I just returned from a very productive trip to Indianapolis where I spent some time with both Blackbaud Fundware (BBFW) and The Financial Edge (FE) clients.
My friend, Steve Ketterer and I, hosted a user group for a large number of his BBFW clients. The turnout far exceeded our expectations and we are thrilled with the result. I thought that other clients might benefit from the material that we covered, so I decided to share a brief summary of the discussion in this forum.
BBFW topics:
-
BBFW is a fully supported financial management application. Blackbaud is investing development resources into the product in order to meet our customers' needs. Our committment to the former Kintera Fundware client base has not changed since we first announced the acquisition last year.
-
Current BBFW clients covered by a current maintenance plan may decide to take advantage of a free software upgrade to FE (Free upgrade is limited to an exchange of BBFW to FE modules). New software capabilities are available for purchase.). The decision to upgrade is optional and totaly at the discretion of client management. There is no plan in place to require conversion--that is, BBFW clients may also choose to remain on Fundware.
-
BBFW version 7.5 is currently available. We plan to release version 7.6 in Q4 of this year. For details regarding BBFW upgrades please refer your questions to the
BBFW Support team.
FE topics:
-
I offerd a brife company overview and FE product demonstration to the group. For an online version of the demonstration, please follow this
link.
Next Generation
-
I shared an overview of my latest research results and a high-level description of my vision for Blackbaud's financial solutions. I also requested that those in attendance volunteer to participate in my current and future research efforts. The offer is open to any willing participants with a financial management responsibilities or experience. Please feel free to contact me directly if you are interested in helping shape our future product offerings. My email address is
andrew.payne@blackbaud.com.
To those that attended the session, I would like to extend my thanks for sharing your valuable time with our team. Again, from our perspective, the meeting was most productive and I look forward to developing longstanding dialogue and relationships with all that were in attendance.
The Admission
My admission--I didn't read the directions. My friend, Chad Norman, sent a very descriptive email explaining the proper use of this publishing tool, which I promptly filed without reading. With that being said, my second post took somewhat longer to produce than I originally thought. Suffice to say, I experienced self-imposed, technical difficulties that resulted in three failed attempts to publish my work. I found the experience to be somewhat frustrating; however, I will attribute the late night effort to a learning exercise. I opined on such grandiose topics as business process management and business process automation, the impact of social networking on the accounting function, and my findings as they relate to particular research topics (e.g. the future direction of report dissemination). I plan to highlight those topics again in the very near future, but I wanted to publish a quick note to let you know that I the lights are still on at The Post blog (and, yes, I read Chad's email).
The Invitation
As a product line manager, I spend a good deal of my time talking with clients and non-clients about their business problems. Said another way, client input is an absolute requirement of the product management function. With that being said, I hope to expand my current research partner list in order to solicit as many diverse opinions as possible.
If you are interested in contributing to the future direction of Blackbaud's financial solutions, please feel free to email me directly at andrew.payne@blackbaud.com.
My name is Andrew Payne. I am Blackbaud's product line manager for financial solutions. For my first post, I will briefly introduce myself, share my vision for this blog, and very soon start sharing my thoughts...
For those of you that are long time Blackbaud clients, we may have met. I am nearing my 10th year of employment with the company and have served in a number of roles (Sales, Support, PD, and Marketing). My collective experience combined with my previous experience in academia, standard setting, and public accounting have prepared me for this position--that is, I am confident that my collective experience will help me interpret your needs into high quality requirements that our team will use to deliver our financial solutions.
I want to thank those of you that sent your well wishes while I was out of the office for an extended period of time. Your words of encouragement were most appreciated. What a wonderful peer group! For the record, I am back and as energized as ever and look forward to reconnecting with you.
My vision for the blog is quite simple. I would like to use this forum as a means for us to share our thoughts as they relate to the finance function in governments and not-for-profit organizations. For example, we may discuss the impact of social networking concepts on financial reporting (not a crazy thought, right?), the impact of the new 990 on AIS, or general process automation... Meaty stuff, but very applicable to function. From time to time, I will share my observations--those of a technology product manager--that you might find interesting.
I will start blogging this week, so come back by, let me know what you think, and join in the conversation.