Floats to the top

Aplos is doing the job for me. Some things are frustrating, but mostly, it's better than doing things by hand or by spreadsheet. Occasionally odd things happen. For instance, it's now January 17, and the home page is telling me that my YTD income is different from my monthly income. This can't be true in January. Similar things happen in some reports. The balance sheet will say that a fund has X dollars, but the report for that fund will say Y dollars. So there are some quirks to get around, but it's no worse than making a spreadsheet (or other software that knows nothing about fund accounting) behave. I like the reports Aplos generates. Especially at the end of the year, when everyone in our congregation wants a statement for their taxes. It's really just one button. If I were the boss of Aplos, the first thing I'd change is that I'd clean up the wasted screen real-estate. There's a button on the bottom right that has a bad habit of covering half the number I want to see, and pop-up "alerts" occasionally disrupt my work. And the box the pop-ups come from is also wasted screen area. Actually, this box keeps telling me I'm 85% set up. It's wrong. I'm as set up as I want to be. I can't see how to make the box go away, except to buy more product which I don't need. This amounts to a pop-up ad, and not the good kind. So this isn't a glowing review. But software nowadays is written so poorly, that bare competence floats to the top. Aplos is better than anything else I've used, but that's not saying a lot. If they raise the price again, I'm going back to spreadsheets.

Pros

Fairly clean interface. Most reports are close to what I want.

Cons

It's still buggy. Amounts that should match, don't always. The cost has tripled in the last 3 years.

APLOS Software for my Small (but growing) Church

The people at APLOS are great to work with. Easy to reach out to, quick to respond, They are really good at listening to my particular need and showing me how APLOS helps with it vs. just a generic response. Also, you can't beat the price. (I got a Black Friday 50% off special for a year). I looked at other options - some were too much for my need (both cost and complexity) and some could be made to work (Quickbooks for example) but were not really designed for a church. This is PERFECT for us.

Pros

I purchased this software to help me take on a new role as treasurer of a small church. Am about 6 weeks into a "practice period" and will wipe out my practice data and start clean in January. It has (almost) everything I could want and some things I did not expect. The people database for church members, vendors, & prospects supports communication and there are robust accounting features (budgeting, bill pay, offerings, etc.). It has predesigned reports of all kinds that can be easily customized. You can import and export data. And it is really easy to use. Clearly designed for non-professionals like me - a volunteer doing a treasurer's job. Loved it from the first time I started playing with it during the free trial period. Also the resources (webinars, academy, one on one support) are great! Have watched several webinars, and chatted with people in customer support several times to get specific guidance/suggestions on my questions.

Cons

Have found only 2 things missing so far: 1) My pastor wants the ability to use the letter/email functions to communicate with members (uses the contact database) without seeing their donation records - and right now that "separation" isn't available. Also in recording donations, I would like to differentiate between cash and check because you need that info to make your bank deposit. APLOS doesn't provide for that. There's a workaround but not a great one. Customer Service made note of both of these needs for future releases.

Simple and easy, but with advanced features for those who need it.

We began using Aplos as a brand new church. They helped us every step of the way as we grew - absolutely stellar customer service! We still don't have the complexity that some larger churches do, but every time we have needed to add something, the capacity has been there. The one exception was the lack of payroll integration, which I understand that they are now adding but we have not used yet. What I love about the product is that it is easy for us who are new to accounting to use, but also robust enough that our treasure (CPA) is able to use it in more complex ways.

Pros

Cloud-based Accounting with multiple user accounts makes it easy to keep finances updated.
Clean, simple, straight-forward layout makes use easy.
Super-responsive customer service are always there when you need them.
Bank integration makes it easy to import transactions.
Contact management.
Reports are quick and easy to generate with customized data.
Ability to connect to online-giving.

Cons

At the moment we are unable to link families within the contact management system.
There are awesome graphs and charts on the dashboard, but unfortunately they do not have a lot of customization options or the ability to easily export.

Amazing Fund Accounting software for small to medium non-profits!

If you are busy with the stuff that your non-profit is about, and accounting for the organisation is a necessary dragon, then Aplos will be your knight in shining armor to slay it! Having implemented a number of other products for small organisations in the past (Quickbooks, Xero, Sage, MS Dynamics GP) I have to give the award for easiest, quickest & most readily accepted to Aplos. If you want to account for your Funds discretely (separate pots of income) then Aplos just works! Took about an hour to sign up and set up a sandbox (using the trial license) to represent the way my small organisation works - I uncovered a couple of desirable features for product development (see later) but within another 30 minutes I had reports and analysis that would do the job for us so much better than my grumpy accountant! - I showed the software to a user who, after a 5 minute demo, needed no more explanation and was able to enter transactions with multiple expense lines each separately analysed by fund. The user interface is clearly the 'killer' feature - it is so intuitive that I wonder why others didn't think of it (why didn't I think of it?). The transaction input process for most accounting products is the 'ugly baby' of the product - in Aplos it's the wonder child! Some caveats to bring this back to earth... a) The product is currently for the North American market - needs additional features to make it more readily accepted in UK/Europe: 1. Needs a parameterised currency symbol (we don't do dollars!) - but the easy export of reports allows replacement of currency symbol in Excel. 2. Online donations (a great feature!) require a US Bank Account 3. Needs Paypal integration 4. UK giving sites like justgiving.com are very common - integration needed b) Many grant funders want a full budget before grant - we then need to account against the budget elements (e.g. £500 for travel + £5000 for salary). Aplos currently doesn't budget by Fund element (just at Fund level) but the Income Report provides a full breakdown by expense for each Fund (so allowing manual comparison). The free support provided by Aplos is responsive and helpful and I am assured that most of these features are on future development plans. I'm just going to go ahead and sign up for the paid version - I need this software so that I can get on with the purpose of our Charity!! Terry Wilcox Project Director In2Out www.in2out.org.uk

Aplos far out performs its competition

Overall, this is the best software for the money and I highly recommend it both for the product and the customer service.

Pros

The set up and functionality of the software is wonderfully easy. I've been using it for a little over a year and the security of having it all online and not having to worry about backups or workstation failures is great. Report flexibility is fantastic. I can create any report for any time period with ease. The customer service people are generally very helpful and on the rare occasion that a question doesn't get answered, the second attempt is always successful. But, it's rare to have to call back.

Cons

The only problem is that the donor statements are not posted from any screen other than the contributions screen. You cannot effect the donor statement from A/R, A/P or AJE's. You must then prepare a deposit and mark it to NOT post to the system. While this is a small inconvenience, it is not highlighted in the tutorials and takes a couple head scratching hours to figure out when first using the software. Once understood, it's a simple workaround.

Great Software for Non-profits

Aplos has THE BEST Customer Service team you could ask for! No matter what the issue or who answers the phone, I am always treated professionally and courteously. For example, I recently called because our church was changing our fiscal year from the calendar year to a July-June year. In a matter of minutes, I was on my way with my questions answered! At times when what I wanted wasn't available in the software, I have always been told that my request would be sent to the IT team for review and consideration. I like the fact that Aplos LISTENS to its customers and responds! The webinars and support areas offered are always helpful as well. Lastly, I personally enjoy the humor of the Aplos team; and the occasional contests/prizes are fun, too!

Pros

The software is basically user-friendly.

Cons

Some areas (like events) don't allow me all the options I wish were available.

Perfect Solution For A Church Plant

Starting a new church comes with a lot of tasks for a small group of people that are typically spread out between many in larger churches. We didn't have anyone with professional accounting experience, and we didn't need anything complicated to start out. Aplos was the perfect solution! They offered us a discount as a church plant, and got us moving in the right direction. Now four years into the process, Aplos has grown with us. We have been able to easily add others to the account management, add new funds and new features as we have grown, and the customer service has been quick and helpful whenever we have needed it. Some things I like best: *easy to use *the "dashboard" gives a quick read on finances at a glance *fund-based accounting makes it easy to track various donations *customer service is excellent *cloud-based design makes access easy from anywhere Things I would like to see improved: *I would love to be able to integrate payroll with Aplos *Report can be customized, but not always as much as we would like Overall, this is an excellent product for the value and I would recommend it to anyone starting out.

Pros

Ease of use
Fund-based accounting
Cloud-based design
Scalable
Excellent customer support

Cons

Wish it included payroll integration
Would like to be able to customize reports more

Great Church Software with wonderful customer service

We have been very satisfied with Aplos as our main accounting software. The customer service has been top notch and many of our suggestions about improving the software have been implemented into new versions. Hoping for a more robust Contacts module (email, texting, more information tracking) in the future!

Pros

Its online. Multiple user access. Great reporting. Easy to use. Great customer service.

Cons

The Contacts module is very limited - would be great to have more contact management tools (email, texting, grouping, tracking) so that we wouldn't have to have a separate software for that.
Other software was somewhat disappointing - hasn't always worked correctly and a bit confusing on how it integrates with Aplos.

Good Software for Beginning Nonprofits

Pros

I like that everything is all together in one spot - donor software, accounting, newletters and online giving forms. I like how when someone gives online through your forms that it automatically incorporates into your accounting and saves info from the giver into your contacts.

Their customer service and support is their beacon of light. Extreme strong point. It's almost as if you have nonprofit accountant on your staff to answer your questions. They answer you quickly, and their answers are always helpful. And often times they've logged in and completely helped me fix an issue. This is the best thing I love about them and something that makes them completely unique. This was a game changer for me as a brand new nonprofit and didn't know what I was doing. I can't say enough about this! This is what makes me recommend them to everyone I know that's a nonprofit leader.

Cons

The newsletter email templates and online giving forms are very template-y and don't give you a lot of control. The final product can help you get information out, however it looks pretty amateurish, which in turn makes your nonprofit/your brand, look amateurish - which is more important than most people know. If Aplos could follow constant contact's lead on design formatting they would be top notch.

The other thing I don't like is often I'm fundraising for events and have options for customers to pick (example : I want to buy tickets for an event and a tshirt for two people), or want them to be able to buy multiples of items and it really needs somewhat of a "cart" option for online giving forms.

Third, I get lots of complaints from customers about the transaction errors which make it hard to give. I get this a lot. Which can hinder givers, often they won't go back again and give again when they get an email way later that the transaction didn't go through, so you lose donations. I've addressed this with them several times, but there hasn't been any resolution. I think it has to do with that the provider they use does a micro-transaction to the bank and then banks don't approve it.

Aplos Fund Accounting

I have used the basic version Aplos for our small nonprofit foodshelf for nearly a year. I am a novice at accounting, so I started with the fun, informative teaching videos and it all made sense. Initially setting up the accounts we needed took some thought, but it was up and running in a short time. I'm able to enter transactions quickly, make changes easily as needed, and run all the reports I need for our payroll taxes. I love the fact that it doesn't use more complicated terminology, like "customer, vendor, employee" like QB, because that's not what we call our donors and suppliers. I like the check printing function, too, but it would be great if Aplos could print deposit slips. I have to re-enter into QB and then print it out, or do a handwritten deposit slip. Other than that, I am very happy with Aplos. Have not needed customer support yet, except to ask if it had a deposit slip printing function. My answer was prompt and courteous. Our Board was pleased that we were able to get a discount on the monthly rate since we have a small budget, and the fact that Aplos is cloud-based means both the treasurer and foodshelf manager can access the software without going onsite. Definitely a PLUS! Bank reconciliation is a breeze, too.

Pros

I liked the ease of navigating the different functions, ease of setting up accounts and budget, the cloud-based format, the number and types of reports that meet all our needs, and the easy bank reconciliation function. Our small nonprofit got a monthly discount. Training videos very to-the-point and entertaining too.

Cons

I wish Aplos had a deposit slip printing function in the basic version - not sure if they do in the upgrade?

Aplos Software Review: Why it's the best Software for Small