Bruce Monnery, Director of Finance and Administration, Renfrew Educational Services
Heather Hadden, Associate Manager — Corporate Services, Alberta Children's Hospital

Allocation Management is a powerful tool that can help you accurately allocate investment income and overhead expenses. Learn from two users how the Allocation Management module in The Financial Edge™ can simplify your life by allocating both revenue and expenses. This session will introduce users to the power behind allocations and provide tips for simplifying this process.

Gregory Heath, Enterprise Senior Solutions Engineer, Blackbaud, Inc.

Managing grants received is an embedded feature of The Financial Edge. The feature includes maintaining the grant profile information, tracking transactions through associated projects and a transaction code, establishing and maintaining multi-year budgets, and generating expense reimbursement. This session will focus on creating a grant and the associated information, as well as reporting (with a highlight on dashboards).

Harmon Burstyn, CPA

Before 2008, Form 990 had not been significantly revised since 1979. Yet, exempt organizations have increased in size, diversity, and complexity. Nonprofit groups account for over five percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, contribute $1.0 trillion to the economy, employ millions of people, have international operations, and have multiple revenue streams. Now, there is far more emphasis on the exempt organization's governing body, governance, and management policies, plus its disclosure practices. This session will provide insight and answers on how to comply completely and accurately.

Anthony Tomaino, Product Support Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

We will cover the general theory of reconciliation as it relates to The Financial Edge (how it can be possible that a sub-ledger does not tie out to a general ledger), how to find reconciling items, ways to prevent reconciliation problems in the future, and how to use software controls to assist in controlling data entry that causes issues. We will also discuss, as a group, the best practices you use at your organizations so we can all become more empowered with proven processes.

James Bradley, Senior Solutions Engineer, Financial Solutions Team, Blackbaud, Inc.

F9® is an easy-to-use financial reporting tool that dynamically links The Financial Edge General Ledger (GL) data to Microsoft® Excel®. Excel® users already know how valuable spreadsheets are for financial reporting. F9 leverages that value by delivering your GL data directly to Excel® through a dynamic link to the most current information with no exports or manual entries required. Join us to learn how this new module for The Financial Edge can improve efficiency, reduce errors, and enhance the value of your financial solution.

Daniel Dalnekoff, Product Support Lead, Financial Edge, Blackbaud, Inc.

Join us to learn how WebPortal helps to control spending, streamline processes, and reduce costs in your organization. WebPortal manages everything electronically, taking purchasing requisitions, invoice requests, check requests, and expense reports to the web. In addition to providing an online window into spending, you can eliminate time- and resource-consuming manual, paper-based processes, while automatically ensuring your organization’s spending policies are applied and enforced.

Nora Isaac, Senior Manager of Information Technology, The ALS Association, Greater Philadelphia Chapter
Jeff Terry, National Account Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

In this seminar, Nora Isaac will explain the transition that The ALS Association, Greater Philadelphia Chapter made as it implemented each Blackbaud product in response to its requirements to fulfill its mission of leading the fight to cure and treat ALS through global, cutting edge research and empowering people with Lou Gehrig's Disease and their families to live fuller lives by providing them with compassionate care and support. From The Financial Edge™ through to their recent implementation of Blackbaud Sphere™, the organization’s staff researched available products to ensure that they chose the best solution to meet their needs. Currently, they have the total solution: an integrated suite of products that handles their financial, fundraising, reporting, and web content requirements. Their decision to standardize on Blackbaud products brings them one trusted vendor, one support system, and products that share information.

Daniel Dalnekoff, Product Support Lead, Financial Edge, Blackbaud, Inc.

Are you ready to unlock the true power of Query? You may already know how to create simple financial queries, but this session will uncover useful query tips, practical uses, and how to use filters and sub-filters to get the specific reports you want. The speaker will cover how to create quick and easy lists, how to merge queries to account for complex filters, and how to use Query effectively with General Ledger account and project information, as well as the other sub-ledgers.

Melissa Hinkleman, Solutions Engineer, Blackbaud, Inc.

Are you a new user of The Financial Edge? Are you an existing user curious about the power of Transaction Codes or the new enhanced budgeting features? If so, you will want to attend this overview of key areas and concepts. This session will introduce you to features such as Transactions Codes that you can use to enhance tracking and financial reporting for your organization. In addition, we will take a look at the new budgeting capabilities within The Financial Edge that will provide you with the ability to budget down to the transaction code level for items such as grants. This session will also help you understand and identify other software-related sessions you may want to attend during the Conference to build your knowledge.

Holly Condon, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Solutions@MBAF

Did you know that the average number of times a document gets copied is 19? Imagine the rainforests we could save if we reduce this by just 50 percent! We can also $ave by reducing the time it takes to file a document, reducing our
usage of filing supplies, eliminating costly off-site storage and fuel to retrieve them…the list goes on! During this session, we will explore document imaging, SharePoint®, and OCR as ways of saving green by going green, because when paper goes digital, organizations become transformed!

Karen Kennelly, Owner and President, K-Squared Consulting

Nonprofit organizations are, and should be, focused on their mission and providing their services to the public. This often outweighs the equal importance of financial accountability, which has not gone without notice by the government and the public in general. This can affect an organization’s ability to sustain and increase its fundraising capacity, as well as its ability to recruit and retain high-level board members, given the increased awareness of a board member’s fiduciary responsibility. An organization can begin to bridge this divide by identifying the key financial indicators, measuring them on an ongoing basis, and communicating the results effectively. It’s important to ensure your constituents understand what they are hearing and, thus, the form/format for communicating the information is vital.

Bruce Monnery, Director of Finance and Administration, Renfrew Educational Services

See how one Blackbaud customer eliminated a labor-intensive fixed assets register converting from a Microsoft® Excel® workbook to the Fixed Assets module in The Financial Edge. Asset additions and deletions have been streamlined and monthly amortization expense is more accurate. This valuable module provides this agency with enhanced fixed asset reporting and has increased the accuracy of acquisition, disposal, and amortization of fixed assets.

Rebeka Mazzone, Director — Rhode Island Region, Accounting Management Solutions, Inc

Do you account for your endowment on a spreadsheet and wish there were a way to capture this information in your accounting system? What impact does the recently passed law on UPMIFA have on your daily accounting and budgeting processes? We will discuss the basics of UPMIFA and what impact it has on your daily accounting and budgeting for your endowment. We will then explore practical tips for setting up your endowments in your accounting software to provide better support and budgeting for your spending. We will explore the process for setting up your chart of accounts to capture the right information and how to use the grant allocation module to reduce the time required to allocate earnings.

Andrew Payne, Product Line Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

Participate in this session to understand how the future Blackbaud financial management solution is being developed to increase your organization’s efficiency and reduce waste/costs in order to improve your mission effectiveness. Join Andrew Payne, product manager, as he describes his vision for the next generation of financial management solutions. This session will require a high level of audience participation and will provide you with the opportunity to impact the product direction.

Susan Budak, Consultant, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)

As of September 15, 2009, the FASB declared that its Accounting Standards Codification is the only source of GAAP for the entities that follow its standards. The Codification includes standards issued by the FASB, AICPA, EITF, and their predecessors. In this session, you will learn how the Codification was crated and how to use it.

Susan Budak, Consultant, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)

Accounting for nonprofit organizations is often the same as accounting for business enterprises. However, there are some significant differences caused by two facts: a nonprofit’s performance can’t be measured by a “bottom line” such as net income and a nonprofit relies on contributions whose use is often restricted by the donor. This session, designed for those that are new to the challenges of accounting and financial reporting by nonprofits, discusses the unique financial reporting model of nonprofits and when you can rely instead on the accounting rules you learned in school or the business world.

Jeff Sobers, Consulting Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

As most of you may already know, key performance indicators (KPI) play a critical role in answering the all-important question, “How is my organization performing?” Attend this session to learn how to set up KPIs in The Financial Edge so you can quickly answer that question. Jeff Sobers, consulting manager at Blackbaud and 2007 Top 10 Speaker, will walk you through how to set up these KPIs in The Financial Edge: cost per dollar raised, event profitability, appeal profitability, pledge turnover, average days outstanding on pledges, accounts payable days outstanding, accounts payable turnover, net asset ratios, and income percentage ratios. And, don’t forget, you can’t manage what you don’t measure!

Andrew Payne, Product Line Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

In this session, Andrew Payne, product line manager, will share his latest research results on the subject of forecasting in the nonprofit organization — including types, purpose, and overall satisfaction with the current state of forecasting. This session will also include a section for audience participation, in addition to a summary of how this topic impacts the next generation financial solutions.