Industries · Non-Profit
Business Central for Non-Profits
Fund accounting, grant management, and transparent overhead tracking for non-profits that have outgrown basic bookkeeping.
The pattern
What we hear from non-profits
Tracking restricted funds manually
Ensuring donor-restricted grants are spent correctly requires a parallel set of shadow books.
Reporting is painful
Generating the specific Statement of Activities and Statement of Financial Position required for board meetings takes days.
Disconnected donor systems
Your CRM logs the donation, but finance enters it again manually into the GL, leading to discrepancies.
After
After Business Central is live
Dimensional fund accounting
Every transaction carries its fund, grant and program, so net assets with and without donor restrictions report from one general ledger instead of shadow books.
Board reporting from financial reports
Statements of activities and financial position, and budget-to-actual views by fund or program, come from Business Central financial reports built to your chart of accounts.
Donor system integrations
Business Central doesn't manage donors, so gifts from your donor CRM or fundraising platform arrive as batches or summaries through its APIs, or through Dataverse when Dynamics 365 Sales is your CRM.
Grant budgets against actuals
Approved grant and program budgets sit in Business Central with up to four budget dimensions, and financial reports compare actuals with budget by grant and period.
Indirect cost allocation
Shared costs such as rent and administration spread across programs on the bases your finance lead and auditor agreed, using allocation accounts or recurring journal allocations.
Next steps
Plan your next step
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does Business Central support fund accounting?
Not as a dedicated module, but dimensions cover many fund accounting needs. You tag entries with fund, grant and program, require codes on the accounts that need them, and report net assets with and without donor restrictions from one ledger. Releases from restriction are posted as journal entries under your accounting policy. Where you need more, such as automated restriction releases, a Microsoft Marketplace app or extension may fit, and we assess that in discovery.
How do we track grants and report to funders?
Each grant gets a dimension value, and sometimes a project, so costs can be budgeted, tracked and reported by grant period. G/L budgets support up to four budget dimensions, and financial reports compare actuals with budget. Funder-specific formats are built as financial reports or Excel layouts. We test each major funder report against a closed period and agree how allocations and indirect rates apply before the first report is due.
Does Business Central include donor management?
No. Business Central has general relationship management features such as contacts, segments, campaigns and interactions, but no donor-specific functions such as pledges, gift acknowledgments or donor receipts. Most organizations keep a dedicated donor CRM or fundraising platform and integrate it with Business Central. We scope whether gifts arrive in detail or as batch summaries, how payment processor deposits are matched, and who resolves mismatches.
Can Business Central allocate shared costs to programs?
Yes. Allocation accounts split amounts on documents and journal lines across G/L accounts and dimensions, either by fixed shares or by variable bases that use statistical accounts, such as headcount by program. Recurring general journals use a separate allocation feature by quantity, percentage or amount, because allocation accounts aren't supported there. The Test Allocation action previews a split before posting. We agree the allocation bases with your finance lead and test them on a full period.
Can you migrate us from QuickBooks or another accounting system?
Yes, after we review your source system and exports. Scope covers the chart of accounts, funds and grants mapped to dimensions, vendors, opening balances, open transactions and agreed history. Finance approves the reconciliation, including balances by fund, before cutover. Grant and restriction history that lived only in spreadsheets needs a decision about what to load and what to archive.
How does a non-profit engagement start?
With a free discovery call on your funds, grants, reporting obligations and donor systems. Where deeper analysis is needed, we agree a paid assessment first. The written proposal then sets deliverables, acceptance criteria, exclusions, milestone dates and a fixed price before build work starts. Typical implementations take 8 to 16 weeks; finance-first projects with clean data land near the front of that range. Published bands begin at $28,500, and every implementation includes 30 days of hypercare.