Name: Product Update Briefing - Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®
Uploaded: 2026-05-07T18:30:56.415Z
Duration: 1 h 2 min 12 s
Description: Product Update Briefing - Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®

Transcript for "Product Update Briefing - Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®": Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT product update briefing for May 2026. My name is Nikki Baldwin, and I'm your principal product marketing manager for Financial Edge NXT. And I'm gonna be passing things over to our product management team in just a few moments. A few housekeeping tips while everyone gets logged in. If you need captions, you can hover over the stage and click the CC button on the bottom of the screen. If you encounter technical issues like no sound or slideshow freezing, a quick refresh of your browser is the best way to get it working. You will get a link to this recording by email within about twenty four hours. Please click on the q and a on the top right to submit any questions that you have throughout the presentation. But when submitting those questions, please make sure to be specific. The more details we have, the better. And please have patience with us as we have a big team in the background working hard to answer your questions as they come in. We will follow the pub with a, FAQ blog per usual in the community later this month for those we couldn't address. Next to Q and A, you should see docs wherein you can access several links and resources we discussed and shared during our presentation and save for future reference. I highly recommend downloading that companion doc right at the top and following along, but it's also a great summary doc to reference after the event. This presentation contains forward looking statements that involve inherent risk, uncertainties, and assumptions. It outlines Blackbaud's current plans and general product direction as of the date this presentation was created. Please keep in mind that while you will get a copy of the recording after the presentation, all slides, images, and content are not to be distributed, shared, or copied in any way. Today, you're gonna be hearing from just a few of our financial at Genex team product management team members, which include Heather Johnson, Regina Okonkwo, Haley Hurwitz, and Russell Fulfor. And for the first time today, I'd like to introduce you to David Farah, our GM and VP of financial products. So I'll go ahead and pass things over to him to let him introduce himself and kick us off. Awesome. Thank you, Nikki. Hi, everyone. So I'm I'm David Farah. Thank you all for being here today. We have a ton of exciting content today, so I'm gonna be, pretty brief, and let the team get into it. But I recently stepped into the role of GM and VP of, financial product pillar here at Blackbaud. I have to say, I am genuinely proud to be stewarding this product pillar. The organizations using the FE NXT are doing such important work in their communities. So this means you deserve the financial software that's rock solid so your teams can focus on your mission instead of just the mechanics. So today, we're gonna show you exactly how we're doing that. So one of the first things I did when when I got into this role was go back to what you've been telling us. What you've been telling us in support conversations, webinars, and feedback sessions, and the message was consistent. You need a system you can trust, not just a system that works most of the time. You need one stable, accurate, and gives your teams the confidence to close fast, reconcile cleanly, and produce reports you can stand behind in front of your boards and your auditors. That feedback is driving how we operate and shaping our roadmap, our priorities, and I think most importantly, the culture of how we build. So we're asking different questions. We're getting very clear on the things that are most important to you. So where's the trust in data breaking down? Where are teams losing time? Where are workarounds replacing what the software should just do? All the things you will hear about today and answer these questions directly for you. And it's not all of it, but it's a really strong start, and it will only get better as we transform. So speaking of that, AI is a big part of where FE NXT is headed, and I'm excited to share what it looks like. So first, the AI we're deploying is grounded in your workflows where you need the most support, things like reconciliation, closing, and reporting. This is not just, technology looking for a problem to solve. Every capability we're building has to earn its place by making your team faster, your data more reliable, and financial operations something you can lead with confidence. Obviously, Financials have to be solid. So secondly, though, it's changing the way we build and operate. We're going through rapid iterations from prototype to production grounded in real customer needs that we're hearing from you. And with that time, we're saving. We're reinvesting in making the highest quality product possible. So stability, accuracy, trustworthiness. That's the standard we're holding ourselves to, and today, I wanna show you what that looks like in practice. So, again, thank you all for being here, and, let's dive in. Off to Heather. Great. Thank you, David. Everyone loves a tech guy that's grounded in our customers. Thanks everyone for being here. We're excited to what the team has to show you today. But before we dive into the features, I want to ground everything you're going to hear today in the vision that guides our work. At the core, financial NXT has a clear purpose, to be a reliable, intelligent, and scalable financial platform built specifically for nonprofits like your organizations. And everything we're doing is anchored in helping your finance teams operate with confidence, move faster, and most importantly, spend less time on the back office operations and more time driving mission. These are our four key pillars that bring this vision to life. Trust is a foundational focus for us. Nonprofit finance is held to extraordinary standards by donors, grantors, boards, regulators, and a reliable and secure platform is nonnegotiable. Smart automation. We're using AI to streamline the workflows that consume your team's time. The goal is simple. Fewer repetitive tasks, more time for meaningful work. And your finance doesn't exist in a vacuum. The more seamlessly data flows across these systems, the less manual work your team carries. The connected ecosystem is a big part of where we're going, including visibility into real time insight into your complete financial picture across your entire organization. And before we talk about the individual features that you're all here to, dive into, I want to just take a moment about how we're building FE NXT today, because the shift is actually the reason the product feels so different than it did a few years ago. David touched on this, but what's changed is the way our product and engineering teams are working. We're moving beyond using AI as just a productivity tool and now using it as an intelligent teammate. That means AI is taking a lot of the routine time consuming work, and so our teams can focus on higher valued innovation and actually getting more in touch with our customers. So think about that as you're throughout this presentation. And as we move through today's presentation, I did wanna take a brief moment to connect outcomes with the capabilities you'll see today and coming soon and how they all tie to three key pillars, increasing efficiency, enhancing accountability, and better data driven decisions. And these outcomes aren't something we invented internally. They came directly from conversations with customers like you. We're talking about giving your team real hours back, not marginal improvements. Time that used to go to manual data entry, hunting down records, running the same input with the wrong field mapping for the third time are now automated. Giving your organization the controls, the audit trail, and the visibility to demonstrate stewardship to your board, your auditors, and the communities you serve. In nonprofit finance, trust is the product. Everything you do is in service of maintaining that trust. Together, we're at school where how they can make an impact on your organization. So let's get started. And before we look ahead, I did just wanna take a moment to say thank you for your partnership, for your patience, and your feedback throughout this journey. What started with understandable apprehension has become something really exciting. Today, many of you aren't just comfortable with WebView. You're eager to leave database view behind. And our newest customers are going live fully in WebView from day one, never looking back. That momentum is what drives us forward. We've extended our timeline to remove database view functionality through the 2026, not because we've slowed down, but because every customer success matters to us. We're continuing to invest in the remaining areas, including banks and payment processing, until everyone can run their full workflows confidently in web. And the path forward is clear. We're moving down it together with transparency, intention, and real world needs leading the way. And you'll see throughout this presentation, some of the things that you're waiting on could evolve in a more modern experience, and we're excited to share that with you. And now to the fun part. I'm incredibly excited about what we have to showcase to you today. We organize our story across three horizons, what's available now, what's coming, and what we're looking ahead toward in the next six to twelve months. This framework helps you understand not just what's new today, but where we're headed and why. And now we'll go through what all is at your fingertips in WebView today. Here's just a snapshot of everything we've delivered since our last product update briefing in the fall. You'll notice enhancements across all three of our outcome areas, efficiency, accountability, better data driven decisions, and we've highlighted idea bank requests, meaning you've asked for them or voted on them, and our new AI powered functionality. A few I want to call out specifically are continued focus on our improved performance and stability, accounts payable vendor alias, which was a direct idea bank request, bank reconciliation improvements, and our new general ledger reconciliation tracker. And we've been making significant investments in stability across the workflows that matter to you, and the results are real. Payment processing is now faster and more reliable than ever with a modern service rolling out in waves that delivers a noticeably smoother experience. Reporting now runs asynchronously with real time status updates. So instead of waiting, you can stay informed and keep moving. And large data imports, dramatically faster even at high volumes. These aren't isolated wins across the platform or modernizing the core from report execution to invoice processing, making everything more responsive and built to scale with your organization. We're also expanding how you connect to your financial institutions through your bank feeds. Through our Yodlee integration, you now have access to over 300 financial institutions via open API banking networks, a major leap forward that replaces those outdated screen scraping technology with secure, reliable connectivity. The bottom line is we continue to remove friction from your most critical workflows so your team can process, report, and operate with greater speed and confidence every single day. Another key enhancement coming soon is the general ledger reconciliation tracker, which gives finance teams full transparency into the reconciliation process. It clearly displays what's been reconciled, what remains outstanding, and the overall status. By highlighting progress and exceptions, it it helps teams prevent bottlenecks and close the books faster. This is a perfect example of how we're using intelligent design to turn what was once a manual process into a guided, visible, and auditable workflow. Recurring invoices and accounts receivable help reduce manual billing by automatically generating repeat invoices on a defined schedule. They reuse key invoice details and distribution coding, which brings both consistency and efficiency to recurring billing. This capability is ideal for scenarios like recurring services, scheduled billing, or other repeat revenue where consistency and efficiency really matter. And with that, I will hand over to Hallie to keep us going. Thank you, Heather. So I'm going to switch over to my favorite area of FE NXT, which is our procure to pay workflow. And I have some news that our purchasing customers are, really going to enjoy and have been waiting for. So purchase requests or formerly called requisitions, can now be managed directly in web view. So no more navigating to web portals, web purchasing, to get this started. You'll find this functionality in expense management today, and approvals and simplified it simplified receding are coming very soon in a future release. We'll share more of that timeline soon. But if you haven't explored them yet in expense management, I'd encourage you to go take a look and let us know what you think. And this is what I'm most excited about. So if you remember in our fall product update briefing, I announced an early adopter program for document intelligence, which was which is our automated invoice entry functionality. And we started that early adopter program in expense management. So I'm very excited to tell you that that same capability is now available in accounts payable too. And I can sit here and give you a description, but that'll only go so far. So let's actually watch this in action. This is where document intelligence lands in accounts payable, a new generated drafts tab on the invoice page. Instead of a stack of invoices to manually key in, your AP team just opens up this tab and finds drafts already built, extracted directly from the documents your team submitted. Each row here is an invoice draft that document intelligence created automatically. Vendor, amount, invoice number, date, description, all pulled off of the attachment. No manual entry required. Your AP team just opens up this tab, and their work is already started. And when a new invoice comes in, generating a draft just takes seconds. We upload the document, and document intelligence reads it, extracting the key fields automatically. The draft populates with what was on the invoice along with your vendor defaults. The AP staffer reviews it against the source document, makes any corrections if necessary, and it's ready to move forward. Once the draft looks right, converting it to an invoice drops it straight into the standard AP workflow. Approval, coding, payment, nothing changes downstream. Document intelligence just removes the step where someone had to type all of this in. And if you utilize expense management as a start of your invoice intake, the workflow is quite similar. Staff can attach documents as invoice requests or as charges, and document intelligence extracts the same data flowing through to AP just like it does today. From submission to AP draft, automatically, Document Intelligence gives your team their time back and keeps the data accurate from the start. Back to you, Hallie. Thanks, Nikki. So if you're excited about automation, I also wanna make sure that you're taking advantage of payment assistant, which is our bill pay automation functionality. So since our last product product update briefing, we've shipped several meaningful enhancements, and all of these were based on feedback from you all. So to call out four of these, highlights in particular, I wanna start with vendor ACH information. So if you have, if you've collected that vendor banking information yourself and you have it on file and on the vendor record in f n x t, you can opt in to share it with us. And when you do so, we'll now send those vendors ACH on their very first payment, unless, of course, they're already enrolled in a virtual card. We've also added more visibility into how your vendors are being paid. We have this new enrollment, status directly on the vendor record so you can see when they enrolled, their time, the method that they're enrolled in, everything that, you've been asking for. Third, we've added stop payment and payment reissue functionality that can be direct can be initiated directly in product. So no more reaching out to Blackbaud support to, get that stop payment started, you can do it directly in the product. And lastly, we've made significant progress on reducing check delivery timelines, something that we know matters to so many of you. So So if you're not yet using payment assistant, I encourage you to reach out, express interest, and sign up. Or if it's already enabled in your environment, you can start onboarding directly there. And now I'll pass it over to Russell. Thank you, Hallie. Let's talk about allocations. For allocation or for organizations that need to run multiple allocations on a regular basis, allocation groups is a big time saver. It eliminates the need to kick off an allocation, wait for it to finish, and then start the next one and so on. If you have multiple allocations to run, that's a lot of waiting around and a lot of room for mistakes. With allocation groups, you can now bundle multiple allocations together and define the exact order they should run-in. Then with one click, Financial Edge NXT handles the rest, running each allocation in the sequence you've specified without any manual intervention in between. You can also generate the preallocation reports for the entire group before they run so you can review what's gonna happen ahead of time. This is this is available for our customers with a subscription to queue, so I encourage you to take advantage or to sign up if you need this functionality for your organization. And if you would like to learn more about allocations, check out our new course on Blackbaud University. Next up is Blackbaud AI chat. In previous pubs, we showed you how chat can surface the most critical information about records in the system. So instead of scrolling through complex screens to piece together what's happening with a project, an invoice, or a vendor, you get a concise summary delivered instantly. It pulls out the details that matter most so you can make decisions faster. Expanding on that functionality, we've added record lookup. This capability is one of the most requested features in our idea bank. Need to find an invoice? Just type the invoice number in the chat, and Diet Mod AI will locate it anywhere in the application, give you a summary, and provide direct navigation back to the full record. No more hunting through list screens across subledgers. This is a great example of what we mean when we say we're focused on practical AI. It isn't AI for AI's sake. It's AI you can actually use in your everyday work to drive increased efficiency and enhanced accountability across your finance organization. Let's take a look. So adding on to the record summary functionality, you can now produce those record summaries anywhere in the application. So you don't have to be on the actual record to produce the summary. And what this means is pretty profound for our users. So in this case, I'm working in the maintenance budget, and I'm getting pinged on the side about an invoice. Somebody's asking about it. They don't believe that the amount is correct. So I can open up a chat window, and I can ask it to find invoice. I can type in the invoice number, and chat will find that invoice for us and provide us with that summary data, the same as when we showed you the the, record summaries. So here it is, and you can see the the balance is shown here as well as many of the other relevant details. But if the if what I was looking for wasn't, in this summary, I can select this link, and I can open up the full record. Now this is gonna open up in another tab, so I never lose where I'm at. I always have the ability to go right back to where I am working on my maintenance budget. But, I can also go and look at the invoice and find additional details or data in there as well. In this case, we're questioning the amount, and I wanna give, the vendor a call. It doesn't look right. So I'll just put the vendor name into the chat window, and now I can find their contact information here, their phone number and their contact name. And, again, if I did not see the information I was looking for, I can, again, select that link, and it opens up the full, vendor vendor record. So a very powerful tool that helps you kind of be able to have data at your fingertips, throughout, no matter what you're doing and be able to find it very, very quickly. Very, very powerful tool for you and your teams. And back to you, Russell. Thanks, Nikki. Alright. Now let's talk about importing. If you've ever done imports in database view, you know the drill. Unless you match fields perfectly, you have to manually map each field. It's tedious. It's error prone. It slows down what should be a straightforward process. With smart mapping, we're harnessing the power of Blackbaud AI to vastly improve on that experience. You no longer need to match your fields perfectly. The AI can interpret the column headers and automatically find the most likely matches for you even when the naming doesn't line up exactly. What's really helpful is the confidence score. Each mapping comes with a score so you can quickly see which ones have high confidence and which ones might need a closer look. That means you're not reviewing every single field. You can focus your attention on what actually matters. The bottom line here is this eliminates repetitive mapping tasks, ensures greater accuracy, and saves your finance teams meaningful time importing. This is another great example of how we're not just using AI for the sake of it, but to solve real everyday pain points for your finance teams. Let's take a look. So for smart import mapping, you would just upload a file as you normally would. In this case, I'm going to upload a transaction import file. And then when I select Next, what you'll see is it'll go ahead and do do the mapping for each of the fields and in this case, contrary to the way it worked in database view, even departures, if it's not an exact match, it will still be able to figure out, in a lot of cases, the the correct import field to to match it to. And so in this case, you see account, hashtag, pound sign, and then it accurately assesses that it, should be mapped to account number. And then post date, we've added, this particular field added the the month day y signifier next to it, it realizes that's just additional added to it, and it goes ahead and assigns the the the correct field to it and gives you a little bit of a it's a little bit less confident in this case. Again, here's another situation, reverse, without the on. It's, you know, it's it's fairly confident there. Here, it knows that journal ref equals journal reference. And then here, we've we've shortened up transaction import ID a little bit, and it's still able to to figure that out. And then, here, razor's edge, we removed, the the, and it's still able to to accurately map that. And then I wanna also show you that if it doesn't find anything that's even close so in this case, I I just added a different column to the to the spreadsheet and and named it unmappable. There's nothing in the database even close to that, so it just leaves it blank. It's not gonna just randomly assign a field to something. It needs some kind of a basis and some amount of confidence, that it has the right amount. And so from here, you can go ahead and assign, a field to this if, if you said to choose. And then also you can override any of the ones that, are are already assigned, if you want to as well. So, anything can be corrected. This final review definitely is human in the loop, but this should be a major time saver for May teams. We've been very impressed with how accurate it is, even when its confidence isn't 100%. It almost always gets it right in our testing. So, this should be a fantastic time saver for you and your teams. Okay. We're back on to the slides, Russell. Alright. Let's get to the next one. Alright. So let's talk about AI adoption. We recognize organizations are at various points in their AI journey, and each organization needs flexibility to adopt at their own pace. Blackbaud puts you in control of generative AI. At the highest level, generative AI is governed through global opt in settings in the global admin portal. This setting is managed by organization admin and determines whether generative AI features, both current and future, are enabled or disabled across the organization. It's important to note the default state. Generative AI is not automatically turned on. Customers must make an intentional decision to opt in. This opt in model supports ethical AI management. It reflects our commitment to transparency, user autonomy, and responsible AI use, giving organizations clarity and control over how AI is deployed in their environments. The model is also flexible. Global admins can adjust the AI setting at any time, allowing organizations to adapt as their needs, policies, and comfort level with AI evolve. Finally, once AI is enabled at the global level, organizations can further manage access and setting and settings, roles, and permissions within each Blackbaud product and environment. The key takeaway is that global admin portal puts you in control at every stage of AI adoption. This is an important differentiator in core to our brand and position around AI and our commitment to put people first. Okay. Well, next up is gonna be Regina, and she's gonna talk to us a little bit about what's up next. Yes. Over the next three months, we are focused on delivering real tangible improvements. You fill your day to day, faster performance, simpler workflows, and smarter automation. This is about removing friction in the areas that matter most while continuing to strengthen reliability at scale. Now let's look at what's coming next in Financial Edge NXT over the next, few months. We are continuing to invest heavily in overall performance improvements along with AI powered capabilities like chat with Blackboard AI and document intelligence to automate everyday workflows. From an accountability perspective, we are expanding capabilities across treasury, reconciliation, and reporting, introducing features like smart reconciliation, chart of accounts, enhanced bank and credit card feeds, and automated deposits to reduce manual effort and improve accuracy. And on the data side, we are bringing more intelligent insights directly into your workflows like budget versus actuals on the home page and enhancements to closing assistant to help accelerate your close. Now while this gives you a high level view, we are going to go deeper into a few of these areas as we move through the next slides, starting with automated deposits. This is a great example of how we are driving efficiency across the entire Bloodbird ecosystem. One of the biggest challenges nonprofits face today is reconciling gifts across multiple systems, fundraising, payments, and finance. Traditionally, that process is manual, fragmented, and highly error prone. What makes this different is that Blackboard owns and connects all three parts of that workflow. Raiser's Edge NXT, Financial Edge NXT, and Blackboard Integrated Payments. That means data doesn't have to be stitched together. It flows natively end to end. From the moment a donor gives, the full transaction life cycle is captured automatically, gross amount, fees, and net deposit, all the way through to the general ledger. When funds are disbursed, Financial Edge NXT automatically creates the deposit, aligns it to the bank transaction, and prepares it for reconciliation. There are no spreadsheets, no manual matching, and no jumping between systems. Everything is connected, accurate, and audit ready in real time. And this is where we really stand out. Most alternatives rely on third party processors, file transfers, or delayed syncs. That introduces gaps, delays, and risk. We eliminate that entirely with the unified data model that keeps gifts, fees, and deposits perfectly aligned from start to finish. The result is simple. Faster reconciliation, fewer errors, and a significant reduction in administrative effort for your teams in administrative effort for your teams. Right? So your teams can focus less on stitching systems together and more on delivering impact. This is currently in an early adopter program. Please send us your email address if you would like to participate. We also plan to extend this functionality to billing management in the near future. Next, I want to talk about how we are continuing to evolve reconciliation workflows in Financial Edge NXT. This is what we're calling smart reconciliation. In the near term, our focus is on improving the existing bank reconciliation experience, making it clearer, more efficient, and easier to understand what's been reconciled, what's outstanding, and where teams should focus during close. Building on those workflow improvements, smart reconciliation will begin introducing automation and intelligence to help match transactions and surface meaningful exceptions. The goal here is not to replace existing reconciliation processes overnight, but to reduce manual effort and noise by highlighting the items that truly need review. This represents the first step forward, strengthening today's reconciliation workflows while laying the groundwork for a smarter, more automated experience over time. And now introducing chart of accounts health advisor. Today, many organizations inherit or build complex chart of account structures over time, and it becomes really difficult to know what's working and what's not. What we are doing here is bringing that clarity directly into the product. We surface a simple, actionable health score that gives you immediate visibility into how your chart of accounts is performing, both at a segment level and across your overall structure. But we don't stop at visibility. We are also identifying anomalies and structural risk things that like inconsistencies or inefficiencies that can directly impact reporting accuracy and system performance. The goal here is simple, help you maintain a cleaner, more optimized chart of accounts so you can reduce reporting surprises and upgrades with more confidence. You will see a poll question pop up on your screen asking what chart of accounts impacts you the most. Please share your feedback with us. And with that, I'll pass over to Harley to talk more about, exciting capabilities coming soon. Thank you, Regina. So I'm back with a quick update on what's coming next for document intelligence. So in expense management, we're planning a limited availability release in the near term. Our current early adopter program is going really well right now, and we are eager for the rest of you to try it out too. And I'm seeing lots of, interest from you all in the chat as well. So if you are interested in also joining the early adopter program for accounts payable, feel free to just let us know in the chat, and I can get those invites sent out to you. Another capability that I'm very excited about, that's coming is inbox automation, and this is going to start in accounts payable. So if your team receives bills through email today, here's what it'll look like. You'll forward that those emails, to a dedicated Blackbaud address, and document intelligence will really handle the rest. We'll extract the key invoice details. We'll generate a draft record in f e n x t, and we'll attach a copy of that original document directly to your invoice record. So by the time it reaches you, it's already waiting in accounts payable for your review and approval. The goal of this is to get your team from inbox to actionable draft with as little manual handling as possible. So we're really excited about this one, and we'll have more to share as we get closer to release. Next, I wanna talk about some updates we're making to closing assistant. So the theme here is the same as it's been, making close easier to manage, more coordinated, and more visible for the whole team. One specific thing we're improving is how unposted transactions show up during close. So it can be hard to know whether a posting process is still running or if it's already finished, and we're making that status clear so your team isn't left guessing. We're also pulling the reports that are part of your close directly into closing assistant. We know a lot of teams are tracking those steps in separate checklists or spreadsheets today, and we want to eliminate all of that extra work. Everything you need to complete, your close should live in just one place. The result is fewer context switches, clearer ownership, and a shared view of where things stand across the team. And let's move on to report groups and scheduling. So if you need to send out a set of reports to use on a regular basis, you might be subscribed to queue already. And we are introducing in WebView the ability to create groups of reports that can be generated on demand or on a recurring schedule. This means you can bundle related groups together related report groups together. For example, all of the financials your leadership team needs at month end, and you can have all of those run automatically without any manual intervention. The feature also supports multiple output formats, so your recipients can receive reports in whatever format works best for them. You'll have full control over who receives each report group, making it easier to tailor distributions to different audiences. So you can have some to your finance team, your department heads, or your external auditors. And this will eliminate the need to set those calendar reminders and manually run each report one by one. Instead, you'll just define the group once, set the schedule, and the system will handle the rest. So it's ideal for those periodic reporting that's tied to the close process, board meetings, really any workflow where consistent timely report delivery matters. This feature is coming soon and will be available in both The US and in Canada. And I think now I'll pass it back to Heather. Wonderful. Thank you, Hallie and team. I hope you all are as excited about what the team has shown as I am, and that was a lot. So don't forget about the companion doc, to review after the fact, and share with your team. But we are not done yet. As we move into our third horizon, this is where customers don't just see what Financial Edge NXT is today, but where we're going. These six to twelve month investments represent our long term commitment to the platform, making it more intelligent, more connected, and more powerful over time. Think of these as a preview of our vision and where we're going with our continued partnership. So here's the picture of what we're building toward. A few things you'll notice again that we're continuing to expand AI across more workflows from a virtual accounts payable agent to smart import, smart reconciliation agents going to general availability, and smart insights. We're also deepening connectivity with grant making, billing management, and integrated payments. We're expanding our reporting capabilities with standard APIs and an MCP integration with Anthropic. We'll highlight a few of these in the next couple of slides. One of our most requested integrations is connecting Financial Edge NXT with Blackbaud grant making. The goal here is to improve accuracy and transparency by keeping grant payments and financial records in sync across both systems. This means streamlined grant payment processing, reduced manual reconciliation, and grant activity that flows directly into the general ledger and creates invoices in f e n x t automatically. It's a significant step towards a truly connected Blackbaud ecosystem. Looking further ahead, smart reconciliation represents where we're taking reconciliation as those foundational improvements mature. In this more evolved state, AI and automation work together to match transactions at scale, flag discrepancies proactively, and guide teams to exceptions that matter most. The intent is to shift reconciliation from a transaction by transaction review into to more exception driven, confidence based process, reducing close risk and shortening the time it takes to reconcile and close. This is the longer term vision for reconciliation in FE and XT, one that builds on the improvements we're making today and continues moving teams faster towards faster closes, fewer surprises, and greater trust in their financial data. As we continue connecting reconciliation and cash flow, we're also looking ahead to email invoices as part of our accounts receivable road map. This focus here is on helping organizations get paid faster by enabling teams to email invoices with built in click to pay links, reducing friction for payers, and manual follow-up for the finance teams. Payments would automatically be recorded in FBNXT, helping to reduce data entry and reconciliation efforts. Ultimately, this moves us toward more connected receivables and payments experience, improving cash flow, and streamlining collections over time. And now I will pass to Russell and then to Hallie to bring us home with the most exciting stuff yet. Thank you, Heather. Okay. So the smart import agent is the next evolution of smart import mapping. It takes our proven AI matching capabilities and applies it not just to field mappings, but to automatically detecting import types and parameters as well. What this means, for our users is transformational. Previously, you had to manually configure each, specific parameter and upload files one at a time. Now you can simply upload your files even in bulk, and the AI agent identifies the appropriate import type and matches the right parameter for you. If a matching parameter doesn't exist, it'll help creep create one right on the spot. The error correction feature is a huge time saver. Instead of fixing issues and reuploading an entire file, the agent automatically detects and suggests corrections. And for organizations handling recurring data loads, the scheduling capability allows you to automate the schedule and schedule imports so the process runs hands free on your timeline. This dramatically reduces the manual effort and technical expertise needed for data imports, freeing up time for your staff to work on higher value work rather than repetitive import configuration and try troubleshooting. So let's take a look. Gonna go ahead and start down here where you would initiate the import. And what you'll notice first is that you're not having to open up a parameter file in order to start your import. It will start now with just uploading the file. It'll look for the parameter that matches that particular CSV in this case. And so in this case, we've got three files that we wanna upload, and we can do this because you no longer have to manually upload one file at a time to each parameter. It's gonna go through and it's gonna match those parameters. So that means you can now upload these in bulk and have it enter it to the system. So here, we're uploading it. It completes the initial valid validation of the import and brings it all to your attention. So in the case of the first file, it could not find a parameter file. So in this case, it'll walk you through the steps of mapping the fields in your import. And this will look familiar from what we showed you earlier because we're building on this concept of auto matching or smart matching, your fields by using that same logic to smart match your parameters as well and, therefore, making this a much, much more streamlined process. And, again, you'll have an opportunity to review here. And in this case, it just found a few errors within the file. So instead of having to go back and correct the file and then reupload it, you'll be given the option here to have AI, take a take a stab at at fixing this for you. Of course, you'll have to review those those seals to make sure it did what it was supposed to, or you can and you'll also be able to override what it put in. But at least it gets you down the road of being able to get this corrected without having to reupload. And then on the last file, it's just ready to review. You'll just go through the review step, and that would be, the completion of it. And so what this will also allow us to do is to automate your imports. So let's say you want to point a import to a folder on your network where you keep all your import where you want to to consume all your imports, we can point it and then we can set a schedule here so that it'll go out at midnight every night and then import all your files in. When you come in in the morning, you look through the needs attention, and you complete the imports. And another thing we're looking at and considering is suggesting certain API or data connectors that you could use in place of an import to reduce your reliance on imports. So if there's a data connector we have that can that can consume the same data as is in that that import, we'll show you those as well so that you'll have that option to go ahead and connect through an API. So all of this is about streamlining the data ingestion process, and I see this very much as an extension of the document intelligence as well because that really helps you ingest data from documents. This streamlines the import process so that, it's much smarter, much faster, much easier for you to manage. K. Russell, we are back to you on the slides. Alright. Okay. So let's talk about how Blackbaud AI will be transforming the way finance teams operate day to day. We call this smart insights and analytics, and the core idea is simple. Instead of your team spending hours digging through spreadsheets and waiting for month end reports, the insights come to you. Think about what this means in practice. Right now, most finance teams are reactive. Something happens, they find out about it days or weeks later in a report, and then they scramble to respond. With Smart Insights, the system is continuously monitoring your financial activity in the background. When it spots something that needs attention, it surfaces it so that you can work on it proactively. You're not searching for problems. The platforms bring them to your attention before they become bigger issues. And it's not just flagging things. It's turning raw financial data into clear, actionable intelligence. No more manual analysis. No more wrestling with spreadsheets to figure out what the numbers are telling you, the heavy lifting's done for you so your teams could focus on making decisions rather than compiling data. The result is real time visibility across your entire financial landscape, better decisions made faster with more confidence. That's what we mean by insights that come to you. It's a fundamental shift in how finance teams work. Okay. Well, next up is gonna be Hallie, and she's got a couple of more exciting AI developments for you. Thank you, Russell. So this next one is a bit behind the scenes, but it really matters. So when you ask an AI assistant a question, the answer is really only as good as what the AI actually understands about your situation. So think about your data, your rules, your permissions. Without that context, you're going to get generic answers that don't account for how your organization actually works. We already solved this problem, in Razer's Edge NXT where our AI understands donor data, work flows, and access rules be before it responds. And we're bringing that same foundation to Financial Edge NXT as well. So when AI helps you in FE NXT, it's going to understand your accounting context, your security settings, your compliance requirements, all from the start. The practical result is that AI gives you answers you can actually trust and act on, not just things that you have to second guess. Okay. And the last topic from me. So I think I've said this a lot so far in this session, that I'm really excited about something, but I mean this even more than usual right now. So we've spent the last couple of years really building the automation foundation in accounts payable. If you think about it, we have document intelligence bringing invoices in, and then we've got payment assistant moving payments out. And those weren't just standalone features. They were really building blocks for us. What we're exploring right now is what happens when you connect them. So think about adding a brain in the middle. That brain is a layer that listens to your actual cash flow, looks at your invoices, figures out what the optimal next step is without relying on someone to have to manually drive that forward. So that all means less orchestration for your team, more time to do the work that really requires your judgment. And I'll be direct here. I think it really matters. This isn't about removing people from an AP process. Every step here still has an a human touch point that's needed. You have a review and approval, a decision. What we're trying to eliminate is some of that low value coordination work in between. Your team's expertise is still the thing that makes all of this trustworthy. So we're still early, but I wanted you to hear about the direction we're heading, because the early adoption and the feedback feedback that we've gotten both on the document intelligence side and the payment assistance side is what's making all of the all of these next steps possible. So more to come, but I think you'll really like where we're going. And now that you've heard all of this, all of these exciting developments, we're going to push out another pool for you, to give us feedback on the AI features that we've discussed. And I will pass it over to Nikki to wrap us up. Thank you so much, Hallie. A lot of exciting stuff. So while you guys are answering the AI poll, I'd like everyone to please stay tuned. I have a little more content to tell you about and a couple more opportunities for you to engage with us and let us know your thoughts. So first off, I wanna remind you that as always, in conjunction with the new features highlighted in this product update, Blackbaud University has released brand new courses to ensure your organization is equipped to get the most out of Financial Edge NXT, including a new allocations e learning that Russell mentioned earlier. You can boost your confidence and skills by scheduling time in the sample database lab to safely test, explore, and practice at your own pace. And there are several links in the resources to access that training along with a lot of other goodness in the docs area. Okay. As we move forward, I'm seeing some question I'm seeing some responses come in, on the poll, but I do wanna, push out another poll for you. And this poll is gonna be if you are interested in speaking with someone from our sales team, whether that's about a specific capability you don't have, maybe like expense management or, you know, web purchasing, anything you've heard about that, you might wanna talk to sales, see a demo, and check that out. I want you to please, respond to this poll. And sorry. I was trying to give you guys a little more time on the AI one. Close that and switch us over to that one. So just let us know if you'd like to hear from us on that one. And in the meantime, I want you to please be aware that b b dev days registration is now open. I saw a couple comments about this and Power BI. So, this is for you guys, who are asking there. This is where builders across the black bot ecosystem come to explore what's possible. This virtual event is, designed for developers and technically curious problem solvers at every level. And you'll see how your peers and experts are extending financial gen x t and other Blackbaud products to solve real world challenges. Give you guys that survey now. So, hopefully, yeah, you guys have had enough time to check out the polls, and we really wanna hear your feedback. So please engage with that survey, and I'm gonna keep going here with some additional information on BBDEV base. So for Financial Edge NXT specifically, if you checked it out before and didn't see a lot, this year we're really focused on extension for FENXT. We have sessions leveraging leveraging Power Automate to show how you can automate common workflows while keeping FENXT as your system of record. On the insight side, Power BI sessions dig into how Financial Edge NXT data can be modeled and refreshed using APIs to deliver richer financial analysis and dashboards than standard reporting alone. And with Sky add ins, we're also showing how organizations can bring those workflows and insights directly into Financial Edge NXT so users can take action in context with without jumping between systems. Please note that we offer flexible ticket options. So you can participate in a way that makes this most sense for you, including a free explorer pass. So really no risk to check it out at all, totally virtual. Whether you're just getting started and want free access to sessions, looking for deeper connections through developer networking, or ready to roll up your sleeves in hands on skills lab, there's a pass that fits. And lastly, I do just wanna make sure everyone knows that early bird registration is now open for b b con. This is our big user conference, for all of Blackbaud customers, that's set for September 29 to October 1 in Columbus, Ohio. We really hope to see you guys there. There are a lot of hands on sessions, a lot of deep dive information, and some sneak peeks on road map that we you don't get until, our November pub. So something definitely to sign up for and lot of values received. So there's a link in the resources section there for you to check that out as well. So I wanted to say a big thank you again to our speakers, Heather, Regina, Hallie, Russell. Thank you so much for all the information today, but a huge thank you to you guys, our customers for giving us your time, your attention, and most importantly, your feedback today. I know our q and a is still going. We're still answering questions, and I'm gonna leave, this open, for the next, three and a half ish minutes so we can continue to answer questions. You can continue to fill out the survey or answer the polls. Let us know your thoughts there. We really appreciate it. Again, that feedback is truly invaluable, and we hope you have a good rest of your day. But I'm a keep this open so we can keep answering questions for you in the background. And, we'll we'll I'll turn it off in about three minutes, so we don't cut you guys off from filling out surveys or asking questions. So thank you again, guys. And I'm gonna close this out. But leave this open so we can do questions for you guys. Thank you. We are gonna answer them all. There's ton of excitement in the q and a, so thank you all. We will get to everyone. But thank you for for the giving us the time today. I look forward to rolling all this out for you.