Quickbooks for Non-Profits

Review of Quickbooks Nonprofit Editions

Jun 18, 2007
Estela Kennen

Even the newest, smallest non-profit organization needs accounting software. QuickBooks provides a decent option for small non-profits.

QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software for small sized organizations. It is easy to learn and use, and can create useful basic reports like balance sheets. While it is not the only accounting software option for non-profits, nor even the best one, it is worth considering for small non-profits.

QuickBooks is best for non-profit organizations:

with operating budgets of less than $1 million,
that could use some donor-tracking information, but do not need robust fundraising software
that have different grants and/or programs that need to be tracked separately
that have no or small payrolls

QuickBooks Features

Both QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit (which is customized for non-profit organizations) and the considerably cheaper QuickBooks Pro software have many of the same features:

Can purchase discounted licenses for up to five separate users, with tailored access levels
Tracking Income and expenses
Printing Checks
Computing payroll taxes
Reading bank transactions downloaded from the internet
Creating Invoices and purchase orders
Compatible with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc)

PC users have to option of getting QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit. This Edition of QuickBooks has various features made especially with nonprofits in mind:

Tracking donors and contributions
Creating personalized letters and envelopes for donors
Tracking budgets and finances by program
Preparing IRS Form 990 or Form 990-EZ
Creating other reports specifically for non-profits

As with most software, most users only use a fraction of the available tools in the QuickBooks programs. And most users do not find the Nonprofit features to be worth the extra cost. Many of the features are the same in both versions of QuickBooks, but with different labels. What the nonprofit version calls “donors” is simply a “customer” in the Pro version, and “invoice” becomes a “pledge”.

Customer Support

The Quickbook software comes with various self-help options. Free callback support is available for 30 days after registering the software; however, customer support is uneven. Also, currently, Intuit (QuickBook’s maker) stops providing customer service for software more than three years old.

Setting QuickBooks up

While setting up the basics is easy with QuickBooks, this is not an activity to be taken likely. Before installing the program, map out what the non-profit needs to keep track of, and how best to do so (or have an accountant sit down with whoever will be keeping the non-profit’s books). Changes can always be made after the fact, but that is cumbersome and time-consuming. QuickBooks also allows changes to be made to activities previous tax years, which makes accountants cringe.

Bottom Line

If the non-profit is small and has only basic accounting needs, the bookkeeper/accountant for the non-profit is familiar with QuickBooks, or there is another compelling reason why the organization wants to use QuickBooks, by all means, buy it. QuickBooks Pro (with Payroll, if needed) will probably suit the organization's needs about as well as the Premier Nonprofit Edition.