Fall is in the air (not really, I'm in the Carolinas and it's in the 80s here...) and with that crisp (*cough...not) weather, comes time to celebrate the newest group of certified Financial Edge Community Members! Fundamentals Certified Laura Avalos Nicholas Delisle Daniel Dunphy Magda Fraire Shannon Giannini Jay Haas Kris Jenkins Mary Jo Johnson ... more

When I say certification – what first comes to mind? Maybe that delicious pastry you enjoyed prepared by a certified pastry chef? Or the project manager you worked with on a big project who was PMP certified? Certification such as PMP, or even CPA, gives a certain sense of expertise in a field and frequently instills a sense of confidence that the results ... more

Let's have a big round of applause for this month's certified community members! Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified Teresa Alaimo James Andrews Richard Chamama Ellen Coughlan Regina DeHoyos Elise Elliott Danielle Gantt Alli Garrison Sujatha Gopu Dave Hoffner Danielle Keeney Rachel Lamb Ronald Patrick Amanda Rausch-Soesbe Donella Robb ... more

Many people have been asking for a succinct list of the differences between FE7 and FE NXT.  So, I am going to attempt to provide to you such a list.  This list is not meant to be all encompassing of the differences and enhancements, nor is it static, as updates to the NXT environment are rolled out every other week.   True web based access.  Updated look, ... more

So very excited to congratulate our newly certified community members! Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified Denise Appelgren Jason Brown Minette Bruce Tina Burke Cutter Cannon Roxanne Churchill Tracey Dodak Steven Eisen Donna-Mari Fieldsa Kris Foster Toussaint Gauvin Kristina Gerard Tricia Grove Martha Hoffman Scott Lister Akrivoula Kelly ... more

We created  Financial Edge  and  Financial Edge NXT  specifically for you, a demanding non profit that needs first-class accounting software, so it has built-in classification and reporting capabilities to help accommodate changing reporting requirements, including those issued by the FASB in ASU 2016-14. On August 18, 2016, the FASB issued new ... more

I'm excited to congratulate the following Community members for completing their Financial Edge certification in the past four weeks! Financial Edge Fundamentals Certification Patty Breeding Karen Edwards Karen Getz Dina Glorioso Laura Hannah Jennifer Johnson Becky Mindle Twila Moore Mary Lou Nicholson Marie Roake David Slack Sara Steffan ... more

We tend to think of cleaning as a byproduct of spring. As in spring cleaning —the familiar idiom for that time of year when we open our windows to let fresh air into the house and tidy up the mess that amassed during winter. I know I always grab a bucket and my scrub brush each spring and tackle making everything clean again. Even though it’s summer now, you can ... more

It's that time again! Time to recognize our Community members that achieved Financial Edge Certification in the past four weeks. Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified Cynthia Almeida Nicole Bird Rosendo Cervantes Dorothy Clement Cory Daverman Connie Ekowicki Thomas Etherington Eric Kang Veena Khanna Brooke Niarchos Adrienne Simmons Karen ... more

It’s time to break out the champagne and noisemakers… year end is upon us again! Even though we don’t celebrate fiscal year end with champagne, fireworks, and noisemakers, we don’t want to forget this upcoming time period! Whether you are one of many involved in closing your fiscal year, or the sole keeper of the audit information, preparation is ... more

Another great month with 14 Community members certified!   Take a moment and congratulate your peers who achieved certification status in the past month. Financial Edge Fundamentals 2017 Certified : Rita Asbury Anthony Borromei Tamika Bowman Donna Clark Deb Foos Aaron Horowitz Allen Jackson Janine Johnson Lani Lee Daxa Shah Christine Silva ... more

We had a record 19 community members certify in the past month! How fantastic is that?  Take a moment and congratulate your peers who achieved certification status in the past month. Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified for 2017 Jenny Becak Yolanda Bulick Sheryl Hagenstein Robin Lunsford Bonnie Martin John McCoy Lisa Modesto Grant Newman Meghan ... more

In my 20 years at Blackbaud, I’ve seen a lot of reports in Financial Edge. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my tenure, it’s that reports are the key output of a financial accounting system. Financial statements , Financial Accounting Standards Board ( FASB ) reports, activity detail , sub-ledger specific reports —Financial Edge has many reports ... more

It's time to congratulate our Certified Community Members! Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified for 2017 Darlene Bohanon Troy Christy Connie DeSimone Daniel Habbart Susan Leishman Tony Mouawad Terrell Whitaker Financial Edge Professional Certified for 2017 Tony Mouawad Linda Wolff Would you like to see your name highlighted here next month? ... more

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It's time to congratulate our Certified Community Members!  more

As the month draws to a close your quickest filing options are to either efile or use the Aatrix complete efile service. You can find filing deadlines for those items here, W2 and 1099 .   For paper forms here is a reminder on how they look this year:   1099’s - 1099-MISC forms will now print to blank tax forms paper, a specialty paper constructed with specific ... more

Welcome back to our Tax Season blog! …Now, where were we? Oh yes! We were moving onto processing those 1094s and 1095s… First time processing these? If so, I would definitely recommend checking out our video on this process here .  NOTE : If you have all of your ACA info in the system already, you can skip to minute 16:04 in the video. As you may have noticed, ... more

Happy New Year! While some people have set resolutions to lose weight or start a healthy diet, I skipped those resolutions this year. Instead, I resolved to start the year by releasing two great new Blackbaud University classes on Financial Edge Accounts Payable payment processing and management. Yes, I really did!   more

Howdies! Well, January and Tax season are now in full swing, and if you’re in HR or you handle Payroll, ACAs are likely on your “To Do” list this month. So, let’s dive in! Now, if this is your first year running ACAs (or you need a li’l refresher after a year), zip on over to our ACA FAQs first to get all of the details on current due dates, forms, and the ACA ... more

Hello again!  While processing your W-2s, you may realize you need to reprint a W-2 or have additional questions regarding W-2 processing.  Here are additional W-2 resources: Register Aatrix   What W-2 forms are required this year   Add column to Aatrix W-2 preparer grid  Enter a Historic Entry  File a Corrected W-2  Reprint W-2 for one employee  ... more

Hello again, it is tax season and time to process your W-2s.  While it is important to get your W-2s out as quickly as possible, it is also very important to verify th at the information is accurate. W-2 amounts can be corrected within the Aatrix grid when processing, but we recommend you make any corrections to the employee record first.  This ensures that ... more

Now that we are in the second week of January tax season is in full swing. Don't forget to check out the Tax Season Homepage and register for our free live chats running through the month. The hompage includes videos, links, message boards, blogs, and all things tax season. Get a jump start on tax season now and avoid the rush!    more

Happy new year! It's time to congratulate our Certified Community Members!  more

Hello and Happy New Year!   The beginning of the New Year is also the beginning of tax season.   It doesn’t matter if you are printing your W-2s or e-filing, you still need to know how to create the W-2s. Order forms   How to E-file  Once you have determined how you would like to file your W-2s: If Aatrix hasn’t been installed on the workstation before, ... more

The end of the year is quickly approaching and we have released the end of year update for The Financial Edge.  You must install the update to ensure compliance with the IRS.  Prepare for next year’s payroll processing: Add/Update Tax tables   Add new pay schedule for 2017   Copy existing pay schedule  Create any new pay types  Globally add or expire ... more

There is no question of the benefits that volunteers can bring to an organization. In 2015 the nonprofit organization Independent Sector valued volunteer time at $23.56 per hour [i] . Beyond the fiscal benefit, volunteers can help you to grow existing programs, create a more efficient workflow, and help increase your base of support. A truly ... more

Recently, I’ve looked at my twenty-year career with the Blackbaud financial products and thought to myself, “What can I do to showcase my Financial Edge experience and depth of knowledge?”  My experience is tied to my tenure at Blackbaud as a user, trainer, and Instructional Designer;  however, through completing the FE series or by working extensively with Financial Edge in one or multiple organizations, you may very well have the same level of experience!   Either way, you can showcase your knowledge and experience through Blackbaud Certification. more

Once you’ve confirmed your 1099 amounts are correct and installed Aatrix , you’re ready to review the data that pulled into the 1099 Grid after selecting to ‘Display Report’ and completing the specific tax information. We can make some adjustments in the grid to make it easier to read and review.   When you are on the W2/1099 Preparer Grid, you will notice ... more

If you’ve run your query and 1099 Activity Report and found that the amounts are incorrect, whether too high, too low, or missing altogether, don’t worry because it can be easily adjusted! How did it happen? Incorrect 1099 amounts can be caused by a variety of scenarios: The vendor was marked as 1099 mid-year and no adjustments were made for prior ... more

2016 is winding down quickly and it’s time to get prepared for tax season! Before creating your 1099’s you’ll want to make sure that you have the proper rights in The Financial Edge to access 1099 forms and that Aatrix is both installed and registered. If you navigate to Accounts Payable> Mail> Forms and do not see 1099 Forms or receive an error ... more

It’s that time of year again -- time to start preparing your end of year tax reports. To ensure accurate end of year reporting, you must run the Financial Edge 7.87 (Patch 16) end of year update! This year-end patch contains updated tax information for 2016, including new tax tables, and important fixes and enhancements related to Aatrix . If you are a ... more

Welcome the 2017 Tax Season! Let’s be sure that Patch 16 for the end of the year processing has been installed. Then we will be ready to get started! If you have processed your last 2016 calculation, then it is time to leave 2016 in the past and move into the New Year! Your Tax Tables will need to be updated before the first payroll of 2017. When you create the new ... more

Your Financial Edge support team will be hosting live chats throughout January. Sessions this year include Accounts Payable tax processing, Payroll tax processing, Aatrix, and open forum tax question sessions. For the full list of sessions and registration links check out our Events Calendar and Financial Edge Tax Season Homepage . These live ... more

The year is quickly coming to a close and that means it's time for system updates! This year patch 16 will be our Financial Edge end of year patch. It contains tax table updates for 2017 as well as tax processing improvements.These tax improvements impact all tax forms (1099, W2, 1094/1095, 941, etc.) and it is critical you update to patch 16 prior to ... more

Time to congratulate those Community members who received Financial Edge Fundamentals certification in November! Dawn Anderson Brian Barnes Kelli Brettel Sandy Michaud Laura Musler Audrey Poppe Also, congratulate Marshall Todd on receiving his Financial Edge Professional Certification!  There's still time to receive your 2016 Fundamentals ... more

I recently shared some of my favorite Financial Edge “ hacks ” (time savers), hoping to save you a little bit of time and simplify your Financial Edge life. I thought I would share a few more tricks you can use in Financial Edge.   more

What an organization defines as a major gift can vary widely. At some organizations a $500 donation would be incredibly impactful, while other organizations define a major gift as a gift of $100,000 or even more! What remains consistent is that a major gift can truly be a game changer at an organization. The Pareto principle (the 80/20 rule) states that ... more

Time to congratulate those Community members who received Financial Edge Fundamentals certification in October! Michael Barthel Rose Champagne Adam DeJute Roz Fleury Shannon Ulmer Rita Voss There's still time to receive your 2016 Fundamentals or Professional certification! If your name is on this list, you're well on your way to Professional ... more

The new format 2016 tax forms are available online . Order by December 28, 2016 with promotion code P10167-250 and receive 20% off your tax forms order.* E-filing is best. The federal government has a goal to have all businesses e-file 100% of their taxes within the next five years. Thirteen states now mandate some form of e-filing, and the trend is ... more

Fall is here, and that means one big thing (in our world, anyway!): end-of-year fundraising . November and December are busy for everyone, but especially for those of us in fundraising. During this generous time of year, it is essential to connect with donors. Blackbaud Univsersity is here to help with some tips to make your year-end smoother and more ... more

Happy October - time to look back and congratulate our newly certified Community members! Financial Edge Fundamentals Certified: Terri Brown Todd Garnier George Gomez Nazmul Huda Cheryl Kirby Tara Morley Kristy Soular Renee Rose Brian Tracy And a big shout out to Kristy Soular who went on to become Financial Edge Professionally Certified! ... more

com·plex \ käm-pleks  adj.; composed of many interconnected parts; compound; composite   more

What’s a life hack ? It’s a nifty technique you use to manage your time and daily activities more efficiently—a shortcut . And I love a good shortcut , don’t you? I never consider taking the long route anywhere. If I can cut a few minutes off travel time, I’m happy. I’m the same way at work. I prefer to be as efficient as possible, so I can get things done and get out the door.  more

As summer comes to a close it is time to plan for tax season. Step one is to learn about the new changes affecting tax forms and tax filing and then make your plan to efile or print forms.   Changes to tax forms in FE: The bulk of the 1099-MISC and W-2 forms will now print to blank tax forms paper, a specialty paper constructed with specific perforations required ... more

It’s that time again! Let’s send a big shout out to our Community members that certified in August!   more

Remember those reports you had to write in school about what you did on your summer vacation? I always loved writing them because I thought my summer vacations were  great . I couldn’t wait to tell the tales of places I visited or fun I had. more

I am all about efficiency ...making things easier whether it's adjusting the user options (see my Tips and Tricks series), developing import processes, or whatever.   The other side of this is maximizing the functionalities of Financial Edge so that it is doing as much work for you within the program itself.  Here are some examples of that within FE.  If ... more

As a  Financial Edge Community  member, we know you have valuable feedback, and we’d like to get your thoughts on the Blackbaud University experience. We hope you’ll spend five minutes to tell us how we are doing. As a sign of thanks, upon completion of the survey you’ll be entered in a drawing to win one of four  $25 Amazon gift cards !   At Blackbaud ... more

Summer is a time for hitting the beach, enjoying family get-togethers, and getting Financial Edge Certified. Yup, I said it. Let's congratulate our Community Members that have certified in July! more

While you’re enjoying July and its backyard barbecues, Blackbaud University is closing out July by celebrating our  Financial Edge users who became  Blackbaud   Certified  in June! Be sure to review our listing, and celebrate your colleagues by viewing their profiles, becoming Blackbaud  Community  friends, or just congratulating them on their awesome achievements. To all our  June  Financial Edge Certified professionals, let me be the first to say a well-earned and heartfelt  congratulations !   more

I  was fortunate enough to attend and present at the  K–12 User Conference  in Boston, Mass. July 13–14. What I learned from the conference was something I already knew but felt even more passionate about after presenting my sessions and attending some others. more

“I’m excited to teach the ‘Best Practices: Grantseeking’ class, and help empower nonprofit organizations of all shapes and sizes to find and secure grants funding in the most efficient and effective manner.” – Shelley Hindmon Blackbaud University Educational Consultant   more

As I said in my last blog, I’ve been around Blackbaud and Financial Edge for a while. I’ve heard the same questions from all different areas of the company. And yet, every once in a while I get hit with a question that makes me say, “Gee, I haven’t heard that one in a while!”  Recently, I was asked, “ Which reports in Financial Edge perform a mock close ? ” I’m ... more

Don’t you love it when you can buy everything you need at one store? I think that’s why Walmart grew in popularity so quickly. If you need socks, you can go to Walmart. If you need orange juice, you can go to Walmart. Need a prescription? Walmart.  What if you could learn the basics of General Ledger in one place? Well, now you can. Financial Edge: Basics of ... more

I know, I know...sometimes entering data in the JE batch is time consuming, tedious and even repetitive.  There are many useful shortcuts within a JE batch that you may find helpful. First of all if you have journal entry batches that repeat themselves on an ongoing basis simply save the batch as a recurring batch.  This way the basics are all there: gl ... more

I’ve been around Blackbaud for quite a while now. Retrospectively speaking, when I started working for Blackbaud we used floppy disks for data storage, and our user manuals were printed as bound books. Maybe you’ve been around for a while, too. If so, it means you’ve seen plenty of fiscal year-end activity. If you’re “old-hat” at wrapping up your fiscal ... more

I am sure you are familiar with setting up new users and controlling the access they have within FE by setting up the appropriate options in a security group.  You simply designate which modules, screens and functions you want users in the security group to have access to.   But have you ever wanted to limit a user to specfic general ledger accounts, ... more

This is the 5 th installment of the User Options series.  If you have not seen the previous ones I encourage you to check them out.  To get to your options access it in your tool bar under Tools -> Options. The options on the Export tab allow you to specify some defaults when exporting data from FE.  This does not deal with exporting reports; that is in the ... more

Whenever you embark on a new endeavor, it’s good to start with some helpful directives. I mean, who bakes a cake without a recipe, or tunes up their car without learning about automotive maintenance? Same can be said for getting your feet wet with Financial Edge ™ . You need foundational knowledge. You need to dip your feet in the pool before you swim. ... more

The next installment in addressing the User Options deals with defaults for your Queries.  For those of you familiar with queries that can be quite useful for developing a quick list of information.  That list can be exported, you can scroll through each item in your list, or you can use the query as a report filter.  Here is a good blog article on Queries: ... more

Late last year we shared a series of blogs which focused on check processing errors and how to correct the errors.  These blogs and Knowledgebase articles all included information about the process as well as helpful videos.  We also worked on creating a centralized place for all of these articles and videos; this can be found in the Knowledgebase ... more

Affordable Care Act (ACA) forms, 1094 and 1095 version B or C, are now approching the extended deadline of March 31st to send out employee copies.  As this deadline draws near, we realize that you still have some questions around the forms and how to process them. Some extremely helpful links to get you started: ACA Forms FAQ How to enter or import ACA ... more

This is the third in a series revolving around the User Options settings that you can use to personalize and streamline your FE experience.  The key is to create efficiencies in usage and this functionality is designed to do that for you.  In order to get to your user options go to the tool bar, select Tools and Options.  When the following window opens ... more

Finally! Your financials are finished and ready to distribute. You cross your fingers and hope your board members will understand them. You hope your audience won’t ask so many questions that they (and you) aren’t able to get their own work done. You hope nobody is silently ignoring or overlooking key data—potentially causing them to miss vital ... more

In the first installment I focused on the first tab in your user options that dealt with some system defaults for when you get into FE.  The next tab deals with shortcuts that can save you time maneuvering within the software.  Just a reminder, these options we are focusing on are user specific; they do not affect FE as a whole, only the person who sets them ... more

No matter if you are finishing your 1099's or just getting started it's not too late for us to help walk you through the process! We have 1099 webinars/live chats happening this week. During the webinar we will review Aatrix, FAQ's, and have a live Q&A. Sign up below right now for free! 1099 Live Chats: This webinar/live chat will walk through the ... more

No matter if you are finishing your 1099's or just getting started it's not too late for us to help walk you through the process! We have 1099 live chats happening this week. During the chat we will have a live group Q&A. Sign up below right now for free! Thursday January 28th, 2pm EST Friday January 29th, 1pm EST more

Crunch time is on and we are here to help! Need a walkthrough for any of our tax processes (W2, 1099, or ACA)? Our  video blog  has free on demand walkthroughs you can watch as you complete you processing right now. Rather come to a live webinar? It's not too late! We have webinars happening all this week. During the webinar we will review Aatrix, FAQ's, and ... more

Well….the whirlwind of the change in the annual calendar is upon us.  For some December was the end of the fiscal year and all that that entails.  For all it was the end of the calendar year and dealing with the tasks of creating 1099s and W-2s.  Once again it reminds all of us that time is precious and we don’t have enough of it to get everything done without the ... more

To continue our trend from last week, I want to expand on additional tips and tricks for going through the 1099 process.  I will include links to other informative blogs, as well as Knowledgebase articles and other helpful resources. 1. If you would like a step by step guide on how to go through the 1099 setup wizard and the preparer grid, please take a look ... more

Each webinar will be approximately 1 hour in length. During that hour a video presentation will be given followed by a live question and answer session. You will be able to chat in questions throughout the presentation for discussion. Below are the times for each webinar as well as registration links. Please click the time that works for you to sign up ... more

We have posted a few blogs already about 1099s, W2s and ACA Forms.  I wanted to share some quick tips and tricks about using Aatrix in general.  This could apply to 1099s, W2s or any other tax form you may be printing from Financial Edge, but I would first recommend reading some informaiton on What is Aatrix and why does it integrate with The Financial Edge? ... more

Have you ever wanted to start over with a fresh take on something? Your wardrobe, your car, your house – refresh or redesign them to look sleeker and perform better? Well, that’s what Blackbaud University did with our “Basics of” videos for Accounts Payable. We refreshed the content and gave the courses a clean new look. We provided additional content ... more

Each webinar will be approximately 1 hour in length. During that hour a video presentation will be given followed by a live question and answer session. You will be able to chat in questions throughout the presentation for discussion. Below are the times for each webinar as well as registration links. Please click the time that works for you to sign up ... more

It’s the new year! What a great time to shake off the dust of 2015 and look toward the future. While lots of people make resolutions to shape up and get healthy, not many organizations make a resolution to clean up, fix up, and shore up their data. Why is that? Maybe those organizations don’t know where to start. Are you suffering from duplication of effort, ... more

Hey there! W-2 time is here again, and while you want to make sure you’re getting your W-2s out as quickly as possible, of course you want to ensure their accuracy at the same time.  While it’s technically possible to correct W-2 amounts on the fly within the Aatrix grid when processing, I definitely encourage you to go one level deeper by making ... more

I don’t know about you, but every year, January seems to quietly sneak up on me. Before you know it, it’s tax season once again, and time to jump into your W-2s!  If you’re planning to print your W-2s instead of e-filing, you’ve probably got your forms ready to go, but how exactly to go about creating those W-2s? 1) If Aatrix ... more

Happy New Year and welcome to tax season 2016! We have created brand new webinar style videos offering a walkthrough of the 1099, W2, and new ACA processes. These videos are avaliable for free and you can play them on demand, for links and descriptions check out our video blog . We are also happy to announce our tax season webinar video series. Each ... more

The IRS has extended multiple due dates for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Forms.  Below is a table of the changes:   Form Old Due Date New Due Date 1095-B and 1095-C February 1 st , 2016 March 31 st , 2016 1094-B and 1094-C (if not filing electronically) February 29 th , 2016 May 31 st , ... more

In a previous blog, How to find and Correct 1099 Activity , we discussed how to review and correct 1099 information for qualified Vendors. In this blog we will discuss the steps to create and produce the 1099 forms once all corrections have been made. If you processed 1099 forms with us last year you are probably familiar with the term Aatrix preparer ... more

Need some guidance for Form 1099 processing? Blackbaud University has a few great options for you! Our self-paced and instructor-led eLearning courses are a great way to learn new tips and techniques, and review important features in Financial Edge ™ . Accounts Payable: Basics of Data Processing is a popular eLearning course that quickly steps you ... more

It’s time to apply the year end patch! Before updating, consider whether it addresses issues that impact your organization and be sure that you have the time needed to test and install it. The best place to get information on what fixes or updates the patch contains is located in the readme file available on the Downloads page for your product. While it’s always a good idea to be up-to date with your product, applying a patch may not be necessary.   more

As 2015 quickly comes to a close now is the time to make sure you are up to date with the latest tax changes for January 2016. We have created three brand new webinar style videos covering W2's, 1099's, and the new ACA 1094/1095 processes. These videos are free and can be watched on demand on your schedule. Keep a close eye on our blog as we will be ... more

If your Raiser’s Edge database is integrated with The Financial Edge, and your database is  not  hosted by Blackbaud, we strongly encourage you to review the following information with all parties involved in your update process before updating to RE version 7.95 or FE version 7.87, patch 10. Note: If your database is hosted by ... more

It’s time to process 1099’s and you're stomped as to where to begin. The good news is we've got this covered.  First thing's first, generate a list of Vendors marked as 1099 Vendors and see their associated amounts.  There are two ways to review 1099 Vendor Activity: A. The 1099 Activity Report ​ In ... more

Last week’s blog  discussed Affordable Care Act FAQ’s and what information the Financial Edge requires to produce these reports. Topics included definitions of coverage codes, what information will need to be collected, and what version of Financial Edge you should be running to see this information. Now that you have taken the ... more

With January just a few short weeks away we wanted to share some more ACA reporting information. This week’s blog will help you get prepared while next week’s blog will discuss the steps to add this information into the database. Below are answers to some of our most Frequently Asked Questions: Where can I get more information regarding ... more

It’s December and that means just one month until tax season!  In an effort to make this tax season the best one yet we will continue to post blogs to help you get prepared. Topics will include the Organization and Individual options on Vendor Records, Financial Edge and the Affordable Care Act, 1099 and W2 processing, and how to install the ... more

There are so many things I look forward to this time of year – a great cup of coffee in the morning, weekends spent with friends and family, joyous holidays. I also look forward to work every day because I love my job as an instructional designer for Blackbaud University working specifically with the Financial Edge curriculum. I’ve been with Blackbaud’s ... more

If you use the Payroll module in the Financial Edge this blog post has important tax season information for you! Tax season is right around the corner and as many of you are already aware we have new tax forms this year. If you use payroll it is now required you file the new healthcare Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax forms, the 1094 and 1095. Our programmers ... more

Welcome to our eighth and final blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we have reviewed various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we will be discussing how to print a check which is already recorded in the system.   A few examples of why this is needed: the printer ... more

Welcome to our seventh blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing what to do if checks were printed, but the numbers do not match what is in the system.  A couple examples of why this is ... more

Welcome to our sixth blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing what to do if c hecks were printed, but did not record correctly in the system. A couple examples of why this is needed: the ... more

Not a bbcon? Join in on some great sessions that are happening via the web. You can learn about online communities, sponsored by Small World Labs, and then learn about Blackbaud Champions! Head over to the bbcon 2015 section and sign up today: Upcoming bbcon 2015 Live Chats   more

Welcome to our fifth blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing how to reprint checks when using blank stock.  A few examples of why this is needed: the check stock could have been ... more

Welcome to our fourth blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing what to do if c hecks were printed, but now need to be reprinted when using preprinted stock.  A few examples of why this ... more

Welcome to our third blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing how to renumber a check.  A couple examples of why this would be needed: the system has an incorrect number for the check ... more

Welcome to our second blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing how to purge a check.  A few examples of why this would be needed: to reprint a check in the system, the check was never meant to be ... more

Welcome to our first blog in the Check Processing Series.  Throughout this series we will review various scenarios and how to resolve the issues in order to help with check processing.  Today we are discussing how to void a check.  A few examples of why this would be needed: the check was for the incorrect amount, the vendor lost ... more

Do you find yourself entering many invoices with the same information in several fields? What about charges? Our records have a great feature that is commonly overlooked – Default Sets . In each module, default sets can be created by clicking Tools from the top toolbar and then selecting Organize/Create defaults. You will see the different record ... more

As a user of Blackbaud products, you have several sets of user credentials that each provide different benefits for you. I think it is important to know the difference between all credentials and to know which to use for what scenario. First, you have your Blackbaud.com user profile. This set of credentials is used when you are accessing documents on ... more

Have you ever posted an invoice and later realized the distribution was inaccurate or in need of updating? What about posting an invoice to an incorrect post date or with the wrong amount? Depending on the scenario, there are different methods used to make corrections. If only changes such as invoice date, due date, description, ... more

If your organization uses the additional module Projects, Grants and Endowments, you will notice additional categories of reports within General Ledger; Grant Reports and Project Reports. Today, I wanted to focus on some of our Project Reports. As you may know, you are able to filter Financial Statements and other canned reports on projects as well ... more

If you’ve been watching the Community lately, you may have noticed a few events popping up on the Events Calendar . Were you wondering where they came from? Let me introduce myself. My name is Mary Aquino-Cooper , and I am the Curriculum Lead for Financial Edge products. I am the eyes and ears of our courseware development for Financial Edge. I am ... more

We are reaching the finish line for year-end processing (yay!). Once you are ready to put a final stamp of approval on your fiscal years, you may hard close your fiscal year to prevent anything else from posting into that time. Hard closing is a permanent process which cannot be undone, so we strongly recommend making a backup beforehand. There are a few ... more

Have you recently created or copied a budget?  Have you allotted all of the appropriate amounts?  Do you believe that you are done with entering your budget?  If that is the case, then you are ready for the next step to finalize your budget. What does finalizing do ?   Finalizing your budget will lock the budget period amounts for the ... more

Now that year-end is coming to a close, why not start off the new fiscal year with a fresh plate? Database maintenance tasks should routinely be performed to keep your database running at its best. If you are hosted by Blackbaud, you are off the hook – we perform these tasks for you! These instructions may have to be completed by your IT department as they are ... more

It may be the coffee or because it’s Friday but one thing is for sure - we’re excited for bbcon 2015 in Austin, Texas!   You should join us!   “It doesn’t apply to me! Why should I go? Plus, I don’t own cowboy boots.”   If you need reasons, here are a few: Develop your professional career. ... more

In June, we held 2 successful webinars themed around year-end. We are holding two more free sessions in July on the same topics for those who couldn't attend in June. Please click the links below to register for each and be sure to send your coworkers the links as well - the more the merrier!  July 14, 1:00 EST  How to Prepare for End of ... more

Does your organization have a large amount of reports? Do you find yourself having to hunt for a specific report? If so, I recommend utilizing our report tags to better organize and filter your saved reports. I like to think of using tags within the Financial Edge as using a filing cabinet in your office. It can save you time from having to search through a ... more

By now, you are likely well into your fiscal year-end tasks. Reconciling your subsidiary modules to General Ledger is a big-ticket item everyone likes to cross off their list. This process involves running, at least, two reports and comparing balances. Our Article titled “ How to reconcile to General Ledger ” outlines which reports to use for each ... more

When reconciling a bank account have you ever experienced a GL Cash Account out of Balance to the statement?  Have you wanted to know the difference between the GL cash account and the statement balance?  How can we correct this issue and complete the reconciliation?  We will cover the answers to these questions and more in the article ... more

With the end of fiscal years coming up soon, many of us are pressed for time and looking for ways to work more efficiently. In The Financial Edge 7.87, we introduced a new reporting feature for Financial Statements called Relative Range Reporting.  In this new feature, we can set up a “Base” Column, with  <this fiscal period>, and have all the ... more

Have you ever updated an account budget and then the other budget amounts changed as a result? This blog post will go over the correct steps to import project budgets to avoid doubling your account budget amounts as well as permitting an undistributed account budget. When importing Project Budgets into Financial Edge, it is crucial to first check your ... more

As the Fiscal year winds to a close, we need to look forward towards budgeting our new year.  If you have the optional module, Budget Management, you have the capability to quickly import your budget into The Financial Edge with ease. It is important to note that you should define budgets from the Project perspective first. Because when you create a Project Budget, the program automatically updates the account budget.  The only time you need to create the budget from the account occurs when you have a figure to be budgeted to the account, but not distributed to a project. In an upcoming blog post, I will go into further detail about importing budgets with both project and account distribution. We have sample import files available for your different budget types located in our General Ledger Importing Article .  Our sample import files include the Budget Scenario Import ID in the first column of the import along with the other required fields.  We recommend using this to identify to which Budget record you are importing, as it is a unique ID specific to that record.  This can be found by creating the Budget record: In General Ledger, click Records,  Budgets, New Budget Select the desired Scenario ID and Fiscal year, and click Load Now Select File, Save Select File, Properties to view the Import ID Once our CSV file has been created with the necessary budget information listed in the sample file, we may begin importing!  In General Ledger, we’ll want to select Administration, Import Records, highlight either Fiscal Year Account Budget or Fiscal Year Project Budget, and click New Import.  In the import parameter screen, choose the settings below.   more

So, a little bird told me that you need to create a new budget… Well, the first step is to identify what kind of timeframe you are working with and go forward from there. Let’s start with the difference between the two types of budgets:  Utilize Fiscal Year budgets when you want to span just a single fiscal year, and utilize Period Range budgets when you want ... more

Entering budgets for the new fiscal year can be a time consuming and time-sensitive process for an organization, but Budget Management in The Financial Edge can make that job easier by doing some of the work for you. As you have likely seen in our prior blog posts, Budget Management houses a variety of Budget Tools. By using our Copy/Forecast tool, we can reduce the time it takes to enter a budget, decrease the likelihood of any potential manual entry errors and prepare the budget in advance. What is the Copy/Forecast tool? By using the Copy/Forecast tool, you can copy an existing budget or copy actual amounts from one fiscal year to another. You may also copy current year actual figures and project actual figures for the remainder of the year which does not currently have activity. Follow the steps below to copy or forecast a budget: 1. In Records, click Budgets. 2. Select Budget, Budget Tools from the menu bar. 3. Select Copy/Forecast budget and click Next. 4. Select the appropriate filters and click Next. 5. In the Select a source scenario frame, select the budget scenario and fiscal year you want to copy. This will be the basis of the forecasted budget. 6. In the Select a destination scenario frame, select the budget scenario and fiscal year to which you want to copy the source budget. This is the budget you are forecasting.  7. Select the periods you want to copy. 8. Select Budget, Actuals, or Actuals Encumbrance from the copy drop-down list. 9. Select either Amount or Percent to copy, click Next. 10. Verify the information is correct and click Copy/Forecast Now. 11. Click OK once completed.   Be sure to watch the brief video below to see the entire process of copying a budget: Below is an in depth example of how the forecasting portion of the tool uses current actuals to project future budget amounts:   more

With the new fiscal year quickly approaching, you’ll be diving into our   Budget Management  module . This is an optional module, which allows for project, account and grant budgets to all be located in one record. One of my favorite time-saving benefits of Budget Management is Budget Tools. more

Do you need to copy your existing budget into Excel to make modifications, manipulate or send to a coworker? This is one of the most common requests we receive this time of year and the best part is: it is entirely possible and can be done in a matter of seconds*.   From your open Budget Scenario: Click into a row Click Edit from the top toolbar ... more

Where is my Net Surplus/Deficit amount coming from?   The Net Surplus/Deficit is calculated at the time the Financial Statement is run using the following equation: Net Surplus/Deficit = Revenue – Expenses + Gifts – Transfers + Gains –Losses .   If you want to know which transactions make up that value, you must report on the ... more

Towards year-end, there are many questions about Net Surplus/Deficit and Net Asset amounts. It is important to know which reports to compare at year end to ensure we are comparing apples to apples. Below are two of the main questions I hear:   In what order should I compare my reports? How do these all relate? 1.Run your Trial Balance Report for ... more

Depending on who is requesting reports, we must tailor the way we present information. Within Financial Edge reports, there are a variety of settings that play into how a report looks. We have covered the chart templates in our previous posts; I would like to point out a few features that may be overlooked. Within each report parameter, there are ... more

Join us during this season for FREE end of fiscal year webinars on popular topics. Mark your calendars for the webinars listed below. Click the date(s) to register; you will be taken to the event page where you may click the Register link next to the Event Status. These classes are free, so be sure to share this blog post or registration links with your ... more

In order for us to post to future dates, the fiscal year must be defined within the system. If it is not, we will receive errors when posting and/or entering records to future dates. “The post date must be in an open fiscal period” is a message indicating the date selected is either in a closed fiscal period/year or in a fiscal period/year that has not yet been ... more

More often than not, auditors request specific information regarding transactions within the system. Occasionally, their request(s) may require more than one report or less information than is in a current report. One of the most frequent requests I receive is for a report that shows detailed information on Journal Entry transactions sorted by ... more

Effectively reporting on your budgets is an important part of running your Financial Statements. It allows your organization to see where your actual amounts stand in comparison to your budgeted amounts. When running our Income Statements, we have the capability to add additional columns for our Budgets, Adjusted Budgets, Budget ... more

It’s that time of year again! We’re getting ready to close the books on our fiscal year and the Balance Sheet becomes even more important than it already is. Everybody expects their balance sheet to balance, so it can be quite stressful when setting up your balance sheet only to find out it is out-of-balance. While this can definitely cause some worry, the ... more

Starting today, this blog will be moved to our new Financial Edge Online Community ! In our community, you will find resources for FundWare and much more! This blog will remain as a resource but no more new posts will be published here. Head on over to the community for the latest and greatest in Fundware blogs and much more. We hope to see you around the ... more

Are you interested in designing your Financial Statements to best suit your organization? Would you like to change the grouping of accounts depending on your audience? This post will introduce you to Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) template headers and detail lines and explain how they can be used to tailor your reporting to your organization’s ... more

When running reports, you may occassionally notice that there are accounts that are nowhere to be found, accounts showing in more than one spot, or totals that are not what we were expecting. When this happens, my first step is to check the template being used for that report. We manage templates within General Ledger’s Visual Chart ... more

Starting today, this blog will be moved to our new Financial Edge Online Community ! This blog will remain as a resource but no more new posts will be published here. Head on over to the community for the latest and greatest in Financial Edge blogs and much more. We hope to see you around the community!   more

For many organizations, the end of the fiscal year is approaching. For most, this means an abundance of reports, budgeting, and overall system clean up. Similar to posts throughout the end of year tax season, we will be posting resources covering the common practices for this time of year. Posts will include tips, answers to frequently asked ... more

To help you get started, the Financial Edge Community provides several sources of information including discussion forums, blogs, events, resources and product ideas.   Discussions The Financial Edge forums include discussions specific to Financial Edge with great insight from other users You can follow specific forum categories in ... more

If you haven’t checked out our new  Knowledgebase , you’re missing out! We want to hear from you! Your feedback will help us continue to shape your Knowledgebase experience. It’s easy as pie to get started: Go to our new Knowledgebase Preview Page:  https://www.blackbaud.com/knowledgebase/kbpreview.aspx ... more

Does this scenario sound familiar? You interviewed for months and found just the right candidate for an open position. Your team is excited about the new addition. You quickly make the offer, complete the stacks of paperwork, and set up the work area. Then this amazing new hire unexpectedly leaves after only a few months. “Well,” you say to yourself, ... more

There will be two more Support Web seminars on how to complete and troubleshoot the Aatrix installation for Accounts Payable 1099’s in the Financial Edge. These new web seminars will be held Tuesday, 1/27/15 at 2 p.m. ET and on Wednesday, 1/28/15 at 1 p.m. ET Click on the link below to register for the session. When you arrive on the page, make sure to click ... more

There will be a FREE Support Web seminar how to complete and troubleshoot the Aatrix installation for Accounts Payable 1099's in the Financial Edge. This web seminar will be held Monday, 1/26/15 at 2 p.m. ET. Click on the link below to register for the session. When you arrive on the page, make sure to click 'REGISTER' on the left hand side to complete your ... more

During this time of year, W-2 processing is on everyone’s mind.  So how do you prepare and print W-2 forms in The Financial Edge? Follow these  detailed steps  to help get you successfully through the process from start to finish! Sometimes, we may need to take some additional steps. For example, it may be necessary for ... more

During this time of year, W-2 processing is on everyone’s mind.  So how do you prepare and print W-2 forms in The Financial Edge? Follow these  detailed steps  to help get you successfully through the process from start to finish! Sometimes, we may need to take some additional steps. For example, it may be necessary for your organization to  insert an ... more

It's about that time! Today, I wanted to provide you with an overview the process of creating 1099s. As you have likely read in our other blogs, there have been some process changes. We can print and prepare our 1099 forms through the Accounts Payable module in Mail>Forms. Befor processing, we want to verify that we have rights in The Financial Edge to ... more

Because this is our first year using Aatrix to process our 1099s, I wanted to share some tips and tricks on the preparer grid. There are a few things we can do to adjust how the preparer grid looks. When you are on the W2/1099 Preparer Grid, you will notice the grid is sectioned off. You can drag the divider to expand or hide one of the sections. To drag the ... more

Because this is our first year using Aatrix to process our 1099s, I wanted to share some tips and tricks on the preparer grid. There are a few things we can do to adjust how the preparer grid looks. When you are on the W2/1099 Preparer Grid, you will notice the grid is sectioned off. You can drag the divider to expand or hide one of the sections. To drag the ... more

In December, our Analysts hosted both a Payroll and an Accounts Payable end of year processing Webinar. These sessions were an overview of W2 and 1099 processing. For those of you who were unable to attend, or for those of you who want to review what was gone over, have no fear - we recorded the sessions so that you would not miss out. Click the links below to ... more

As you all know, it’s time to process those W-2s again. In order to help successfully complete your W-2s, I wanted to go over a few helpful tools with you. We can all be more prepared for deadlines by making any W-2 corrections ahead of time.  W-2 information can be verified by reviewing records, reports, and settings in Configuration.  ... more

As you all know, it’s time to process those W-2s again. In order to help successfully complete your W-2s, I wanted to go over a few helpful tools with you. We can all be more prepared for deadlines by making any W-2 corrections ahead of time.  W-2 information can be verified by reviewing records, reports, and settings in Configuration.  One report most ... more

Our Financial Edge End of Year Contest has ended and we have a final winner! Please join us in congratulating Marj Dasher from FAHE. She will be receiving a $25 Staples gift card from Blackbaud. Thank you to all who participated in our contest this year. January is upon us, so please continue to access all of the end-of-year resources we have available to ... more

When reviewing your 1099 Activity Report, you may come across amounts that are lower or higher than expected for a vendor. We see this happen when one or more of the following scenarios occurs: The vendor was marked as a 1099 vendor mid-year and no adjustments were made for prior invoices. Default 1099 distribution was entered mid-way through the ... more

When reviewing your 1099 Activity Report, you may come across amounts that are lower or higher than expected for a vendor. We see this happen when one or more of the following scenarios occurs: The vendor was marked as a 1099 vendor mid-year and no adjustments were made for prior invoices. Default 1099 distribution was entered mid-way through the year. ... more

With a new year come new tax rates. Before the first Payroll is calculated, a new tax table must be added within Payroll's Configuration. For complete steps, visit our solution on  how to add or update Federal, State or Local tax tables . Although you are able to edit existing tax tables, we suggest creating a new table each year for a clear ... more

With a new year come new tax rates. Before the first Payroll is calculated, a new tax table must be added within Payroll's Configuration. For complete steps, visit our solution on how to add or update Federal, State or Local tax tables . Although you are able to edit existing tax tables, we suggest creating a new table each year for a clear audit trail. The ... more

We have the third winner in our Financial Edge End of Year Contest! Please join us in congratulating Jasmine Shah from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Inc. She will be receiving a $25 Staples gift card from Blackbaud. There is just ONE MORE chance to win! You must leave a comment on this blog post or send an email to feeoycontest@blackbaud.com ... more

Aatrix has added an enhancement to the eFile process:  94x Series Signatures.  To maintain compliance with the Federal Modernized eFile system, when you choose a Federal 94x series form (941, 940, 944, or 945) to be eFiled, you will receive a prompt for selecting a signature method for the Form 8453-EMP. This process replaces the ... more

Aatrix has added an enhancement to the eFile process:  94x Series Signatures. To maintain compliance with the Federal Modernized eFile system, when you choose a Federal 94x series form (941, 940, 944, or 945) to be eFiled, you will receive a prompt for selecting a signature method for the Form 8453-EMP. This process replaces the application for a 94x 10 ... more

We have another winner in our Financial Edge End of Year Contest! Please join us in congratulating Tonya Lawler from St. Edmond Catholic School. She will be receiving a $25 Staples gift card from Blackbaud. You still have TWO more chances to win! Just leave a comment on this blog post or send an email to feeoycontest@blackbaud.com telling us that you've ... more

Towards the end of December / early January each year, Blackbaud releases an end-of-year update as a patch that ensures compliance with various forms, such as the 1099 form and W-2. You must install the end-of-year update before processing your W-2s and 1099s. In order to install the end of year patch, you  must  be using the latest version of ... more

Towards the end of December / early January each year, Blackbaud releases an end-of-year update as a patch that ensures compliance with various forms, such as the 1099 form and W-2. You must install the end-of-year update before processing your W-2s and 1099s. In order to install the end of year patch, you must be using the latest version of the Financial ... more

We have the first winner in our Financial Edge End of Year Contest!   Please join us in congratulating Sarah Curts from Friends of Acadia . She will be receiving a $25 Staples gift card from Blackbaud. If you would also like a chance to win, please comment on this blog post or send an email to feeoycontest@blackbaud.com telling us that you've installed and ... more

In the next few weeks we will release our end-of-year update for The Financial Edge that ensures compliance with various tax regulations. You must install the update to ensure compliance with 1099 forms, 1096 forms, W-2s, and W-3s. On your Blackbaud.com profile, you can subscribe to Software Update Notifications, a maintenance benefit, to receive ... more

In the next few weeks we will release our end-of-year update for The Financial Edge that ensures compliance with various tax regulations. You must install the update to ensure compliance with 1099 forms, 1096 forms, W-2s, and W-3s. On your Blackbaud.com profile, you can subscribe to Software Update Notifications, a maintenance benefit, to receive ... more

    Tax season is here again and it’s time to start preparing 1099s for your vendors as well as reconciling Accounts Payable to the General Ledger. To help you prepare for this annual process, here’s a list of our most popular Knowledgebase solutions and online resources for The Financial Edge specific to Accounts Payable. Get ahead ... more

Tax season is here again and it’s time to start preparing 1099s for your vendors as well as reconciling Accounts Payable to the General Ledger. To help you prepare for this annual process, here’s a list of our most popular Knowledgebase solutions and online resources for The Financial Edge specific to Accounts Payable. Get ahead of the curve by ... more

Save up to 15% off Blackbaud Forms!   The new option to eFile U.S.1099-MISC tax filings in the Financial Edge means you now have another choice whether to buy our vetted, compatible, pre-printed paper tax forms. Our Best Practice recommendation is that you eFile your taxes rather than print to paper forms. You may still want to use paper tax forms if you ... more

If your organization has updated the Financial Edge to the latest version, 7.87, you may have noticed there have been some added features. You may have also seen some blog posts referencing ‘Aatrix’. One of the main changes we have made involves our 1099 processing. Blackbaud is happy to announce we are now processing 1099 forms using ... more

If your organization has updated the Financial Edge to the latest version, 7.87, you may have noticed there have been some added features. You may have also seen some blog posts referencing ‘Aatrix’. One of the main changes we have made involves our 1099 processing. Blackbaud is happy to announce we are now processing 1099 forms using Aatrix tax ... more

Get ahead of the game by adding your new fiscal year in General Ledger and new schedules in Payroll The first things I recommend setting up to prepare for a new year is the Fiscal Year within General Ledger and Schedule(s) within Payroll. By establishing a Fiscal Year and schedule, you are letting Financial Edge recognize the new year. This task can be done ... more

Get ahead of the game by adding your new fiscal year in General Ledger and new schedules in Payroll The first things I recommend setting up to prepare for a new year is the Fiscal Year within General Ledger and Schedule(s) within Payroll. By establishing a Fiscal Year and schedule, you are letting Financial Edge recognize the new year. This task can be done ... more

It’s that time again - time to prepare for End-of-Year within The Financial Edge! To help with that, we have a variety of resources at your disposal. After positive feedback from users last year, we are once again hosting End-of-Year Webinars for Accounts Payable and Payroll. These webinars are designed to review setup, common tasks and ... more

It’s nearing the end of the year and The Financial Edge Support team is gearing up for tax season! We know it can be a busy time for accountants, and we want to make sure you are prepared. There have been some big changes with the way 1099s are processed through Financial Edge, and we will have a wealth of resources devoted to making your 1099 process a breeze ... more

It’s that time again - time to prepare for End-of-Year within The Financial Edge! To help with that, we have a variety of resources at your disposal. After positive feedback from users last year, we are once again hosting End-of-Year Webinars for Accounts Payable and Payroll. These webinars are designed to review setup, common tasks and reporting, as ... more

Can you believe it? The holiday season is already upon us and another annual event within The Financial Edge is happening, too. You've likely read our posts about installing and registering Aatrix, but we also must update our forms. Although the update is not currently available, it is almost time to update Aatrix forms for the 2014 tax year. This update ... more

It is that time of year again! Preparations for year-end and tax reports are likely beginning at your organization. One key function of tax season is installing  Aatrix . This process can be done in advance; there is no time too early to prepare. Aatrix is the third-party software that manages all Federal and State tax forms, now including 1099s, in ... more

In our previous post,  we talked about installing Aatrix to use with The Financial Edge. Now, we will discuss some easy steps for registering Aatrix tax forms within The Financial Edge. This registration process is done annually and your registration code lasts for twelve months. If your registration code has expired, your forms will print with a ... more

It is that time of year again! Preparations for year-end and tax reports are likely beginning at your organization. One key function of tax season is installing Aatrix . This process can be done in advance; there is no time too early to prepare. Aatrix is the third-party software that manages all Federal and State tax forms, now including 1099s, in ... more

Don't let year end deadlines get ahead of you. Check out our Financial Edge Calendar! Do you use a calendar to help manage assigned tasks? If so, we’ve created a useful shared calendar with reminders and resources to assist with upcoming deadlines. This calendar is filled with important dates and helpful resources for The ... more

Don't let year end deadlines get ahead of you. Check out our Financial Edge Calendar! Do you use a calendar to help manage assigned tasks? If so, we’ve created a useful shared calendar with reminders and resources to assist with upcoming deadlines. This calendar is filled with important dates and helpful resources for The Financial Edge. We have ... more

We invite you to read more about the new Knowledgebase changes happening here in Support. Check it out:   New Knowledgebase Changes . If you want to be in the know, make sure to   subscribe   to our Support News blog! more

As part of the fourth quarter update to The Financial Edge, we are enhancing our ability to meet your organization’s tax reporting needs by partnering with industry expert Aatrix . We offer e-filing options for over 330 U.S. federal and state forms, and now include 1099-MISC tax reporting. The Aatrix integration combines your data with their content ... more

What’s your favorite report? If you ask most Accountants which financial report they like the most, you probably will hear the Income Statement or P&L report. The Financial Edge reports are fundamental to your organization and can be used in many ways. We want to make sure that you have the tools to show performance over a period of time while using ... more

It’s that time of year again, when we’re getting ready to close the books on our fiscal year and the Balance Sheet becomes even more important than it already is. Everybody expects their balance sheet to balance, so it can be quite stressful when setting up your balance sheet only to find out it is out of balance. While this can definitely cause some worry, ... more

It’s that time of year again, when we’re getting ready to close the books on our fiscal year and the Balance Sheet becomes even more important than it already is. Everybody expects their balance sheet to balance, so it can be quite stressful when setting up your balance sheet only to find out it is out of balance. While this can definitely cause some worry, ... more

When running reports, sometimes we notice that there are accounts that are nowhere to be found, accounts showing in more than one spot, or totals that are not what we were expecting. When this happens, my first step is to check the template being used for that report. We manage templates within General Ledger’s Visual Chart Organizer. Chart validation ... more

Are you wondering how to see your reports in a new and exciting way for the start of the fiscal year? If so, editing your Visual Chart Organizer is the answer for you! As you know, each Visual Chart Organizer (VCO) is a template that defines how our accounts appear when we run Financial Statements and other reports in The Financial Edge. You may be asking ... more

Ever wonder how to better organize your reports in The Financial Edge and place similar accounts together in an easy-to-read way? Did you know that the visual format of your financial statements is controlled by a chart template created in the Visual Chart Organizer (VCO)? If not, don’t worry! This blog entry will introduce you to VCO headers and detail ... more

Have you recently created or copied a budget? Have you allotted all of the appropriate amounts?  Do you believe that you are done with entering your budget? If that is the case, then you are ready to finalize your budget. Finalizing your budget will lock the budget period amounts for a scenario. To finalize your budget, simply select Budget ... more

Have you recently created or copied a budget? Have you allotted all of the appropriate amounts?  Do you believe that you are done with entering your budget? If that is the case, then you are ready to finalize your budget. Finalizing your budget will lock the budget period amounts for a scenario. To finalize your budget, simply select Budget from the menu ... more

Do you love movies? How about The Financial Edge? If you answered yes to both of those questions then Support has great news for you! Support is excited to introduce our channel on YouTube. We’ve been hard at work, creating and uploading videos for The Financial Edge. We know there are some questions that are easier to answer when you can see the ... more

Do you love movies? How about The Financial Edge? If you answered yes to both of those questions then Support has great news for you! Support is excited to introduce our channel on YouTube. We’ve been hard at work, creating and uploading videos for The Financial Edge. We know there are some questions that are easier to answer when you can see the steps in ... more

Thank you for joining us for the second edition of Budget Imports- DEMYSTIFIED! In the first blog, we discussed required fields and how to find the Budget Scenario Import ID. Once your CSV file is created with the required fields, we can walk through validating our import! Let’s navigate to General Ledger, Administration, Import Records, and ... more

You may be thinking to yourself, “Importing into The Financial Edge can be tricky!” In this blog, we will discuss key details in importing budgets and what is required to successfully import without any of those pesky exceptions! In order to import either an Account Budget or a Project Budget into The Financial Edge, we will need to have a CSV file with ... more

Entering budgets can be a time consuming and time-sensitive part of maintaining organizational finances, but it’s also an important step in setting your organization up for successful spending in the year ahead. The process also can be tricky when changing budget amounts year to year. The Copy/Forecast tool in the optional module Budget Management ... more

Many of us will be closing Fiscal Years soon and that means that we will also need to create a Budget for the new year. You have the option of creating a Fiscal year budget so that you can create a budget for a single fiscal year or creating a Period Range budget to create a budget that spans multiple fiscal years. Today, we are going to take a look at creating new ... more

You’re probably getting ramped up for the start of your new fiscal year! With the new fiscal year quickly approaching, you’ll probably be looking towards the exciting world of Budget Management within The Financial Edge. This is an optional module, which allows for project, account, and grant budgets to all be conveniently located in one place in The ... more

Have you ever thought to yourself, "I just wish I could see my Budget in Excel exactly the way I have it set up in The Financial Edge without the hassle of creating a detailed export or query"? This is one of the most common requests this time of year that I hear from our clients. The best part is- this is 100% possible. When working in General Ledger, Records, ... more

Did you know that Blackbaud has Chat Support? You may know about our Phone Support but Chat Support is becoming even more popular and Blackbaud is looking to have even more clients give it a try. If you haven't tried Chat Support before, we are offering three $25.00 gift cards when you try Chat Support for the first time and every time you use Chat Support in ... more

What we will be discussing is designed for those with the Projects, Grants, and Endowments Module, but if you do not have this module, don’t feel left out, as there are other types of default distributions that are available to you as well. For example, you are able to utilize Transaction distributions to make distributing activity to classes and ... more

What we will be discussing is designed for those with the Projects, Grants, and Endowments Module, but if you do not have this module, don’t feel left out, as there are other types of default distributions that are available to you as well. For example, you are able to utilize Transaction distributions to make distributing activity to classes and ... more

You've finally tackled your spending plan and entered all of the account budgets for the year. Whew! Then you remember your projects...uh oh! Luckily, in The Financial Edge, there is an easy way that we can distribute account budgets to the projects that use the accounts. Our optional module, Budget Management, makes your life easier by allowing you to ... more

Want to be more prepared for ending your Fiscal Year? Want to feel confident in using the tools that are available to you? If so, we have some great news! The Financial Edge support team will be presenting a web seminar on Thursday, June 19 at 2:00 p.m. ET and Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. ET to give a high-level overview of end of fiscal year tasks. We will ... more

Need to reach a Financial Edge Support Analyst for assistance but you don't have time to call Support? Chat Support is the way to go! No matter the level of complexity, our expert analysts are ready to troubleshoot and resolve your Financial Edge issues through Chat Support . We assist with reporting issues, closing fiscal years, posting, voiding ... more

Closing a fiscal year is an easy process to complete in your data but, every now and then, you might receive an error and may not be sure where to go. There are three main issues that lead to errors when closing a fiscal year.   There are unposted transactions in The Financial Edge for the fiscal year All users are not logged out of the database(s) Blackbaud ... more

Do you work with payables? Do you think the only important records are the invoice and the check?  I’m here to tell you that knowing and managing your vendor records can greatly improve your efficiency and help you keep costs down for your organization.  Don’t believe me?  Well, consider payment discounts for starters. Are you taking full advantage of ... more

Do you send your constituents quarterly financial statements using data from The Financial Edge? Do you spend hours creating these reports manually? The custom report writing team can create these statements for you and help automate the process. Contact your Account Executive or email solutions@blackbaud.com for more information. more

During tax season, making sure that W-2 forms are generated, printed, and correct is on everyone’s mind.  So how do you prepare and print W-2 forms in The Financial Edge? Follow these detailed steps to help get you successfully through the process! All your forms should generate correctly, but sometimes certain instances can occur that cause for a few ... more

For many of you the new calendar year also means a new fiscal year.  Part of moving into a new fiscal year is closing out the 2013 fiscal year!  To help simplify the year-end close, here are some helpful Knowledgebase documents to get you through the process. The most frequent error received in closing the year end is “Posting in Process – please try ... more

First things first, are 1099 Forms missing from your Mail section in Accounts Payable? Typically, this is due to security rights that are setup in you Financial Edge database. If this is occurring for you, we have some steps that can assist with getting 1099 Forms showing in Mail . If not, then you are set to go ahead and create 1099s now in Accounts Payable. ... more

The new year is here and its time to prepare 1099s for Vendors and also reconcile Accounts Payable to the General Ledger. Here are a few tips that will help you stay organized for the year-end process. You can review the 1099 information to verify the vendor information is correct before running Form 1099 by running a 1099 Vendor Activity Report and also ... more

There are many FundWare End-of-Year Resources available to you!  Take a look at what’s out there and leave us some comments.  Let us know what you find helpful, and what we can do for you next year! Knowledgebase solutions: How to View/Print tax forms for 2013 2013 tax forms show 2011 when printing the forms through Forms Manager How to install the Year End ... more

Time sure does fly when you’re using The Financial Edge! Can you believe that it’s 2014? I bet that you have some Payroll questions regarding end-of-year procedures. We’re here to help! Let’s walk through some important steps. In Payroll, Configuration, you will find options to add a New Pay Type, New Benefit, and New Deduction. When adding new Pay ... more

The Payroll Toolbox for 2014 is here!   The first step is to install Toolbox A . Note : If you need your blackbaud.com login or don't know if you have one, click the Can't log in?  button on the Log In page. You will be prompted to enter your email address and will then receive an email with your user name and a link to reset your password, if you have one. For the ... more

Happy New Year!  Just a reminder to all of you who have Fiscal Years that ends on December 31st…. Instead of having to stop everything when someone tries to post that first January entry, you can set up your date tables right now for the next fiscal year.  Creating these date tables now, before the new fiscal year begins, will have you ready to go with posting ... more

The first thing to setup is the Fiscal Year. This is located within General Ledger and under Configuration. Once in Configuration select Fiscal Years. To create a new fiscal year, select New Fiscal Year and enter in a Fiscal Year ID and Description. We suggest keeping the ID and Description similar year over year for consistency. Example: Fiscal Year ID ... more

If you are a Bi-Weekly Payroll operation and your desire is to pay on a particular day of the week and that particular day of the week falls on the first day of the new fiscal year, you will need to set up a schedule for 27 pay periods. Below are the steps on how to set up a 2014 Bi-Weekly pay schedule with 27 periods. You will need to log into The Financial Edge and go ... more

In the next few weeks we will release our end-of-year update for The Financial Edge that ensures compliance with various tax regulations.   You must install the update to ensure compliance with 1099 forms, 1096 forms, W-2s, W-3s, and magnetic media file changes. You can subscribe to Software Update Notifications, a maintenance benefit, to receive ... more

Tax season is here again and it's time to start preparing 1099s for your vendors and reconciling Accounts Payable to the General Ledger. To help you with this annual process, here's a list of our most popular Knowledgebase solutions and online resources for The Financial Edge broken down by process.  Get ahead of the curve by verifying vendor ... more

If you use a calendar to help manage your work and time, we've created a useful calendar for you with important dates and timely resources for The Financial Edge! We have created this calendar as an additional tool to help you make the most of your accounting software. The calendar includes links to various resources, including Knowledgebase articles ... more

The end of the year is approaching and the beginning of tax season is around the corner… are you as prepared as you want to be? If your answer is not a resounding “Yes”, fear not! We want you to feel all warm and fuzzy when you work in The Financial Edge. We have prepared a webinar on how to make the most of your Financial Edge software. We will show you what tools ... more

2013 has flown by and we’re gearing up for an excellent 2014! Our Development Staff and QA team are busy programming and testing the 2013 Year-End updates. As always, you will be required to download a Year-End update (YESB) prior to processing W-2s and 1099s.  Please carefully review the installation instructions as improper installation will lead ... more

Do you want to use your Accounts Payable system more efficiently? Of course you do! We all love saving time and being able to get more items checked off our to-do list. Maybe refreshing or even creating a policies and procedures guide is on your list. With these thoughts in mind, we’ve created Configuring Accounts Payable in The Financial Edge , a new three ... more

Last time we talked about updating and installing Aatrix in The Financial Edge .  Today, we will be talking and going through the steps of registration of Aatrix tax forms within The Financial Edge. This registration process is done annually and it is a 12 month registration code you receive. Registering your Aatrix forms for Financial Edge can be done ... more

It’s that time again! Time to prepare for End-of-Year Processes in The Financial Edge! To help with that, we are once again hosting End-of-Year Webinars for Accounts Payable and Payroll. These webinars are designed to review setup, common tasks and reporting, as well as configuring your system for the New Year.  Please plan to join us as we will have ... more

Tax forms from Blackbaud Forms™ are IRS-approved and guaranteed to be compatible with The Financial Edge and FundWare™. We've bundled our most popular forms with premium envelopes and transmittal forms to offer great savings for you. Now through December 31, save 10% when you include an additional Blackbaud Forms item, excluding membership cards ... more

It’s that time of year again. While the holiday season is upon us and Christmas is nearby; another annual event within The Financial Edge is happening also. It is time to update Aatrix forms for 2014. This includes State and Federal Tax reports in Accounts Payable and Payroll. Throughout the year, you may have come across quarterly updates on state ... more

Let’s talk about financial reports. You know… balance sheets, income statements – the basic reports we all use to measure and analyze our financial position.  In The Financial Edge, your financial statements are yours to design.  Who’s your audience?  How do they like to see the information?  Whatever needs you have, you can build a report that meets ... more

For those of you that post gifts from The Raiser’s Edge to The Financial Edge, one very important posting option that affects Journal Entry is not found in The Financial Edge.  Over the years, I’ve worked with many organizations unaware they could select an option better suited to their needs.  What is this important option, you ask? When posting to the ... more

On Monday, October 21, we released version 7.86 of The Financial Edge. This release includes enhancements to WebPortal, Purchase Orders, and the Aged Accounts Receivable report. We also added support for Windows 2012, Windows 8, and SQL Server 2012. Here are some details around those enhancements: WebPortal With this release, we added a business ... more

Every finance office runs financial statements, but are you really taking advantage of all the options provided in these important reports? On October 22 at 1:00pm ET and October 31 at 1:30pm ET, I will be presenting a special Learn Lab session entitled “ Advanced Techniques - Get Fresh look at GL Financial Statements ” (Note: this is the same session ... more

Curious about what's next for The Financial Edge? Well that's what I'm here to share with you today. Before I get started, I wanted to first thank all of you who participate in our Idea Bank and Discovery process.  These tools help us determine what we should focus on implementing and improving.  Never heard of these tools?   The Financial Edge Idea Bank is ... more

January will be here before we know it and it will be time to produce those year-end tax forms!  Now is the time to start preparing to ensure there are no unexpected hiccups when you're trying to get these forms out the door! If your FundWare server is running Windows 2000 and you plan to install the 2013 Year-End Service Bulletin (YESB) when it is released at ... more

Fun Fact:  You can be in perfect health and get a prescription.  A prescription for learning all about Journal entry, that is.  Whether you’re new to Blackbaud, new to The Financial Edge, or looking for a refresher in Journal Entry, we have just the thing for you! The Financial Edge Curriculum:  Journal Entry Basics provides multiple methods of ... more

2013 tax forms are available now. Order by October 31, 2013 and you'll receive 15% off your entire order when you purchase an additional item (excluding membership cards and thermal ticket stock) along with your tax forms order. Over-the-counter tax forms can be risky. Our tax forms are satisfaction guaranteed. They have received IRS approval and are ... more

When working in Accounts Payable you may have seen an obligation seem to randomly disappear into the abyss and wonder what in the world happened to it.  It seems that something came and snatched the obligation right out of your system! Obligations can disappear after some types of system failures during regular Accounts Payable processing.  During ... more

Have you ever had Obligation in Accounts Payable show in red but not know why?  When Obligations show in red, it indicates that the Business Date that you are signed in with is earlier than the last date posted on the Obligation. Your Business Date is used as the Posting Date for each stage of the Obligation.  You cannot perform any Obligation task with a ... more

Budget records are great tools, especially when they are incorporated into reports like the Income Statement, giving you a full 360° view of your expenses and their projections. Where exactly to begin though?  With Budget Management (an optional General Ledger module) we can add full budgets to the system. Each budget record has 3 identifying parts: ... more

In my previous blog we took a look at entering budgets into the records. If you missed it, check out  Part II of the Budget Breakdown series. Today, in Part III we will be looking at Budget Tools and some of the most used tools during budget creations within The Financial Edge. To access the Budget Tools you must open the Budget record and go to Budget > Budget ... more

For many of you it’s time to kick-start the new fiscal year for 2013/2014.  Part of this kick-start is closing out the 2012/2013 fiscal year!  To help simplify the year-end close we have compiled a list of some helpful FundWare Knowledgebase documents to get you through the process. The most frequent error received in closing the year end is “Posting in ... more

Last time, in Part I of our Budget Breakdown series, we looked at creating a budget record in The Financial Edge. Today, we will discuss entering budgets through Budget Manager. These next few steps allow you to begin to report on budgets and have the budgets ready for the year ahead. Now, that you have your budget record created we are ready to enter some ... more

Do you have Queries that you run regularly? Do you rename the columns when you export to Microsoft Excel? Here's a tip to save you some time! We can rename columns directly within the Query's Output so that they actually reflect what they are reporting. Let's walk through an example together. Let's say you've crafted a Query in Accounts Payable to show you ... more

The Financial Edge team will present a webinar on Thursday, June 27 at 2:00 p.m. ET to give a high-level overview of end of fiscal year tasks. We will review reporting for fiscal year end, budgeting, and organizational/maintenance tasks to perform within your database. This is for users who need to review since their last fiscal year end. Register today ... more

Just a friendly reminder to all of you who have Fiscal Years that end on June 30…. Instead of having to stop everything when someone tries to post that first July entry, you can set up your date tables right now for the next fiscal year.  Creating these date tables now, before the new fiscal year begins, will have you ready to go with posting when the current ... more

In Part 1 of this Fiscal Year Refresher we covered the differences between soft closing and hard closing a fiscal year. In this post, we'll discuss three slightly less common actions we can perform for our fiscal years in The Financial Edge. Rather than seeing these options as big mysterious red buttons, we'll take a brief look at each to demystify them. ... more

During this time of year with closing out fiscal years and starting the new year, we often need to create the fiscal budget. This allows us to start budgeting for the year ahead and begin to compare numbers against the prior fiscal year. Today, we will look at creating the budget and getting it set up to enter in the budget account information and totals. To ... more

[caption id="attachment_5661" align="aligncenter" width="290"] Image courtesy of Tommaso Galli .[/caption]   We’re quickly approaching the end of many organizations’ fiscal year. This is a perfect opportunity to review how we close fiscal years. While The Financial Edge can retain an unlimited number of open fiscal years, there are two main ... more

Get excited!!  A new version of The Financial Edge is right around the corner! To aid in the excitement, please watch the following video about report enhancements: Start thinking of the Tags you want now!! What’s that ?   Yes, we heard you and made improvements to WebPurchasing and WebInvoicing.  Starting in 7.85 you can add attachments to requisition ... more

Have you ever wanted to see how certain payroll data items are calculated and how the system arrives at the amount you see in the detail of an employee’s net pay calculation? With the PYCTNE.L## (Calculation Trace Report), you can see just that! This report can be used to help confirm the data item is setup to give the correct amount or it can help ... more

Looking for The Financial Edge training? Here is a list of regional training available in June. If you would like to search our entire training library, be sure to check out  Training Central . If there are no seats left in the class you are trying to sign up for, please add yourself to the wait list or email  Training Help to see if we can help get you a seat. ... more

FundWare’s backend data is made up of both Cobol data files and a SQL database.  The Accounts Receivable 7 and Budget Prep data resides completely within the SQL database, whereas other modules, such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Payroll, have pieces both in the SQL database and Cobol data files.  The Cobol data lives in the data files ... more

Blackbaud Forms introduces FraudArmor, a fully managed service that provides protection, remediation, and recovery services for a range of financial and non-financial fraud. Sold with a specific run of checks, FraudArmor covers any type of fraud that happens to the bank account or checks associated with that check order. This includes account ... more

If your organization has enabled trusted publishers in Microsoft Excel (meaning that you will not allow unsigned add-ins to run inside Excel), the certificates for F9 for The Financial Edge (F9) versions 4.5 and 5.1 will expire on April 10, 2013. To prevent issues in F9 and allow the add-in to continue to be trusted (used) in Microsoft Excel, your ... more

Purchase envelopes with your Canadian check order and receive 10% off your entire order with promotion code BAJD10CAN *. Place your order with Blackbaud Forms today by calling 866.422.3676 or email  forms@blackbaud.com !   *Offer available to only Canadian-based nonprofit organizations. One offer per organization; may not be combined with any ... more

Do you need to summarize the General Ledger Detail report by Account Code?   The custom report writing team can create this report for you.  Contact your Account Manager for more information.     more

Many organizations’ fiscal years end on December 31.  In order to simplify year-end close, we are including some helpful Knowledgebase solutions to get you through the process.  The most frequent error received in closing the year end is “Posting in Process – please try later.” To resolve this error, see the Knowledgebase solution Error: Posting in ... more

For those of you that attended our Payroll webinar or for those that weren't able to attend, here is the powerpoint that covers 2013 Medicare tax changes, W-2 adjustments, and more! We also have lots of other end-of year resources available on our website .   more

As you may be aware, new tax legislation was passed by Congress last evening and is slated to be signed by the president today. Once the IRS releases the new tax tables that are a result of this legislation, Blackbaud will immediately begin working on a file to update your Federal tax table. Another notification will be sent once that file is available for ... more

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A  pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” - Bill Vaughn You most likely will be ready to start your new payroll year before you have done anything with W-2s for 2013. In order to process your first January payroll, you have to roll your payroll balances forward.  This brings items like ... more