cannot be out of balance
Multiple ways to use the product including Cloud and Classic options, Visual menu or Standard (Top of screen) menus to select processes, many options we are not using in our simple organization
Consolidated invoicing--Negotiatus consolidates all invoices into one monthly invoice for us to pay by the 15th of the subsequent month.
General ledger mapping--products on the platform can be mapped to one or more entities or cost centers through a monthly consolidated file, which has great value when it comes to process efficiency.
Ease of use--the platform is fairly easy for both users and administrators. With many locations that are geographically dispersed, it allows us to manage purchasing without an excess training need.
With the payroll process, if there is an error in sending the stubs through email, there is no option to resend without a restore. That really needs to change.
Being able to void encumbrance at the same time as a PO would be an incredible time saver.
Communicating Savings: Negotiatus sells itself on its vendor network--the ability to search for the best possible price according to what is available. However, it is challenging to tell what that savings would have been (e.g., WB Mason vs. Amazon).
Speed of Resolution: it sometimes takes a few months to come to a resolution when it comes to analysis/reporting. As they do not have great reporting around savings, we often ask for them to provide some periodic analysis. The account manager will put in the request, but it may not get completed or be up to the appropriate standard due to lack of understanding of the requirements.
Cancelled Orders: at some points early on (2+ years ago), many of the orders were cancelled and we were left scrambling to replace them. That has gotten much better.
I give MIP a 10 because Our organization use MIP Fund Accounting ever since I've been there and that's been for over 20 plus years for all of our accounting and payroll. MIP has stayed on the cutting edge of technology, ever evolving to meet the needs of the times, especially post pandemic, while many are working remotely! MIP support staff are very knowledgeable and efficient. Even new users can get up to speed quickly with MIP Fund Accounting.
I don't know what it would be like in the for-profit arena, but for the non-profit arena, it is an excellent product. I love how you don't actually have to close years and are able to get information that spans over the year-end. And the grant tracking is excellent too. It is just an excellent accounting system.
I have rarely encountered any issues accessing MIP Fund Accounting over the years. On the rare occasions when availability was interrupted, the reasons were always found in-house when using the on-premises version. Since we have migrated to the MIP cloud, we have had no issues with availability. Any maintenance or updates are always communicated to us and are usually done outside of business hours.
MIP Fund Accounting is an important asset for performing search queries. If I had to do a historical search query without MIP Fund Accounting, I very well might have to pull data from three different programs, turn each piece into like-data myself, and then consolidate it all down into interpretive data. MIP Fund Accounting does it all by itself and has a wide array of ways to filter down as specifically or broadly as you want for any given query.
I have not reached out to MIP for technical support; however, their website offers great help resources so I can solve an issue on my own. Another team member reached out to MIP for support and was helped quickly. The transition process took longer than expected due to a lag in communication.
There are no specifics on what happens if you make one choice or another to know which is the best selection. This is true for JVs and AP. In training we were not given specifics of what happens when one possibility is selected over another.
The training with Laura was amazing. She had answered all our questions and customized the training to our needs that we are working with and trying to address using MIP accounting. The only thing I wish that could come out of the trainings was to have permanent access to the recordings of our paid trainings we received. They recordings of the training only last for a short time before it goes away which makes it hard to go back and re-watch and learn.
Again, I was not directly involved with the planning and setup of the software. However, I was involved in training my staff during the implementation phase. As with any software implementation, consistency of training is key and a willingness to seek out help from Customer Support helps tremendously to insure accuracy of information and training.
I've utilized other ERP accounting software like Infor, NetSuite, and MS Dynamics, to name a few. MIP Fund Accounting offers flexibility and room for growth while not being overly heavy on your team to maintain it. And, we're now learning more about the add-on's and more advanced capabilities to leverage with our team.
MIP is easy to install and use on my work laptop. I can still use the software when travelling for work or when working from home. It is always reliable and effective. This applies to other people on our organization as well. Employees who need access to the MIP database are able to access it from their desktop computers or laptops
When used, it also visibility to how we are using our allotted Government funds. It allows us to make sure we are being efficient with those dollars.
MIP Fund Accounting allows us to be more accurate in posting expenses. It allows us to be sure of which accounts are we are posting to. We can pull those accounts in real time and make sure that our entries are having the desired effect on the accounts involved.
MIP Fund Accounting allows accountability in that we can see who posted what, when they posted, and to which accounts they posted.
