How Xero can transform your not for profit

Katrina Spinazzola is a bookkeeper, gold Xero partner, and owner of KRS Consulting Group

I volunteer not because I am a martyr.

I volunteer because I see the greater good.

I see that we can make a difference.

I see that my children can be inspired to engage with their community.

I volunteer because I can use my skills to help others and ultimately be a better person.

I volunteer because I CAN.   

If you’re like me and you attended a recent AGM of a volunteer-based organisation and were unable to sit on your hands – you may have ended up in a role, perhaps as Treasurer. (They always sniff out the numbers nerds. You can run but you cannot hide!)

While the role of Treasurer may sound glam, it really isn’t – and the words above became my mantra. It’s about process, control and, at times, smacking hands from the lolly jar. But here’s the good news for you: it can also bring immense satisfaction.

With grown children at university, I have time to give back to my community to support a club my kids love: Torquay Surf Life Saving Club. As a parent and a mother, why wouldn’t I throw my cap into the ring? I also have a internal of fault of not being able to say no.

So I took over the Treasurer role for a not for profit mid season. It was not an ideal handover but, let me tell you, there are some serious tools out there that can rock your not for profit world. And today, I want to share just one of them with you.

Xero.

It pays for itself

Let’s start with the idea of actually paying for something. A Xero subscription will pay for itself. That comes from someone who works in a not for profit and knows full well how much you need to get things gifted as much as possible. But sometimes the best things in life are not for free – and Xero does offer a 25% discount for not for profit organisations.  

To look at what beautiful software can do for you, let me take you back to where we started: on desktop software. Our previous treasurer was fantastic at her job, but I soon realised that nothing happened without her input. No one even opened the mail. If I was to do the best by my not for profit, I knew I had to progress and deliver a legacy that someone else could take over. I had to streamline, create efficiency and implement process.

The tools you need

Want to know how I created efficiency and harnessed the power of Xero to drive automation into this NFP, creating a legacy I can be proud of? Here we go:

1. Create structure

In business we usually have an expert accountant to guide us, and their service is invaluable. But as a not for profit you may not have access to one and it’s easy to feel all alone. That’s where advice, processes and automation can help you work things out. Xero allows you to create structure and rules, and leads to consistencies between the change-over of Committee members.

2. Fixed Assets

I inherited an Excel asset spreadsheet of 365 lines. This was easily converted to Xero Fixed Assets and, all of a sudden, the year-end depreciation process that took hours took literally minutes.

3. Report Layouts

I also inherited an end-of-year report layout that had to be hand transcribed from the accounting software to Excel. I couldn’t change the way it was as it was compared year on year. So, I created a Layout in Xero that ‘fired’ off every time, and could be printed straight from Xero to the annual report or viewed by other board members via their read-only access. No export to Excel required. And best of all, the next Treasurer can just follow on from where I left off!

4. Go paperless

No longer does the Treasurer have to lock in a day to meet the Auditors at the NFP office. You can attach the documents to transactions in Xero and the Auditor can look at all the source documents remotely. Create a workflow around using the ‘email in’ function of Xero, use add-on tools like Receipt Bank, and bam!, paperless efficiency.

5. Collaborate

The Treasurer must maintain the integrity of the data. With Xero, you can create users that have different access, meaning paid employees can carry out day-to-day tasks such as invoicing. All of this is logged with dates, times and names for full transparency to the Board.

6. Memberships

You can easily create Groups in Xero Contacts and send out hundreds of renewal invoices in a few clicks by creating one invoice to the entire group. Makes renewal a breeze.

7. Budgets

An essential part of any NFP is planning for how the money will be spent. This is so easy with in built budgets in Xero.

8. Payroll

Paid employees? No problem. Xero seamlessly allows for timesheet, payroll and auto Super in its inbuilt clearing house.

9. Approval process

Xero allows for workflows that integrate the drafting of bills and invoices, submitting for approval and final batch payment and approval. Perfect for reassurance and audit.

10. The Xero app

This allows the flexibility for approved members to upload receipts for reimbursement or payment – and it’s free.

11. Assurance dashboard

Xero has in-built controls which specify contacts with the same bank account, a record of contact bank accounts being edited, a history of deleted and backdated bank statement lines / invoices / bills. All necessarily tasks for a NFP treasurer.

The complex role of Treasurer on a not for profit need not be a position only for the numbers nerds. With a great Xero set up, a little training and customisation, your not for profit can get on with its real mission and let Xero do it’s magic!

Now that’s beautiful.

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Source: Xero Blog