When your volunteer organization needs to start collecting payments, you might start looking at PayPal, Venmo, Square, Stripe or even one of those newer platforms like Zeffy or Givebutter. They’re easy to set up, they look professional, and people can pay with just a few clicks.
Treasurer role handled, right?
Not quite. While these payment tools are excellent at helping you collect money, they’re not designed to help you manage it or fulfill your compliance and reporting responsibilities that are outlined in your group’s bylaws and/or the IRS for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations.
Over the years, we’ve noticed payment platforms increasingly positioning themselves as financial management tools—but that is simply not accurate. In this post, we explain the difference and why you’ll likely need both payment tools and financial management tools, no matter your group size.
What payment platforms do well
Payment processors like Zeffy, Givebutter, Venmo, PayPal, Cheddar Up, Stripe, Square, and Givebacks are fantastic at their primary job: making it easy for people to send you money. They handle the technical aspects of processing credit cards, managing e-checks, and transferring funds to your bank account. Many even provide basic reporting that shows you who paid what and when.
For organizations just starting to accept digital payments, these platforms can feel like a complete solution. The reports look official, and everything appears to be organized and trackable.
Where payment tools fall short
Here’s where things get tricky: collecting payments is just the beginning of your treasurer responsibilities. Those payment platform reports, while helpful, only show you part of your financial picture. They don’t integrate with your budget, they don’t categorize expenses alongside income, and they certainly don’t help you prepare the financial reports your board needs or comply with IRS requirements.
Think of payment processors as sophisticated cash registers—they’re excellent at recording transactions, but they’re not designed to manage your organization’s complete financial ecosystem.
6 things you’re missing without a financial management tool designed for nonprofits
1. The full financial picture
Payment platforms show you money coming in, but what about everything else? Your organization likely has expenses paid by check, cash transactions, reimbursements, bank fees, and other financial activities that never touch your payment processor. Without a system that tracks everything in one place, you’re managing your finances with incomplete information.
A comprehensive financial management system like MoneyMinder allows you to record all transactions—digital and otherwise—in one place, giving you the complete picture your organization requires.
2. Custom budget categories and tracking
Most payment platforms offer basic categorization, but they’re not designed around the specific needs of nonprofit organizations. You need to track fundraising income separately from membership dues, categorize expenses by program areas, and align everything with your budget. Generic business categories don’t cut it for volunteer-run non-profits.
With MoneyMinder, you can categorize everything using budget categories that actually make sense for your organization’s unique needs.
3. Comprehensive financial reporting
Your board expects financial reports that show activities categorized by your organization’s specific needs. With a true financial management tool like MoneyMinder you can generate these with just a few clicks. On the other hand, payment platforms might give you transaction lists, but they can’t produce the comprehensive financial statements that demonstrate fiscal responsibility to your stakeholders.
MoneyMinder makes it easy to run your financial reports, but if you are looking for more information, you can learn everything about the treasurer’s report including a link to a free guide.
4. Simpler transitions
When it’s time for you to pass the treasurer role to the next volunteer, what will you hand over? They’ll need more than login information to your payment platform, exported spreadsheets, and a collection of reports that may or may not tell the complete story. A proper financial management system creates a clear, organized record that makes transitions much smoother.
Using a tool like MoneyMinder makes it easy to change users to add a new treasurer. Learn more about a smooth treasurer transition with this free guide.
5. Support for compliance requirements
As a nonprofit, you have specific reporting requirements. Form 990-N and 990-EZ have fields that need to be completed accurately, and having this information scattered across multiple platforms makes compliance much more complicated than it needs to be.
MoneyMinder helps track compliance requirements and due dates with auto-filled fields for common forms, making tax season much less stressful. Learn about the top compliance mistakes and how MoneyMinder helps you avoid them.
6. Nonprofit specific features
Most payment platforms are designed for individuals or for businesses selling products or services. But nonprofits have unique needs like tracking donor information, managing membership records, handling reimbursements, reconciling accounts, and organizing financial data to support board governance and regulatory compliance. By picking the right tool for your needs, you’ll save yourself the headache of dealing with platform limitations (or wasting money on business-focused features you don’t need).
Learn all about the features of MoneyMinder that make it a treasurer’s secret weapon.
Using a payment tool with your financial management system
The good news is that you don’t have to choose between convenience and comprehensive financial management. Many popular payment platforms, including PayPal, Square, and Stripe, integrate directly with MoneyMinder. That means you can still use your payment processor to collect payments while MoneyMinder automatically records and tracks everything for you.
And for the payment tools that don’t integrate directly—like Givebacks, Givebutter and Zeffy—you can still export payout summaries and import them or create them manually in MoneyMinder.
Want to see how MoneyMinder can work with your existing payment tools? Start with a free 30-day trial to explore how comprehensive financial management can simplify your treasurer duties.
Connect your Stripe Account to MoneyMinder PRO to directly download transactions, saving you time and effort. You just review the transactions to ensure they are properly categorized and fill out any required fields.
Connect your Venmo account to MoneyMinder PRO to directly download transactions, saving you time and effort. You just review the transactions to ensure they are properly categorized and fill out any required fields.
Connect your Bank, Paypal and Square accounts to MoneyMinder PRO to directly download transactions, saving you time and effort. You just review the transactions to ensure they are properly categorized and fill out any required fields.
Connect your Bank, Paypal and Square accounts to MoneyMinder PRO to directly download transactions, saving you time and effort. You just review the transactions to ensure they are properly categorized and fill out any required fields.
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Connect your Bank, Square and PayPal accounts to MoneyMinder PRO to directly download transactions, saving you time and effort. You just review the transactions to ensure they are properly categorized and fill out any required fields.