Aplos Erfahrungen

They are incredibly responsive, and when we initially set up the Accounts, they spent the time with me to help set us up based on our needs.

Overall experience . ... nothing but favorable, and to the Nth degree

Frustrating

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.

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.

My overall experience with Aplos has been phenomenal! They literally have THE BEST customer service of any company in any type of business with whom I have ever interacted! When I contact them with a question, I am always made to feel like a valued customer. In addition, each customer service representative has always answered my questions thoroughly, kindly, and professionally.
I also like the fact that Aplos listens to its customer base. Over the years (since 2015) that we have been with Aplos, I have seen improvements/additions to the software as a direct result of customer feedback.

I do not have another Fund Accounting Software to compare Aplos to, but I can't imagine that anyone could offer better Customer Service. They are very helpful, and help resolve issues. This would be a number one reason for using Aplos, not knowing if other companies provide the same level of Service...I can't say if they are the best, but they are very helpful.

We previously had a vendor that did all of our financial services including payroll, general ledger, bill pay and reporting. It was very expensive and the delay in being able to get the reporting was a big problem. We were able to switch to Aplos and take over all of that very easily. It is actually less labor doing it ourselves on Aplos than it was to supply all the data to our previous vendor that was doing it for us. Love this software!

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 is an accounting software that combines an easy-to-use interface and the power of a robust accounting engine to elevate your business.Aplos makes running your accounting fast, simple, and secure. Users can track their finances and make proactive decisions by analyzing their current and historical data.Aplos provides a variety of unique features, including: A state-of-the-art accounting engine, Customizable dashboards, Multi-currency support.

I hoped this would be a good solution for our needs, but it is a very expensive non-solution to even basic church management and accounting needs.

I would recommend it to anyone who needs both an accounting and donor management solution for their non-profit organization.

Understanding flow of fund accounting.

Even with the bank integration issues with some of my clients and the lack of apps that connect, I still highly recommend this awesome accounting and donation tracking software!

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.

I really liked the software and the compatibility to link it with your bank account. This software actually does assist with mailing out info to donors and setting up recurring donations etc.

I've been using Aplos for about one month and am finding a number of shortcomings for what I need. We run most of our invoicing through AP and Aplos does not have a strong tie between AP and payments, making it cumbersome to pay multiple invoices with one check. In addition, the payments page requires re-entry of the amounts for each invoice. If you generally pay the full amount, that's an unnecessary step. Reports look really nice, but need formatting flexibility beyond filtering.

We have used Aplos since December 2016, and their have been ongoing upgrades and improvements that enhance the operations of the system.

Aplos has been great about adding features that are helpful for book-keeping for a church with multiple funds. I appreciate that when feedback is given, Aplos listens and accommodates the needs that we have! Everyone at Aplos is super-friendly and very helpful!

I love the ability to due true fund balance accounting. For years I used Peachtree with job costs and spreadsheets to accomplish. This is a huge upgrade. I think the work around in the deposits is worth it for the fund balances.