Name: Break Through the Barriers Between Finance and Development
Uploaded: 2025-04-17T18:30:05.485Z
Duration: 1 h 30 min
Description: Break Through the Barriers Between Finance and Development

Transcript for "Break Through the Barriers Between Finance and Development": Hi, everyone, and welcome to Breakthrough the Barriers Between Finance and Development. We'll begin here in just a few moments but I want to go over a couple of housekeeping items while everyone's getting a chance to get logged in. So this is an interactive platform. Please feel free to ask questions throughout the presentation via the Q and A function. We'll try to get the most questions either in or at the end of the session. But if there are any that we don't have time for during the webinar, we'll follow-up with you and get you a response. Also, we're gonna email out a webinar recording within twenty four hours of the session. So the platform that we are using today is called Goldcast. A couple things about the system, the audio for the webinar is broadcast through your computer speakers, so hopefully you can all hear me. If you have any technical issues, just try refreshing your browser. That typically will help. Again, we're going to send out a link to the webinar recording by email. You've got Q and A there to submit any questions that you have during the presentation. There's also a cogwheel on your screen if you need to adjust any of your settings as we go along. I also wanna let everyone know that one of our reps, Daniel, is on the line today and ready to chat with you. If you have any sales specific questions during our time together, you'll be seeing an overview of some of our solutions today. Hey, Daniel. But if you'd like a more in-depth or personalized demo, pricing, anything like that, Daniel will be able to assist you. You can drop him a note in the q and a or, message him directly using the messages tab on your screen. So, again, welcome to today's session. We've got a great lineup of speakers joining us today. We've got Bob Schilling, Allison Watts, and Christy Anderson joining us from Capital Business Solutions, as well as Blackbaud Heather LeVan. This is a group of true experts in all things nonprofit and software, so we're thrilled to have them join us and to be able to share some of that knowledge with you today. Before I hand things over to our speakers, I just wanna give a quick introduction to Blackbaud for those of you who aren't as familiar with us. Blackbaud's the world's leading cloud software company powering social impact. We've been around for over forty years now, serving nonprofits, educational institutions, local governments, and other groups across the social impact sector. One quick thing before I hand the ball over to Bob. I've got a poll question to start us out, just to kinda get a better idea of who all we have joining us today. So you should see that poll popping up in the polls window now. So what solutions is your organization currently using? Blackbaud, Raiser's Edge, NXT, Blackbaud Financial Edge, NXT, Blackbaud solutions outside of Raiser's Edge or Financial Edge. So these could be school solutions, peer to peer fundraising solutions, or maybe you're not currently using any Blackbaud solutions. I'll give everyone just a minute to put their answers in, and let's see. It looks like we've got a pretty good mix of folks, quite a few Razer's Edge NXT users, so welcome. Alright. Bob, I am gonna hand it over to you to introduce Capital Business Solutions and get us going. Thanks, Marybeth. Thanks everybody for joining us here, today. Hopefully, you'll find, some of the information that we share with you to be helpful in your use of the Blackbaud software. Capital Business Solutions is a channel partner, and we've been a channel partner with Blackbaud since 1998. We've won, multiple partner of the year awards, and we continue to be one of their leading implementation partners, winning partner of the year several times. We offer custom training solutions for your Blackbaud software. We also provide for folks who've been using Financial Edge or Raiser's Edge for a long period of time and are looking for someone to come in and help them find new ways to leverage the toolset that Blackbaud provides. We provide system assessments, and we are a developer partner as well. We have several complimentary offerings for, the financial edge, that enhance and expand the functionality of the system, everything from reporting to timekeeping and grant management tools. And we look forward to, to talking with you further. I'm going to turn things over to, I believe, Allison. Right. Thanks, Bob. And I wanna add my thanks to everyone for attending with us today. I'm Allison Watts with Capital Business Solutions. I've, been the lead razor's edge consultant for longer than I care to admit, working on, nineteen years with Capital Business Solutions. So in that time, seeing a lot of different, configurations of, razor's edge and financial edge with the the clients that we work with. So I'm I'm super, happy to hear that there's so many razor's edge users on on the webinar today. So I wanna get started with what some of the organizational roadblocks might be that, you're experiencing at your organization with, communicating or working back and forth between development or fundraising and finance or accounting or the business office. Sometimes it feel like it might feel like you've got you're just in two completely different lanes. You're working, with these fabulous sort of gleaming, sexy, performance engineered systems, that are capable of doing everything you need and more. But you're you've got two of them and they're they're not in sync. Sometimes it feels like maybe they're not even on the same road, and you're you're working in in two different directions. It's almost as if you, like, have two of everything. You have two, cars. You have two teams. You have two, mechanics. You have two drivers. You have two, road maps and owner's manuals. So, everything is, being done twice, or it might feel like that. And, ultimately, this might lead to frustration, on your team. So separate systems means separate staff, separate, purposes sometimes. It might feel like you're working towards separate goals instead of, moving in the same direction to the same goal. And I know that nobody wants more work to do, right, in their workday. Nothing nobody wants more things to land on their desk than they need to, to to successfully do their jobs. So it could be a total wish of your organization and everyone there. Everyone's engaged. Everyone's enthusiastic about making these systems work, but you feel like, because of your implementation or your configuration or because you've tried and, weren't successful in the past that it's just not possible. And so that leads to a lot of fear, and, I think fear might be the biggest roadblock to making these two teams pull together in the same direction. But what if you could? What if you could overcome fear and be moving in the same direction with the same teams toward your shared mission. You could have better transparency for your donors and your stakeholders. You could have better interoffice relations, those separate systems, separate staff that could be, the barrier between those could be broken down so you feel like you have connected systems, connected staff that makes an easier workday and more progress again towards your, your daily goals into your overall goal of fulfilling your mission, being transparent to your donors, and getting the programs and services that you are funding out to the, the people that you serve. So that fear goes away. Talking more specifically about what those roadblocks are, you might be experiencing, duplicate data entry. You know, you feel like we have different structures in each system and different needs around tracking data. Often fundraisers think about overall goals and gifts coming in, and the business office might see those more as transactions and deposits in the bank. So each team is sort of afraid possibly of missing a step, dropping some data, or having to work harder to get to the same place because of, being, at those sort of cross purposes. And it might be true. You might truly be working against each other. Those those two kind of perfect engineered vehicles sometimes bump up against each other, and you don't want to have dings and scratches on your on your car. But that's not we can definitely, overcome that with those, bringing those two separate systems together, bringing those, roadblocks down. So the conflict between the configuration of each, side is, you know, sort of the design of the the system and between if you're entering things in two different silos, then, there is that conflict between one or the other, and you have to constantly be checking yourself to make sure that they are aligned. So there's a great risk of inconsistency, of inaccuracy in addition to that dual time that, you know, duplicated, effort that you're you're doing into different places. So, this can definitely lead to frustration for your staff and to a loss of confidence. Maybe. In the work that you're doing, or the, the systems that are supporting your work, when which also can lead you to, maybe, lack of confidence in one another as communication breaks down. So sometimes the the again, separated systems, separated staff. So we're having a lack of communication or a gap of communication between our our two groups. And if you could, bring that together, then the differences in time to explain or reinterpret or change data, to change reporting, you know, all that could go away. And you'd have much more time to, you know, get through your work day to day and also, just a better overall outcome of donor management, relationship management, data management. If the fear of the system differences is one of the things that's holding you back or causing, or it can be a cause of this miscommunication or misunderstanding between the two systems. And that is definitely something that is overcomeable. So, we can, you know, look at the structure of the two systems. They are designed to work together. So it's definitely something that can be evaluated, talked through, and brought to, a common place where there aren't as many or any opportunities for misunderstanding or miscommunication or, that fear of anything being missed, anything falling through the cracks is overcome. So with, fundraising, like I said earlier, we're often talking about gifts in terms of gifts coming in, gifts coming from donors, overall revenue towards a goal. You know, we might distinguish between in our minds as fundraisers between restricted and unrestricted income, but really we think about it and, you know, we're raising money for different purposes through different initiatives, but we think about it all going towards the same place. You know? A gift is a gift, whether it comes in as a pledge or a stock gift. You know, we're counting all of that toward our goal. We're accountable to donors, to leadership, maybe to grant grant organizations or accreditors. Whereas in finance, you know, maybe. We're thinking more about the bottom line as what's in the bank, what is coming in day to day in terms of transactions So that how we know how much we have to spend on programs or to pay to vendors or to, pay employee salaries. Maybe we're thinking more about expenses and, fund balances, as opposed to just an overall bottom line of a a progress to goal. And in accounting, maybe we're more accountable to donors, still leadership, but also, you know, governing bodies like the IRS and our our audit auditors. So everyone is willing, you know, to get to this place where we have connected systems, connected staff, but we may feel like these, roadblocks are, not overcomeable when they certainly are. And, again, it's our job to help you overcome that fear or know that that fear is, maybe valid, but, and we've seen it. But it, is not something that, should hold you back from connecting, making change, and bringing your, organization get together to better better meet that mission. And there's no time really when this is more apparent, than when you're trying to reconcile. And this always seems to happen at the most tense or, time sensitive times, like at the end of your year or when, you're in audit or when it's right before, a big annual event. So would love to alleviate for your staff this, extra time. Not only do you have extra time, you know, with separate systems entering data, managing data, but then reporting on data and, reconciling. So, those what if those times those, sensitive times of your calendar, your annual year could be, a whole lot less stressful because you're you're in sync. You're in the same place. So, again, if you could lift these roadblocks, if you could get away from having separate systems, you could feel connected, aligned, integrated across your organization. It would make, manual reconciliation. Much more time efficient or even go away completely because both systems are in sync to start with. Data is accurate. Information flows freely. Communication, happens on a, a very in a very transparent way both inside your organization and externally. You're you're nimble. You're ready for anything, and your systems are right there with you, ready to to respond. So there's no need to, fear this change. No one is is defensive or protective of their space because, we're all in the same In the same car on the same team with the same sort of race day plan, all moving in the same direction. Position to win. So with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague, Christy, to let her tell you about some of the the benefits once these more about the benefits once these roadblocks are taken away. Thanks, Allison. Just quick introduction. My name is Christy Anderson. And like Allison, I've been doing this longer than I care to admit. Between Capital Business Solutions and Blackbaud, it's been over thirty years. So we've got a lot of experience in all different types of organizations that we have worked with through this process. One of, the initial benefits that, comes with this integration is the lack of duplicate data entry. As Allison was talking before, when we're keying it in twice, there's lots of room for error and there's, lots of room for discrepancies. So by keying it in once, it flows from one system to the other with the exact same information. The nice thing is from the razor's edge side, we basically have already preassigned all the GL distribution information so you're not having to key that in every time that you're keying in a gift. Just kinda coming from behind the scenes based on the choices you make for your funds and your gift subtypes. So all of that's automatically going to flow, so we don't even have to worry about miskeying a GL account from the accounting side because it's already populated for you. So then all that data that's in Razor's Edge is gonna be identical when it comes over to the financial edge. Now we know on the finance side that we like a little bit of control of what's coming over to, our database. So what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a little bit of a flow of check checks and balances throughout this process. Once we've entered razor's edge, the gifts, and committed them through the batches, then you can run a pre post report to make sure all the data, make sure everything looks good before we send it over to the financial side. Now once you run a post process, then it will actually show up in the Financial Edge side as an open batch. So we still get final control on the finance side over what happens to that batch. Now if we wanted to make any changes to that data, we could. 99% of the time, there's no need to make changes. There are rare exceptions when we may wanna override something, from the finance side, and those are discussed during the initial, setup and configuration. But most of the time when it comes over, we just wanna review, make sure everything is there, matches, and then we can post it as well. Now once it comes over to the Financial Edge, and then this happens on occasion, we realize that a a gift is in the wrong fund or we need to make some changes to it, then, oops. Sorry. Wrong I'm sorry. Sorry. They're locked. So we can't make those changes because the information is already in the Financial Edge. But there is a way to make those changes by using adjustments. So we'll be able to put an adjustment on that gift on the Raiser’s Edge side so that we can say, okay. This needs to change. What will flow over to the finance side is a reversal of the original posting, and then the new adjustments will come over as well. So even if changes are made, we still see those changes on both side. So we won't be able to make a change without it coming over, keeping those systems in check and in balance, and we're also secure in that data being the same. Additionally, we'll be able to, run reports to to verify that information. Once we're in balance, then if everything's coming back and forth, then we don't have to worry about the the time for reconciliation because they really should be the same. So information coming from into the systems. Now we also know that between the two systems, we have different dates. So we also can control a gift date versus our post date so that we can say this was part of our gifts for, you know, year end, but it didn't hit our cash account until January. So we'll also be able to control those types of things and be confident that both sides are gonna have the information that we need to pull from the system. Now we also need to make sure when we are doing these processes, we we've set up the communication between the two, departments. We will also discuss that during the implementation and the connection of those. But that way, we don't have to worry about, did they do this one way? Did they do it a different way? We will be, you know, talking about that flow, making sure what's coming from our development office, what's coming into the finance office is all the same, and everyone's on the same page about how those deposits flow, how those gifts are flowing in, and that information will be the same in both systems. K? Now, additionally, we'll be able to get the reports that we need. Now, again, Allison was talking about, you know, where each department has their own focus on what they need. But because we have those, controls and those layers that we have built into the system, the development office will be able to get their, goals on funds. How many how many gifts do we get? How much do we have in pledges? Finance side, we'll be able to make sure we have our correct deposits, do our bank reconciliations, run our financial reports, and all those layers will be in place. And we won't have to worry about the reconciliation because it's already been done by posting back and forth between the two systems. Now let's just take a quick look. We're gonna, do a quick demo. Heather is going to come on and do a quick demo so you can kinda see the flow between the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge and the Blackbaud Financial Edge, and just kinda get a glimpse of what's going to happen. Alright. Well, thank you, Christy. Let me grab the screen for just a moment. And everything that both Allison and Christy have been talking about, I've built as a real life connected example within both Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT and Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT. So a lot of examples I'm gonna give you today, but definitely I encourage you to just take note of what can be kept in the systems and why and then how that might translate to your own organization. So here on the screen for the moment, we are on a consistent record in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT. And what I've done here is I've built out an organization record, Wasatch Community Gardens. Do keep in mind that even though this is an organization record, everything that we're gonna talk about would equally apply if this were an individual record. The essence here with Raises Edge NXT is that we are really doing relationship management for revenue. So there are many, many pieces and parts that can be kept here in the system. So I'll point out a couple here right from the very top. With Wasatch Community Gardens, for example, over here on the right hand side, we have the ability to have constituent codes. So they are a grantor in this example, but they could also be a major donor. They could be a volunteer, a board member, etcetera. So whatever that means to your organization, you have that flexibility. As we just scroll down on this record, lot of opportunity for contact information. Keep that in one place. You also can capture relationships. So in this case, I have a couple here where with Wasatch Community Gardens, Cynthia is their executive director. This is Vicky here. She's their grant director. So I like to have that contact information in here depending on what activity we might be working on. Additionally, you can have actions. I always used to think of these because I was a former customer of Blackbaud. I had Raiser's Edge and I had Financial Edge. So these were the interactions that we've had with our donor community. So a great example with Wasatch Community Gardens, if I take this back to the beginning, in this example, we received a piece of mail letting them know, hey. We're we're initiating the school garden community, school garden program in the community, and we'd love for you to partner with us. So we had an opportunity to meet with them. We actually took them on a tour showing the different garden sites with our schools. We were then invited to submit a grant application. We did that. We followed up, and it was approved. And moving forward from there, we built a school garden. So we absolutely went back to that donor and invited them to the garden opening. We even had a follow-up path that we didn't wanna overlook. There was a six month grant report that we did just recently that was received. They were really pleased with our relationship and how we use the funds, and so we submitted the next round of grant application. So those actions can be a lot of different things, but it does create a history, which is very helpful here in the system. Going up to the top here on the right, we're gonna just have a really easy snapshot view of that giving relationship that they have with us. We also have the ability to have attachments. I'm gonna mention these a couple of times because this was really important because we are looking to to have that connected experience to keep everyone on the same page. And the the background that can be captured with attachments is is really, really helpful. So at the constituent record level, I've attached some things here that is just helping us stay in line with what Wasatch Community Gardens defines as a school garden program, what's happening in the community. And these are items here that I could pull information from during that grant application process, for example. And then we have the ability to really capture what are we putting out in the community. Now for today's purposes, I built a grant example, but this could equally be a major gift request, a campaign proposal, even a sponsorship for an event. So translate that for your organization as far as how that applies. But you can see here with Allison Watts At Community Gardens, I've had a couple of opportunities. And we're gonna focus first on this school garden at Mountain View Elementary because that was our first garden project that we submitted via that first grant application. And what we can capture on those opportunities are really helpful, and it actually starts to connect the Raiser's Edge and financial edge. It starts to connect that fundraising and finance relationship that is so important. So a couple of items that are right very important from the beginning would be right here at the top. When I create this opportunity, meaning I'm gonna gathering all the details. I'm gonna put this solicitation together to bring in support. And when that support comes in, it is restricted to the school garden program. So I'm actually identifying that right from the very beginning because the funds in Raizer's Edge equal the projects in Financial Edge. So that's that connection that's really important that both Allison and Christy were talking about, and it's very fundamental to reconciliation as well. So we're just indicating here that we're gonna submit this grant application. We're, of course, hoping that we get funded. When we do, we know exactly where those funds need to go. Even here on the opportunity as well, I have actions because sometimes actions can be just specific to the opportunity. I can capture that here. I have those attachment capabilities just like we saw on the constituent record. So in this case, I have attached the grant application. I've attached the budget. I've mocked up some quick examples. Obviously, grant applications would have far more details than this, but you kinda can get the idea where I can attach that application, I can attach the budget. So everyone from the very beginning is on the same page of we're asking for this $5,000, and this is exactly what we would do with it so that we can be transparent and efficient when those funds come in. This is handy to keep all of that right here within the system. What's nice about opportunities as well is they do bubble up to the work center, which is just a nice simple area within Raizer's of Gen XT to really keep track of your work. If you have a portfolio of donors that you're working with, if there are follow-up actions that you wanna keep a close eye on, the work center is great. And, definitely, opportunities are gonna show there on the work center. Once we've submitted this funding, we, of course, as we saw earlier, we were approved, and we did receive that $5,000 to build our first school garden. So we're gonna batch that, and that's what you're looking at here. So I've got that 2024Dash302. I'm mentioning that number for a reason. You'll see here in a second. But as I put that $5,000 in the system, there's that school garden program again. And, of course, Wasatch Community Gardens is being credited for that. As you put VASTAS in, there is a validation process. There is an approval process. I point those two out because there are opportunities there for internal controls and different approval processes that you may not want to work with with your team. The system naturally supports that. And then when it's time to post or push, as I like to think of it, that information into Financial Edge, it's going to automatically create the journal entry. So we are now in Financial Edge NXT on that journal entry. And as Christy and Allison were saying, that information is very cohesive. I didn't have to reenter it into financial edge, but I have that control, that was mentioned earlier. So when this first arrived, it was unposted. So even here, I have those internal control opportunities. I can review it. I'm making sure that both systems stay in sync. I'm accounting for any adjustments that I might catch. And then when the business office is ready, they control when it gets posted. And it's also that that post date. I can match that, for example, to my actual bank deposit date if that helps with reconciliation. But within that journal entry, I even have attachments here. So in this case, we did get an official award letter from Wasatch Community Gardens that gave us stipulations and just confirmation as to how those funds were to be used based on our original budget document. So great example of what I would attach to a journal entry. And once again, I'm seeing that school garden program. So very cohesive. I'm making sure that the revenues that are coming into the system, they're landing in a very logical place so that I can make sure that expenses are also going to come from that project as well. And moving forward, let's take a look at a project record. It's gonna likely feel familiar to you. We took a look at that constituent record, Wausau Community Garden. The look and feel is the same here on the financial adenosine side of the house. That's intentional. It's a very cohesive, look and feel and the functionality. So two systems together, it's really easy to learn both sides of the house. But here on that school garden program, I do like to point out that we can put some defaults in the system, additional controls. So in this case, if I scroll down just a little bit, you can see that with this particular project, it's that I can set so that nothing inadvertently gets spent incorrectly that isn't in line with our budget and on what these funds are for. So just one nice example, there's a lot of different default options that you can have within both systems. And right now, at the moment, we are just looking at fiscal twenty twenty four. And so we can scroll down just a little bit and see we actually have some initial seed money of $5,000 that came in May. That actually came from one of our board members that recognized they not only love this idea of school gardening, but they recognized too that there's gonna be ongoing costs, and so they wanted to support that. And then in July, we saw that $5,000 come in from Wasatch Community Gardens, And then we had an expense, that $4,968. That is us purchasing the initial supplies to build the school garden. Because if you recall in our budget, we needed soil, seeds, shovels, etcetera. We were gonna spend all of that $5,000 to get us started with that school garden. We locked in the budget so you can set some controls with that as well for 2024, and we're also using attachments here too. So everything that I can attach in Raizer's Edge, personally, I also attached it in Financial Edge. It's just as important and helpful for the business office to have access to those materials As they utilize the funds, they wanna make sure that they're in line with the budget and what we submitted our grant for in this case. And let's just take a look at us utilizing those funds. So in order to do that, we're just gonna go into account payable. So here on this vendor record, we have a relationship with j and j nursery. We have some negotiated pricing with them. They know they're taxing that we are tax exempt, so just easy to purchase our supplies with them. Even here though, you can see I can set some defaults at the vendor record level as well because we know that as we utilize the J and J nursery vendor, we're gonna spend down from that school garden program for program services. So that's just gonna auto default into my invoices. I don't have to manually key that in either. I also am just putting some initial controls right away into the system so I'm consistent as we're using those funds. And you can see here over on the side under activity, I'm spending that $4,968. I've even attached that invoice too because I want to make sure that I have all documentation come audit time. Or even if it's reporting back to Wausauch Community Gardens, I want to have everything in front of me in one place to make sure that that we are accountable back to our donor community. So that's an example of that. And even moving forward, we had another ongoing expense just recently because it's springtime. So we needed to get the garden in order, and we had some additional expenses that our board member, that initial seed money was supporting. So very easy for me to just keep everything in line. And then moving forward, as I just round out our time together, reporting and and dashboards, those are throughout the system prebuilt. So I did wanna show you a couple of things here before I hand it back, to Capital Business Solutions. So an example here is if I am wanting to run a regular report, I can schedule it. So in this case, maybe my director of development is wanting a a scheduled report. Instead of them asking to ask for it or me remembering to send it, I'm gonna put the system to work for me in this case. So I'm gonna send it monthly on the last Thursday of the month, and I know that my director of development or even maybe a program manager is gonna have what they need. And this is an example of one of my go to reports that I use all the time as a customer. The project activity report, it's a very clean report that I can share internally, but I also had confidence in this report and in my data within the two systems. But this is a report that I shared externally as well. The example I always had is this was attached to the grant report that we were required to submit back to Wasatch Community Gardens. Very clean for them to see, you know, those funds coming in and exactly how we use them. And then as I mentioned, we also have dashboard. So this is a great opportunity for view only users, for example, to come in here and see that information as well. So I have filtered on that school garden program because I'm just keeping us focused for this example. But this would be an opportunity, maybe that program manager wants to come in and just check the balance that they have to work with. They can do that. They also can go a little bit further and click on the actual project record. And what's actually opening is that live project record. So they could even fast forward and look at what's currently happening in fiscal twenty twenty five if they want to. And what's nice here as well is because we're actually looking at that live project record, if I scroll down just a little bit, I'm gonna see those attachments. Well, as we said, we we created that first school garden program, great relationship with Wasatch Community Gardens. We were invited to submit another grant application. And if I want to look at what's going on with that, I can do that because I have just connected a live opportunity link right here within financial edge and XP. And when I click on that, what's actually happening is it's just taking me right back to where we started a bit ago. So we're back in Raizen Edge NXT, and we're looking at our next phase of this relationship with Wasatch Community Gardens. They were so happy with what we did. We were actually invited to submit an application for two gardens. So that's what we did. We just recently sent that in, and we're waiting, for that result and what would get funded. But we did ask for $10,000 in this case. And once again, if I wanna look at what we asked for, it's all right here in front of me. So this is just a really quick example. Again, I hopefully if you don't do school gardening or you don't do grants, that's okay. Translate this into the types of activity that your organization does, and hopefully, this helps you see how it's really easy between systems that are connected to keep fundraising and finance on the same page and really cohesive within your organization. So So thank you for your time again today, but I'm gonna hand it back to Allison now to start wrapping this up. Actually, I think it's I I think I I think we switched it. I'm gonna I'm gonna take this first slide, and then Allison will pick up after, I talk about the financial edge a little bit. When we are integrating the two systems, there are some considerations that we do need to discuss and and take place for these systems to really work well and work as a fine oiled machine as Allison was talking about. We need to talk about how data is processed. How how do we enter gifts in batches because how that flows and how that happens will affect what comes over on the financial edge side. Things that are important on the finance side such as deposit flow, so how things are coming over into our cash account. We need to be able to do a bank reconciliation. So how that all flows over and the details that come over, we need to make sure that all of that is being discussed between the two departments. Sometimes changes have to happen on the development side. Sometimes changes need to happen on the finance side. And so all of that is discussed, so we make sure everybody is getting the pieces that they need. Some other things that, again, based on how it flows over, you know, cash versus credit cards, those typically need to be separated because they come in separately on our bank account. So how we're keying that into the system is gonna be really important. The other things that can also be important are gonna be restricted in endowment gifts. What kind of funds do we have set up in the Raiser's Edge? How does that flow over to our projects? Is there a one to one correlation? And those are all the types of details that we discuss and things that we can control and things that we can do to make these things happen and make it, you know, the easiest for both departments. One minor change here makes a huge difference for one department over another. The other important thing is what we're posting. So are we tracking pledges? Do we post those on a regular basis, or do we only, you know, do a posting at the end of the year? We can control what comes over to the financial edge. If we don't want every pledge to come over, there are things we can do to make sure that that does not happen. But those are things that need to be discussed, and those are things that need to be considered when we're making these implementations and making these, two systems talk to each other. And the last thing is, there are two separate dates. So dates that are important for the development office and the race research database are different than the dates that are important for the finance side. So we'll be you know, we discuss when to use which dates, what to use for those dates, and how that can make sure we're you're doing our checks and balances to make sure, we get the data that everybody needs. So those are some of the things that we really, you know, wanna make sure are from the finance point of view that we're discussing and making sure that flow comes over to the finance side. Allison's gonna talk a little bit now about, the considerations from the Raiser's Edge point of view. Perfect. Thanks, Christy. So yeah. And both of these, sort of slides that we're looking at here are, as Christy said, the considerations that each department, or all the the stakeholders in this integration process, this making the two systems speak process, would would go through, to really make that kind of beautiful picture that Heather showed you, that full circle, journey of of the gift possible and seamless and smooth. So on the razor's edge side, a lot of these things, considerations are gonna be the same or similar to the ones that Christie outlined, but, just maybe from a different, point of view because, again, we we have different, points of view to, to bring into this discussion. So fund, fund design is critical, to this whole, game. As Heather showed you, the the fund, sort of equates to project and financial edge. And as you know, if you've used Raiser's Edge, fund is the kind of the the backbone, the drive train of of gift tracking and, that's how you know what the donor is giving to. So it's it's terribly important and that might be where a source of, of hesitancy is on on integrating or or bringing the two systems together because you think, well, our fund system over here in in Raiser's Edge is is like sacrosanct, and, it's working. And we we don't necessarily wanna overhaul it completely to be able to to work with Financial Edge. So that's definitely something to to think about. And it it it might need to be tweaked as Christie said, but we can still preserve the integrity of your reporting in Raiser's Edge and, work with the the integration to push gifts over to Financial Edge so that, everything is aligned, but you still have the control that you're looking for. So other things to think about, gift subtypes. So within that fun design, maybe you need another layer of of a granular, tracking, to to, you know, redirect gifts or to resegment gifts within that kind of fund system to direct them to a a different account. Or, you know, maybe within all annual giving, you want to distinguish between which gifts came from individuals versus corporations versus government agencies. And, you know, so that might be something you wanna use a subtype for. We have, you know, t codes, transaction codes that can line that from Financial Edge that might line up with appeals in Raiser’s Edge, and that gives you some extended, you know, budget tracking of of expenses and, little just a little bit more information about the gift, as it comes over as a transaction. You as Christy said, think about, hosting protocols. And, I noticed that someone had chatted in a question about, you know, what's the approval process and, basically, back to that, you know, hesitancy. Do we have control? Like, how much control do we have over our own data, once we integrate? And definitely something you wanna talk through, but, ultimately, you have all the the controls and balances that you need between validation and approval and posting on both sides. So, really, a total of, like, six gates that you go through to to make sure that, everything's proceeding properly. But before you even get there, you could talk through, you know, who's going to key gifts and who's going to push the button to post to to Financial Edge? Is that a a finance or business office person, or is it a fundraising office person? So, all those things, that workflow kind of question. Using batch. Again, you know, grouping gifts together to post all at one time or, you know, separating them by cash, by payment method, like Christy said, cash or credit cards, or separating them by initiative, so that, you know, you can, reconcile easily. But all those are considerations that we could help you walk through. Again, like I said near the beginning, maybe there's some pure trepidation about, entering into this process. And surely, there are loads of considerations to make to get you to that place where the information is flowing freely and that, you know, that really nice pattern, that circular, cohesive, I think is the word that that Heather used that I that really jumped out at me. To have things moving in a cohesive way, it might seem overwhelming. And, this is definitely where, Capital Business Solutions, can help with that conversation. And, you know, we've kind of lined up these considerations in two different slides as two different, the two different departments would wanna make, but you're doing this in concert together. So and we can help you in concert together. You know, Christy's expertise along with with mine, we would bring that to the the integration no matter who, sort of from the the customer side initiates it. You know, if sometimes it's a a fundraising, team person who wants to kick this off, and, sometimes it's a a finance person. So either one of us or one of our consultants can do that for you, and then we work closely together, you know, using the experience of, and the deep knowledge each of the other between Financial Edge and Raiser's Edge consultants. So all that is to say, when you get there, when you are aligned, when your systems are connected and your staff is connected, your systems are implemented correctly, and everyone is trained up and confident in using those systems, you'll never outgrow them. There will never be a, instance that arrives, a circumstance that springs up that your team isn't equipped to handle. And that way, the system will work with you now and in the future. So no reason to fear bringing the two systems together because the the outcome is going to be so much worth the investment and will help you to make razor's edge and financial edge perform at top, at optimal at that optimal place that, you want where everything is in, flow. So kind of speaking to that in the real world, we have some testimonials here from actual, organizations we've helped work through, the the whole process start to finish. So here's someone from a a school. We worked with them to bring, the two systems together, did what through all those considerations that we were talking about, did some training, did some testing, brought them through live, you know, posting gifts day to day, followed up after to see if they needed any help with, you know, adjusting gifts after they've been posted, reconciling at the end of the month or year. And the outcome was we love the capabilities, quote, unquote. So, that's what that's a great testimonial to what connected systems can do, can really maximize all the capabilities. It it really speaks to those systems being built to last and built to grow with you. Other organization. And it just so happens both of these are schools, but, rest assured that we've worked with, and do work with all kinds of organizations in the nonprofit space if they're, you know, membership organizations, health and human services, foundations. We we've kind of seen it all. But I liked that this one really highlighted how, having integrated systems makes the job easier. Like I said at the very beginning, nobody needs more tasks to do in their day, more, things appointments on their calendar, more, stacks of paper on their desk. This, takes those things away instead instead of adding them on. And then our team was really hands on in helping, ensure that they were successful. Here's, again, a foundation client who, really relied on us to help ask the right questions or the things that they didn't know to ask. And so we, you know, like, we showed you just a few of the considerations that you'd wanna walk through, during the integration process and there could be many more. Also, we bring the wealth of of best practices that we've seen, working in lots of different organizations to your project, to the project that we're working on at that time. And so we can really fully help you fully leverage the investment you've made in your in your systems. And and that's our goal is to get you working to fulfill your your mission. And, also, we want, successful clients and who can be referenceable for us. So we're we're in it with you and, would love to to work with organizations, out there to, bring your systems together. Now I'll hand it back to Marybeth to kinda close us out. Awesome. Thank you so much, Allison and Christy and Heather and Bob as well for a great presentation. Before we wrap up, I've got a quick poll question for everyone, and you should see it popping up now. That's would you like follow-up from CVS about anything we talked today or their services that they offer. Let us know. Can have them give you a call, email you some more information, or if you're just here to learn, that is great too. So I'm gonna leave that up for a second while I go through a couple of reminders. So we are gonna email out a link to this webinar recording in case you would like to revisit any portion of the presentation or share it with your coworkers. We certainly encourage you to do so. We've got some additional resources in the docs section for you. If you wanna explore further or download the slides, you can do that there. So thank you so much for joining. We hope this was helpful, and we look forward to continuing the conversation with you.