Likewise, all youth organizations are focused on effective budget management. "Being able to utilize our funds as efficiently as possible helps us achieve our mission," added Hudson. "With other software, we were limited to entering one budget for the entire year. Sage MIP Fund Accounting lets us enter multiple budgets for all our different programs. Another great Sage MIP Fund Accounting feature is the ability to manage our temporarily restricted grants to ensure budget compliance."

The majority of youth organizations do not rely greatly on federal grant funding, but most do receive foundation grants. Effective grant tracking and reporting on outcome measurements can improve an organization?s competitive position when seeking new grants.

"I've been working with nonprofits since 1990, so I was thrilled when I started using Sage MIP Fund Accounting to track grants and use the information to invoice them monthly," said Diane Martin, finance director for Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson in Tucson, Ariz., a Sage Software customer since 1995. "I assign a new number to each grant year, and then capture the history. Because the software is so detail-oriented, I track costs by funds, grants, programs, and location, and then run reports for internal departments, the board of directors, and the auditors. I can provide as much detail as needed, or group the income and expenses into categories, for those who don?t want all the details."

Although much of the staff at Girl Scout Council of Southeastern Massachusetts works outside the office, Sage MIP Fund Accounting helps them have the same access to information as the organization?s in-house staff. "Any budget-driven organization can benefit from the software if they want to see real-time, on-demand data against their budget, either in a report, online, or in spreadsheet or PDF format," added Charlebois. "I can modify financial reports from last year to create a new set of reports, yet the original report remains intact."

For more information about Sage MIP Fund Accounting or other Sage Software Nonprofit Solutions, visit www.sagenonprofit.comhttp://www.sagenonprofit.com or call 800?647?3863.

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