Reporting and accountability is critical to the work the team does with its clients as the majority of charities have to do audits. “You have to be able to explain that these dollars are being spent appropriately because the charities and their boards have a fiduciary responsibility to their donors. The charitable sector is scrutinized by CRA and the funders – they often want to see the source document and who has approved it,” says Cooper.

To reach this level of compliance, an approval process is number one; that’s where ApprovalMax comes in. “It lends that level of control and accountability to give us documentation in black and white, through the audit trail, that we can show an auditor.”

The team uses a combination of Dext, ApprovalMax, and QuickBooks Online to manage accounts payable for clients. “When it comes time for the audit, we give the auditor view access into QuickBooks, and they can see everything right there. ApprovalMax helps us build that foundation so people can easily access the information they need, whether they’re our client, their funder, or an auditor.”

Before using this tech stack, these processes took a whole lot longer – and used a great deal of paper. Now, CHARITYacCOUNTS! manages the entire accounts payable process for clients in the cloud. “Before Covid, we would be on-site or receive a courier delivery with all the invoices and relevant signatures on them,” says Cooper.

“The other option was email approvals. When you have to email a document, get it signed off, then import a PDF of that email into QuickBooks it’s very time consuming. This month I introduced a client to ApprovalMax and the streamlined workflow feature and ease of doing the approvals convinced them of the value.”

Clients notice a big difference when switching to ApprovalMax and simplifying and formalizing their approvals process. “My clients have said being able to just click a button to accept or reject, from an email or on the website, makes approving expenses so much easier,” says Cooper. “Back to the CHARITYacCOUNTS! model, we're making their jobs easier so they can focus on what they do best: supporting the homeless, running food banks, or advancing the mission they are dedicated to.”