We live in an era of both transparency and of difficult problems to solve. I deeply believe that the more people who know about the problems our nonprofits face and the ways that we are trying to solve them, the better. To do that, you have to be willing to share plans, strategies, minutes of meetings and…..budgets and financial reports.

I know that this sounds like heresy to some readers. I was brought up in an era where, when we took a math test, we were told by the teachers to “Cover your work!” You may have been as well, and that experience seems to have scarred our generation’s outlook on management. We already share our financials with our boards—why not with our staff and non-governing volunteers?

Hear me clearly: Do not do this without first training staff and volunteers on how to read income and expense reports and balance sheets. But once you do, start discussing long and short term goals, their financial impact and their mission outcome. Start sharing financial benchmarks, then more people will have a better understanding of your organization–and that’s a good thing. If you don’t believe me, read the wonderful book Open Book Management, The Coming Business Revolution by John Case. This book and Case’s two follow up books are still best sellers for a reason: Opening up your financials works.

Will everyone care about your financials, plans, or strategies? No. But those that do are likely to be your most valuable employees and future stars. Think about it: You can do leadership development and identification just by sharing more of the information you already have. Pretty cool.

There are two rules about knowledge (information) and both are true.

“Knowledge is power. If I keep all the knowledge I keep all the power.”
“Knowledge is power. If I share all the knowledge, we all get powerful together.”

You choose.

Explorations 2010 is soon approaching, and if you are deciding whether or not to attend, we hope a preview to some of the training tracks below will sway you in the right direction . A popular topic of this event definitely focuses on reporting, which we will dive further into below!

The Power of Data—Need Reporting Tips or Help Creating Reports?

Back by popular demand!  More reporting sessions designed to help you present data critical for confident planning and decision-making:

• Basic Financial Reports - Create basic reports using the most popular and useful out-of-the-box financial reports.
• Dashboards with Microsoft Technology – Technical users can learn the steps necessary to create dashboards in SharePoint with real-time connection to Navigator’s SQL Server database.
• JET Reporting – Learn the fundamentals of Jet & begin using the Jet Designer functions under Excel to produce your own reports.
• JET Reporting Advanced – Learn advanced features like graphs, nested functions and arrays.
• Reporting Voice of the Client - Identify your reporting pain points and prioritize your needs in this interactive VOC session for reporting.
• SQL Reporting Services – Create different Navigator reports in both tabular and graphical displays.  Experience with report writers recommended.

With a focus on training, networking and enhancing your investment in Navigator, this event will put you miles ahead in achieving more for your mission. Plan on participating in one or more of the following training tracks:

• Financial Management & Beyond
• Maximizing Your Investment
• Data, Metrics and Reports
• Lab and Consultation

View the preliminary agenda. We hope to see you there!

Bestselling Author and Motivational Speaker to Keynote Explorations 2010

We welcome to Explorations 2010 Josh Sundquist, a bestselling author, motivational speaker, and Paralympic ski racer. Josh has spoken across the country to groups ranging from Fortune 500 companies to inner city public schools—to the White House!

Josh’s journey began at age nine, when he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and given a fifty percent chance to live. He spent a year on chemotherapy treatments and his left leg was amputated. Doctors declared Josh cured of the disease at age thirteen and he took up ski racing three years later. He trained for the next six years and in 2006 he was named to the US Paralympic Ski Team for the 2006 Paralympics in Turino, Italy.

Not only is Josh an amazing athlete, but he is also dedicated to helping others.  He served a two-year tenure as the National Spokesperson for the Combined Federal Campaign, an effort that raises over $300 million dollars a year for charities. On top of that, he has been featured on the back of Doritos bags nationwide for being the founder of LessThanFour.org, the world’s largest social networking website for amputees.

Josh received a degree in business from the College of William and Mary and a Master’s in Communications from the University of Southern California. He has been featured on CNN, USA TODAY, and NPR, and his memoir, Just Don’t Fall, was a National Bestseller.  Josh currently lives in Washington, DC.

Serenic is very thankful and honored to have Josh Sundquist be the keynote speaker for Explorations 2010.  For such a large event that caters towards helping nonprofits succeed with their accounting methods and software, we couldn’t think of a better person.  Find out more information about Josh, and Explorations 2010 through the links below!

Serenic Software – Explorations 2010

Josh Sundquist’s Website

Josh Sundquist on Facebook

Josh Sundquist on Twitter

We, at Serenic, were thrilled to once again be featured as an exhibitor during the 2010 InsideNGO Annual Meeting for finance, grants and contracts. As usual, it was a great time for us to connect with our users and attract potential clientele who shared insights and concerns about their current financial solutions.

This year’s meeting turned out to be great success across the board! Sessions for the 2010 InsideNGO included Stay Ahead of the FASB Curve, Cooking up a Sub-Award, and Indirect Cost in a Cap Environment. We also recently teamed up with InsideNGO to deliver a great webinar.  We look forward to many educational events with them again (and again!).

However, the most common obstacle faced by many of our prospective users  was the lack of integration between  financial software HQ’s and their field office solutions, who’s software often lacks multi-currency capabilities—thus, forcing organizations to use multiple applications to track their projects’ finance and awards. As you can imagine, this can be a real drag because many NGOs  end up having to duplicate their efforts, taking time away from work just to manage and sync their various software applications! Luckily, people were very responsive to our discussions about how Serenic Navigator can consolidate their efforts and overcome these challenges.

As it turned out, this year’s Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference happened to coincide with the InsideNGO Annual Meeting, giving top Serenic executives, like Randy Keith (President and CEO) and Chris Stevenson (VP of Sales), as well as members of Serenic’s Africa-based partner, TechnoBrain, to come out and press the flesh with InsideNGO attendees.

One of the attendees, Denise Graves, Budgeting Administrator at Jhpiego, actually won the $80 Visa Gift Card in our raffle—congrats, Denise! Use it wisely

All in all, the 2010 InsideNGO Meeting was a huge success. Thank you to everyone who attended the sessions, shared their experiences and discussed with us at Serenic their specific needs. It is through these kinds of constructive exchanges that we are able to improve our products in order to better serve you, the clientele.

Brooke and Ryan holding down the Serenic Software booth!

Brooke with Tanya Johnson, Finance Manager at Family Health International

The gentlemen from TechnoBrain, Ltd, our Africa-based partner! Left to Right: Thomas Cullen (VP, US Sales & Marketing), Manoj Shanker (Group CEO), Mahesh Patel (Chairman), Clint Cuny (CEO, USA)

Most nonprofit staff and board members are not MBAs, CPAs, or financial planners. Yet, all of them need to be able to read and understand the organization’s financials. Staff has to plan and manage their budgets, while board members are fiduciaries of the nonprofit. Financial statements are often long and detailed, and it’s hard to see through the clutter to know if the organization is on sound financial footing.

This is why financial benchmarks are so important. Certainly the annual budget is one benchmark, but let’s look at some others that many nonprofits use.

Ratios (such as the Quick Ratio, Current Ratio, and Debt to Equity) are great ways to quickly look at an organization’s status and understand key parts of the balance sheet. Net revenue (as a percentage of budget) is another. Non-financial benchmarks that affect finances (occupancy, number of new donors, percent of staff turnover) are also great to have available. There are others, but these can get you started.

When you report benchmarks, don’t just list a bunch of numbers. That only adds to everyone’s confusion. Have a display that looks like this:

You can see that this kind of display compares your current status both with trends and with your overall goal. This makes it much more useful information.

To set financial benchmarks, gather a team of staff, your board Treasurer, your CPA, and your banker. Perhaps you can add an outside expert, or another board member with financial acumen. Set the benchmarks and then review them every 12 months. Finally, train both staff and board in what the benchmarks mean and how to use them.

–Peter Brinckerhoff (biography), a Serenic Software Blog content contributor

With Explorations just around the corner, I thought I would talk a bit about the sessions titled “VOC”, which stands for Voice of the Client.  These sessions are pivotal in defining the features and prioritization of enhancements for future releases and they also happen to be my favorite.  We are right in the middle of a project that grew out of one of our VOC sessions and I’m so excited about it that I can hardly stand myself.  Actually, it’s my husband, daughters and neighbors that can hardly stand me and, now that I think about it, seem to be avoiding me.  I don’t understand; doesn’t everyone want to talk in great detail about the design and requirements for a budget planning module?

Here’s the background—We conducted a VOC at the conference in Long Beach in late 2007 where the topic was budget planning.  With more than 50 users in the room, we captured a list of pain points:

• budgeting process
• enhancement requests for the product
• relative prioritization of features
  • calculated lines
  • workflow
  • versions

Product Management left that session with enough flip chart paper and colored sticky notes to wallpaper an entire office—which we did!

Now, I know it seems like that was awhile ago, but that’s how product roadmaps work.  First, we had to deliver on our “Go Deep” product strategy for 2008, which was announced at Long Beach and culminated with the release of 5.00.02.  Then we had to incorporate the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 release into Navigator so we could leverage the new architecture, user experience, and integration points.  With that accomplished, we kicked off the budget planning project.

We are now well underway and this project is the cornerstone of our 6.00.01 release, targeted for the end of this calendar year.  We have already conducted a number of focus group meetings with end users and consultants to review our prototypes and validate the requirements; and the response has been extremely positive.  That brings me back to my original point, which is that the users who participated in that VOC session in Long Beach in 2007 played a significant role in assisting the product management and development teams in defining the feature set that is being so well received by users and consultants.  Your voice was heard.  You made a difference.

So, now I’m going to shamelessly plug my favorite sessions in the upcoming conference in September—there are going to be 3 of them—Come join me!

Nonprofit leaders know that being “transparent” is crucial to success in today’s world. We hear and read about the term constantly. But what does transparency really mean? Is it just filing your IRS 990 form on time? Is it adding more information on your website? Who needs to see what? Let’s take a minute to briefly look at what transparency should be.

First, let’s leave behind any resistance to letting people look at what your organization is doing. Why? Because in a very real sense, it’s their money. You’ve heard the word “stewardship”? It has to do with managing the resources of others and nowhere is this more true than in nonprofits. We get funds from the community and spend them on the community…so the community should expect to be able to see what we’re doing.

With that settled, let’s look at what transparency is: In brief, it’s letting people see what goes on inside the organization, how much of its mission it accomplishes, how much impact it has, how the organization’s money is being spent, and what its plans are. To get started, you should have the following items available to review on your website, (and in handout form if people prefer that):

• Your vision, mission, and organizational values
• Your last two IRS 990 forms
• Your last two audits
• Your current strategic plan (in summary if need be)
• Letters of accreditation (if that pertains to your organization)
• Biographical information on senior staff
• Biographical information on Board members
• Concise program summaries
• Outcome measures and their meaning with data for the past three years

Remember, this list is just a place to start. In almost every case, more is better.

The final thing to remember is that a policy of transparency starts inside the organization. You can’t be touting your openness if you don’t let staff and non-governing volunteers see what’s going on.

Transparency is good for nonprofits, since it makes us more accountable. More importantly, by keeping us accountable, it’s good for the people we serve.

–Peter Brinckerhoff (biography), a Serenic Software Blog content contributor

We are excited to share some inside information on the start of our very first International Training this week!  While we’ve gone on-site in the past to teach our courses to new partners, this particular training session is the very first classroom presentation done internationally—with both partners and clients.  Serenic’s very own, Zac, is presenting our new RTC Financial Management course (in W1 version) in Chertsey, which is close to the Heathrow Airport in London.  Courses are being held at the Microsoft facilities in Culverdon House—a very generous thanks to Microsoft, as they are letting us use their facilities at no cost!  Could it get any better?

As I mentioned above, course attendees consist of both partners and clients, which allows for some great discussion and insight on different situations.  Some of the attendees for this week’s course include:  Monier with Tectura Switzerland, and Stéphane and Manos with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

From Left to Right: Manos, Herve, & Stéphane!

Now any first event is never complete without some sort of technical difficulty; while we sent several emails with instructions to prepare laptops loaded with  Navigator 2009 in Classic and RTC, we had an early morning challenge with SQL loaded in Greek! Obviously, Zac said this was not compatible and after a three hour download, his class was finally on its way.  Rough first day, but the first day is almost over now!

Although Zac is leading sessions, he is definitely not the only Serenic staff, as well as 3rd party staff, helping put this event together.  Our first international training event was a huge team effort, with kudos going to Baris and Isabelle for working abroad with our clients and partners to bring in registrations; and to Donna, Rhonda, Quiana and Zac for working stateside to prepare course materials in RTC for W1.  Last but not least, Microsoft was essential in providing the facilities, our catering order (a European version), training room requirements and available hotels.

With such great help and initial success, onward we go—AwardVision is scheduled for June 14-15 and DonorVision is scheduled for June 16-18 at the same location.

Thanks to everyone who has been apart of the planning, execution, attendance, as well as all the readers who tuned into this post!

by Steve Glauber

In an effort to standardize financial reporting for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), a private federation, has codified the International Public Sector Accounting Standards, IPSAS. These standards are intended to provide a consistent foundation to prepare financial statements that will be both meaningful and comparable across any geopolitical region. The IPSA Standards are primarily based upon the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) used by for-profit organizations, and should be used if there is no applicable IPSAS Standard. This requires that organizations know the implications of both IPSAS and IFRS Standards—a lot of information that I will help explain!

In order to understand these standards, it is important to realize that without a universal set of rules, each country could, and does, have different rules for recording the same activity. IPSAS will reduce the complexity and variability in financial reporting and streamline the reporting process.

In today’s blog, I will focus on 3 of the major impact areas for NGO’s moving to IPSAS: Inventory, Fixed Assets, and Employee Benefits.

1.  Inventory – IPSA Standards no longer allows an organization to record inventory using Last In First Out, LIFO, valuations. Additionally, inventory is to be recorded at the lesser of historic cost or replacement value. This requires the organization to monitor current costs for inventory and permanently write it down as replacement costs decrease. The standards also provide guidance for Donated inventory, where even though there is no historical cost, it is to be recorded at the fair or replacement value.

2.  Fixed Assets – IPSA Standards allow the organization to track costs one of two ways: either the cost model or the revaluation model. The cost model allows assets to be written down based upon depreciation and impairment losses. The revaluation model allows the organization to regularly revalue assets and allows both increases and decreases in value. It’s important to note that the revaluation must take place at least once per year!

3.  Employee Benefits – IPSAS requires that employee benefits be recorded in the period they are earned and not when paid. These benefits/expenses would include all of the normal expenses; for example, salary, health insurance, medical and life insurance. In addition, the organization would have to record the current share of future activity including, vacations, sabbatical leave, post employment health and medical benefits, deferred compensation plans, and termination benefits.

These are some common examples of the impact of IFRS/IPSAS standards. The impact of the implementation of these standards is far reaching for any non profits operating within US border, and even internationally.  There will be more information to come on this as the various accounting advisory boards converge on a worldwide standard—so stay tuned for continuous updates!

It’s looking like a busy next few months for Serenic—but we’re not complaining!  Below is a list of trade shows, conferences and annual meetings where you can see the financial management and business operations software options provided by Serenic.  Check if Serenic will be coming to a town near you!

Charity Finance Director’s Group

May 18, 2010
London

• Covers key strategic and operational issues you will face, as well as innovative strategies that other charities have adopted in order to position themselves optimally on the long road out of recession.

Directions EMEA 2010

May 19 – 21, 2010
Prague, Czech Republic

• Focuses on strengthening and enhancing Dynamics NAV channel community, including NAV Partner communications & the relationship with Microsoft.

InterAction Forum 2010

June 2 – 4, 2010
Washington, DC

• Connect, Influence and Engage with hundreds of professionals, organizations and peers representing the international non-profit community, government, corporate and philanthropic sectors.

AICPA National Not-For-Profit Industry Conference

June 17 – 18, 2010
Washington, DC

• Provides critical training and the latest updates on auditing, accounting, tax, management, operational analysis and new strategies to enable the Not-for-Profit community to survive in this economic climate.

InsideNGO

July 12 – 16, 2010
Washington, DC

• Three separate NGO events covering: 1. Finance, Grants & Contracts 2. Cross Operations and Technology 3. Human Resources

AZA CFO Seminar

August 25 – 27, 2010
Seattle, WA

Association of Independent Research Institutes (AIRI)

September 26 – 29, 2010
Washington, DC

• An opportunity for AIRI members to network and get in touch with the top decision-makers at non-profit research institutes across the country.

Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference (DFMC)

September 26 – 27, 2010
New Orleans, LA

• More information coming soon!

Directions 2010

October 3 – 6, 2010
San Diego, CA

• Focused 100% on “Charting the Future” with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and its partners. Content created on partner feedback, providing best practices as well as interaction with peers.

A lot of information to take note of, but we will keep you updated as each trade show approaches!  Either bookmark this post, our follow us on Twitter and/or our Facebook Page—hope to see you there