What scares funders most? Mismanagement and fraud, and for valid reasons: more than 13 percent of all fraud cases reported happened in nonprofit institutions.
Efficiency, accountability, and compliance are words that resonate with donors, they need to feel confident that their contributions will be used for the greater good. An effective time management and expense reporting system is an amazing way to demonstrate competence, integrity, and transparency and win donors’ trust. These tools help you further engage potential donors and maximize your ability to advance and fulfill your core missions.
Here are some great tools that you can use to report, approve and track employee hours/activities and spending in your nonprofit institution.
1. ClickTime
ClickTime prides itself as a premium time tracking and expense reporting software for all kind of organizations. It makes it easy for you to plan, track and manage employee hours and program budgets.
It has built-in features such as timesheet approvals, funding-source tracking, employee scheduling, expense tracking, program costs, so you can stop fretting about managing timesheets and focus on more important projects. ClickTime also has a mobile app and on-the-go capabilities, which renders time tracking easy for everyone involved with your institution.
In a nutshell, this platform allows you to detail every minute spent working towards projects and grants. It has accurate dashboards and reports, making it easier for you to maintain governmental compliance, create Functional Expense reports, and show end-of-month reports to funders.
Main Features
- Time tracking with Daily, Biweekly and Weekly Timesheets stopwatch, custom field, and notes
- Billing and Cost reporting
- Basic billing rates
- Forecasting and Budgeting with real-time employee availability, estimates versus actuals, employee costs
- Billable versus non-billable hours
- Android and iPhone mobile app
- Resource planning with resource planning dashboard, monthly retainer management tools, under/overstaffed projects.
Pricing
- Qualified nonprofits can get up to 50 percent discount
- ClickTime Nonprofit: $8 per user/month
2. QuickBooks
Apparently, QuickBooks understands that everyone ought to be an accountant, and that’s the reason their platform is simple. You can leverage QuickBooks solutions to streamline accounting processes and boost productivity.
The platform offers a sleek mobile and desktop user interface and integrates payroll features. Although QuickBooks features list is shorter than other platforms, QuickBooks offers you all the core features necessary to a nonprofit accounting software, including donor management and account management.
Main Features
- Fixed asset management
- Collections
- Donation management
- Payroll
- Cash management
- Accounts receivable/payable
- Billing and invoicing
Pricing
Intuit charges full price for QuickBooks across all organizations. QuickBooks offers three plans at 30 percent for 6 months and a 30-day free trial (for all plans):
- Simple start: $16/month
- Essentials: $25/month
- Plus: $34/month
- Custom plans
3. WeWork
WeWork is a simple yet powerful solution with all the essential features ideal for nonprofits. You can efficiently track your budget, allocate resources, and manage all your organization’s timesheets and accounting data on this platform.
You can also calculate the billable projects, set individual permissions for specific users, and customize your tasks. Managing timesheets and users is now easier than ever when you use WeWorked for your organization.
Main Features
- Task customization
- Timesheet approval
- Detailed reports with export to PDF/Excel capability
- Expense tracking
- Mobile app
- Invoicing
- Integration with Xer and QuickBooks
Pricing
WeWorked offers four plans:
- Up to 3 Users: $9.99/month
- Up to 10 users: $19.99/month
- Up to 25 Users: $39.99/month
- 100+ Users: 79.99/month
4. TSheets
TSheets is a popular tracking software for most organizations. It offers accurate invoices and makes time tracking relatively easier. TSheets understands your budget is tight and that the budget may be funded by fragile sources, including programs and grants that demand continuous progress reports. It is an excellent solution for nonprofits that use QuickBooks since it is integrated inside QuickBooks software.
Building and sharing employee schedules in your nonprofit institution is relatively easy and fast using TSheets.
Main Features
- Convenient time tracking with mobile app
- Real-time interactive reports
- GPS location tracking- real-time data on who is working on what and where
- Overtime alerts
- Advanced time tracking features
- Employee scheduling
- Discounted pricing for nonprofits
Pricing
Your Nonprofit can save up to 20 percent on TSheets’ solutions. They have two plans accompanied with unlimited options and a 14-day free trial.
- Elite: $10 dollar per user per month, and $40 base fee per month
- Premium: $8 per user month, and $20 base fee per month
5. Freckle
Check out Freckle; it was made with nonprofits in mind. This tool is essential if you need to ensure that you are always on time and that your budgets are free of errors. Freckle is a flexible and automated time tracking software, thus relieving your institution the administrative burden of time tracking.
The tool also gives you sufficient data to help you make informed decisions. Besides, Freckle has a fancy and intuitive user interface.
Main Features
- Superior Timesheets
- Expense tracking
- Billable and non-billable hours
- Funds source reporting
- Connects to third-party applications
Pricing
Freckle offers four plans and a 30 day free trial.
- Solo: $19/month
- Team: $49/month for 5 users, and $10/month/user for additional users
- Organization: $199/month for up to 25 users, and $8/month/user for additional users
- Enterprise: $499/month
6. Harvest
Harvest is loaded with different features to help you operate more transparently. Timesheets here are visual representations of how your institution is running. This gives you an intuitive sense of where you are doing well, areas that need improvement, and opportunities for moving forward.
Harvest helps you keep time management in your nonprofit institution simple and easy. You can manage your teams’ timesheets on the go with Harvest’s easy to use interface (from any device). Harvest also offers you fast invoicing, time forecasting, and expense tracking.
Main Features
- Online payments
- Fast invoicing
- Easy to use timesheets
- Robust reporting
Pricing
- Free version: It is free of one seat
- Pro: $12 per seat per month
- Harvest offers 15 percent discount for nonprofits if you pay monthly and 25 percent discount if you pay the year in advance.
7. Toggl
If you seek a simple and intuitive solution to track your work, tasks, and projects, Toggl is a good consideration. Toggl’s main aim is to help you improve productivity and efficiency instead of wasting time managing timesheets.
Once you log on to Toggl, time tracking is as simple as the click of a button. With Toggl’s easy-to-view reports, you can evaluate how you have spent time, which helps you prioritize essential projects. Toggl also has a free extension for Google Chrome, which adds a timer to your browser so that you can track how long you have been on the internet.
You can also use Toggl to track project progress and assign responsibilities. This gives you actionable insights on which projects might be over budget or overdue.
Main Features
- Excellent time tracking with start/stop buttons
- Operational on all devices
- Automatic time tracking
- Projects dashboard that has a summary of your activity
Pricing
Toggl has three plans and a 14 days trial for each.
- Free for up to 5 users
- Standard- 8$ per user per month
- Business- $13 per user per month
- Toggl also has special discounts for nonprofit organizations.
8. Cashboard
According to Cashboard, paperwork and administrative tasks disrupt your productivity, and that’s why they want to help. Cashboard transforms your hectic and disorganized time tracking process into an easy and streamlined one.
You can also view your timesheets on Cashboard either (weekly, daily, or per project) to help you manage your time better. Besides, you can also import previously tracked time from older spreadsheets.
Main Features
- Simple time tracking
- Project management features
- Expense reporting
- Integration with Basecamp
- Payments and invoicing
Pricing
Cashboard offers three plans:
- Free-lancer: $8.25/month
- Premium: $15/month
- Ultra: $250/month
Bonus Point: Choosing the Best Solution
In the end, determine your nonprofit institution’s needs and identify which time tracking and expenses management tool will fulfill those needs without breaking the bank while integrating with other software your institution uses.
Consider which tool will help your institution make the most of every dollar and make a significant impact. Some factors to consider include:
- The pricing
- Special features that your institution may need
- Accuracy of financial reporting
- Customer experience
- FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board)-compliance with functional expense reporting
- Compatibility with your other software
Are you looking for more neutral advice on nonprofit tech? See our guide to features and nonprofit pricing for email platforms.
Who We Are
When everyone was hopping on the technology bandwagon, powerful nonprofits movements were so occupied with social issues, and they were being left behind. We couldn’t help, and we chose to make (digital) wings to elevate them.
At Elevation, we are a full-service digital and branding agency tailored for nonprofit organizations and the social sector. We are a team of industry specialists with a passion for making the world a better place. Our Mantra is simple, On a mission for your Mission.
We don’t just work with you; we work for you to elevate your Mission. We believe in the power of transformative technology to advance your mission and vision to help you make a greater impact.
Our range of superior services includes User Experience, Digital Services, Branding, and Sustainability plans. For more neutral information on nonprofit technology, feel free to contact us, and we will be more than willing to assist.
