Financial Edge (legacy)

Score6.8 out of 10

34 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Financial Edge (legacy) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Responsive Customer Service: Users have consistently praised the platform for its responsive customer service, which has greatly improved their overall satisfaction and user experience. The prompt assistance and helpful guidance provided by the support team have been instrumental in resolving issues efficiently.

Efficient Purchase Order Creation: Reviewers have found the creation of purchase orders to be quick and easy on the platform, enabling a seamless and efficient process. This streamlined functionality has saved users valuable time and simplified their procurement activities significantly.

Robust Grant Management Capabilities: Customers have lauded the platform's robust grant management capabilities, specifically its adept handling of layered budgets and expenses allocation among different grants, projects, and overheads. The platform's comprehensive features ensure accurate financial tracking and reporting for nonprofit organizations managing multiple funding sources effectively.

Reviews

10 Reviews

Do Not Recommend

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

January 5, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Financial Edge daily. As the Accounts Manager, I create invoices, manage monthly recurring statements, processing reimbursements, you name it. Everything Receivable and Payable is my territory.

I have to say, Financial Edge is a joke. Their website is constantly "under maintenance", and until it's done, the website is frozen.

They have this plug-in, essentially, called the Database View, which is used for reporting and posting things. It looks exactly like Windows 98 did, and I've never seen it in a state that's not buffering.

The most frustrating part is to create monthly recurring statements, we have to use what is called the Crystal Report. This generates all the data we've input for the year, and it puts the data in a template that we can then print and mail out. It was acting crazy one day so I contacted customer support, and they told me that they're not offering support for it anymore. Meaning, they carry and advertise this part of their software, but when it doesn't work properly and you lose data, it's not their fault. Okay bro.

Pros

Responsive customer service

Cons

Customer service blames the customer, and never offers solutions other than "wait it out." I've always been told it's my computer, even though everyone else at my work has the same issues.
Website is constantly "under maintenance" and it somehow never gets better.
The Database View is outdated and glitchy. Honestly get rid of it.
The Crystal Report is the only way to handle monthly recurring statements, and Financial Edge does not offer support for it anymore. Good luck figuring that out on your own.

Likelihood to Recommend

I honestly have nothing nice to say about Financial Edge.

Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Financial Edge - Stable, traditional, but not forward thinking

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 18, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our accounting team uses Financial Edge daily. Our senior management across departments accesses reports directly on a bi-weekly basis. We import Altru general ledger entries into Financial Edge. It addresses our accounting, internal controls, and business needs.

Pros

Stable Platform
Understandable to our users

Cons

The dashboard is not robust.
The online version (FE NXT) seems to operate slow to often.

Likelihood to Recommend

<ul><li>Financial Edge is well suited for traditional day to day accounting, accounts payable, and related needs.</li><li>Financial Edge dashboard does not provide a snapshot view of data that I have found are available through other platforms (like QBO).</li></ul>

William (Bill) Sanders, CPA

Accounting, Management, Tax & Nonprofit Consultant, CPA in Finance and Accounting at Kohl Children's Museum (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Financial Edge

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 22, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial Edge is our accounting system. We use Financial Edge across our entire organization.

Pros

Non-profit accounting
Flexibility - NXT or database

Cons

All functionality needs to be available in NXT
Integration between RE and FE needs to be easier to manage

Likelihood to Recommend

I love Financial Edge for non-profit accounting. The integration between RE and FE (when implemented correctly) makes running donations between the donor data base and the financial system seamless. Financial Edge has built a great web based version (NXT) which is much easier for users with little to no experience with the system to pick up. I just implemented the fixed asset module eliminating a huge Excel spreadsheet and it went very well. Our first month recording depreciation through the system was a breeze.

Jennifer Bradshaw

Manager of School Accounting in Finance and Accounting at Great Hearts Academies (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Non-profits profit from Financial Edge!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

January 10, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial Edge is primarily utilized by our Development Office for planning and tracking of fundraising, philanthropic gifts, and event planning. As a non-profit organization, Financial Edge is useful in recording the financial success of fundraising activities, and overall donations (monetary and otherwise) provided on a monthly and annual basis. Reporting, tracking, and expenses are also managed in FE.

Pros

Single-place to record all donations gifts to organization.
Tracking and follow up for philanthropic gifts and endowments is user-friendly.

Cons

Metrics in the reporting features could be enhanced to allow for cross-year/event comparisons.
It does not allow for single-sign-on from other platforms, requiring additional keystrokes for access/exit.

Likelihood to Recommend

Financial Edge works well for small to medium-sized non-profit organizations. It allows for good data management of donations, gifts, endowments, and managing budgets for event planning. For larger organizations with more complex funding sources, FE does not provide advanced reporting features; albeit it is possible these were not included in our organization's particular subscription feature.

Verified User

Director in Research & Development (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Easy as 123

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 7, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial Edge is used to create purchase orders, invoices, and process payments.

Pros

It is a quick and easy way to create purchase orders.
It is easy to look up vendors and purchases that have been made through them.

Cons

I do not have any complaints about its functionality.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is easy to look up vendors to see how items are coded if they have been receipted. It is also easy to create new vendors and add in general ledger codes.

Verified User

Administrative Assistant (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Financial Edge, Use It!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

December 21, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial edge is used as the financial, accounting software for my organization. It is also used for subsidiary corporations. We are able to track debits and credits, provide balances for departments across the university campus, examine budgeting scenarios and reporting. We utilize a number of candid reports but also have built a number of custom reports.

Pros

Financial edge is able to be customized in a way that fits our organization.
Financial edge is able to provide reports to our end-users on budget versus actual account balances.
Financial edge is able to handle a large volume of transactions with ease, having built-in capabilities for batching and balancing.

Cons

While the program is highly customizable, it would be helpful if there was more direction on best practices of how to set everything up.
Expand on reporting.
Ability to report on "open" years.

Likelihood to Recommend

Financial edge is great for tracking revenue and expenses for specific donor-designated gifts. It is easy to create projects for each designation that allows for tracking and reporting. I would like to see some expansion in reporting based on projects. We currently have built custom reports for reporting to our end-users and donors on project balances.

Stephanie Ulmer

Senior Director of Operations at The Bloomsburg University Foundation (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Financial Edge Spoiled Me

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

November 29, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial Edge is the premier nonprofit software I have worked with. It allows for deep segmenting and analysis of expenses as well as grant management. If an organization has two or more grants, I highly recommend Financial Edge to them. One of the better features is dashboards that allow department or team managers to quickly review their budgets and expenses at a glance without burdening the accounting team.

Pros

Grant Management - nothing is more harrowing than grant reporting, and FE does it best. It allows for layered budgets and limitless division of expenses among grants, overhead, or other projects/programs.
Reporting - Most financial software tries to adapt for-profit accounting into a non-profit mode without addressing the unique needs of a nonprofit for reporting and auditing.
Multiple projects and/or cost centers within a budget and system - nothing is more challenging than trying to manage expenses over several cost centers and FE is a champ at allowing that complexity.

Cons

Not for "out of the box" users - Financial Edge is a great system, but implementation requires support or even an consultant. You want to make sure you have set it up correctly - not duplicating what you have always done, but in a way that makes the robust reporting in FE work for you.
Better exported reports - Reports exported to Excel always seem to have too many lines and columns as well as at least one column that is off one cell to the right. Not a huge issue, but it takes a little time to reformat.

Likelihood to Recommend

Financial Edge is ideal for the $1m to $10m budget organization. Those who are smaller or larger (or more complex) may want to consider another system.

Wendy Johnson

Executive Director in Corporate at Justa Center (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

20 years of experience

View profile

Financial Edge is great for simple companies!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 12, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Financial Edge is being used by our Finance Department for all of the Financial needs. It hasn't really solved any business problems for our organization. However, It does the job of an accounting system.

Pros

Financial Edge does a great job at pulling up reports in the general ledger.
Financial Edge is great if you have simple accounting needs.
Financial Edge makes entering A/P fairly easy.

Cons

Financial Edge should not allow for there to have multiple invoices with the same invoice number
Financial Edge should be more user-friendly when looking for information
Financial Edge should allow more options for financial reporting

Likelihood to Recommend

Financial Edge is suitable for smaller companies who have easy accounting entries. However, it does not allow there to be room for making entries customization.

Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Financial Edge for Membership Organizations

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

October 25, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Financial Edge in our business department to serve the accounting and finance needs of our organization. We utilize the General ledger, Accounts Payable, and Fixed Asset Modules. Since our organization has two entities, Financial Edge enables us to manage the finances of both business entities within one system and we are able to house reports and other information in one location. This makes it easy for us to retrieve information requested from our department and enables all users of the system to pull reports in the event someone is out of the office, making our processes more timely and efficient.

Pros

F-9 Reporting is a great tool. We are able to build custom financials for our Finance Committees and Board of Directors and choose how we want to present information to these parties.
The AP Module is easy to use and has a "common sense" format.
The ability to reference various dates/periods in one journal entry is awesome!

Cons

In the list view of Journal Entries, it would be great if we could see the post date in addition to the date added.
Fixed Asset module is not set up for some unique scenarios (removing a previously "acquired asset" that was not necessarily disposed of, but place in FA in error).
Reporting within the FE application is not so great, so F-9 saves the day with respect to reporting.

Likelihood to Recommend

We would like to eventually have an all-in-one solution for billing/AR. We are a membership organization and currently have to host an additional database for billing, then post those transactions to FE. For this reason, we do not feel Financial Edge is best-suited for our accounts receivable needs; as we still have to incur costs associated with hosting another database to do what we need to do. On-the-other-hand, Accounts Payable module works well for our business needs. We primarily process check payments and bank drafts and this module makes it easy to manage payments and correcting errors (i.e. deleting invoices or reprinting a check that did not print properly) is fairly simple.

Sunny Reed

Controller in Finance and Accounting at Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

The Blackbaud help desk is worth it.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 21, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The modules that make up Financial Edge (General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Student Billing) are used by finance. The Student Billing module is also used by the Registrar's Office.

Pros

Data entry - detailed, but straightforward.
Query - very powerful and easy to use.

Cons

Overall, the interface looks like something from the early 90s. Users tend to fight the interface until they get used to doing their particular tasks. However, once they know how to make it work in one area, the interface is very similar across the program.

Likelihood to Recommend

Mostly I deal with student tuition tracking and reporting on donations imported from other products, such as the Blackbaud development software: The Raiser's Edge. Financial Edge is fairly good at tracking the complexities of fees and financial aid, but it can't email invoices to the parents and does not allow for payments to be processed automatically according to a payment plan.

Petra Hall

Business Systems Analyst in Information Technology at Canada's National Ballet School (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

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Financial Edge for Membership Organizations

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

October 25, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

F-9 Reporting is a great tool. We are able to build custom financials for our Finance Committees and Board of Directors and choose how we want to present information to these parties.
The AP Module is easy to use and has a "common sense" format.
The ability to reference various dates/periods in one journal entry is awesome!

Cons

In the list view of Journal Entries, it would be great if we could see the post date in addition to the date added.
Fixed Asset module is not set up for some unique scenarios (removing a previously "acquired asset" that was not necessarily disposed of, but place in FA in error).
Reporting within the FE application is not so great, so F-9 saves the day with respect to reporting.

Likelihood to Recommend

Sunny Reed

Controller in Finance and Accounting at Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile