How QuickBooks and Givebutter Integration Allowed an NGO to Track Offline Donations
TABLE OF CONTENTS
16 hours of manual work saved each month
Givebutter synced with offline data
The Client
Our client is a nonprofit organization promoting inclusion in athletics. They use Givebutter, a fundraising platform, to collect donations. They were looking to streamline their financial processes by integrating Givebutter with QuickBooks Online.
The Challenge
They faced significant manual labor in updating and creating transactions in Givebutter.
Each offline transaction, such as checks, grants, and corporate sponsorships, needed to be manually inputted into Givebutter and cross-referenced with QuickBooks.
On average, it took 5-10 minutes per transaction, adding up to a significant amount of time considering they handled between 150 to 250 transactions monthly.
This process not only consumed a lot of time but also was prone to human error and led to data inconsistencies.
The Solution
Connex developed an integration to automate this process using Zapier. This integration pulled donation data from QuickBooks and inserted it into Givebutter automatically. The workflow included:
- Exporting all contacts from Givebutter and storing them in a spreadsheet used a contacts lookup table.
- Querying this sheet during each transaction update to check if the contact already existed or needed to be created.
- Filtering out duplicates to ensure transactions were not recorded multiple times.
- Handling both new contact creation and updating existing contacts in Givebutter based on the data pulled from QuickBooks.
- Setting specific triggers to run the operation once per month to collect and process the previous month's transactions efficiently.
The Results
The automation runs every 15th of the month, after the Accounting Dept would categorize bank deposits.
The automation reduced the time required for each transaction from 10-15 minutes to virtually none, as the process became instantaneous. This led to at least 16 hours saved each month.
Additionally, the integration minimized human errors and ensured that the donation records were accurate and up-to-date across both platforms.
The client was particularly pleased with the enhanced efficiency and accuracy, which also improved their ability to analyze donor behavior and campaign effectiveness.
- Enabled real-time transaction processing, improving financial accuracy and reporting
- At least 16 hours of manual work saved each month.
- No duplicated records.
Tech Used
- Givebutter
- QuickBooks Online
- Zapier
This integration not only solved the client's immediate challenges but also opened up possibilities for further automation, such as creating donor receipts and invoices automatically.
