2017 Review of Aplos Accounting

Aplos is well suited for small to mid-sized nonprofits with revenues of $500,000 to $5 million annually. Completely cloud-based, Aplos works on both Windows and Mac platforms, and contains an easily navigated user interface that guides users to the functions they need to access. Aplos is available in three versions; Starter, Standard, and Advanced.

Default funds can also be assigned to any account number if desired. One of the nice features is that all system funds are assigned a color, making it easy to track all activity against that particular fund.

Users can track donations by individual donor, and the system easily handles online donations. The Donor Management dashboard provides a convenient list of all engaged donors, total online donations, and the number of active recurring donors. Users can create ‘purposes’ to track donations for various campaigns and programs, and the ability to create online donation forms is a great tool for smaller nonprofits. For Standard and Advanced version users, a Contributions Manager is included that offers easy tracking for both online or manually entered donations. The Contributions Manager also tracks special gifts, and will automatically create contribution statements at year end.  

In the advanced version of Aplos, users can split both income and expenses across multiple funds, departments, or locations by either manually or automatically creating a cost driver. All levels of Aplos offer multi-level security options, with administrators able to assign role-based system access levels to employees and outside accountants.

Aplos offers a decent amount of reports including standard accounting reports such as Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Budgets. Users can also run a Statement of Cash Flows and 1099 forms as well as a basic GL report. Donation reports are also available under the donations option. Users can customize reports to reflect various filters or layout options, but true customization is limited in the Starter and Standard version, though a custom report writer is available in the Advanced version of Aplos. All customized reports can be saved in Aplos for future access if desired. All Aplos reports can be shared as an email directly from the print page, exported to Microsoft Excel or as a CSV file, or saved as a PDF. The Advanced version of Aplos offers custom segment reporting capability, as well as the ability to create a 990 financial report.

Aplos offers Fund Accounting, Contributions Management and Donor Management/Email Marketing modules, with all modules working together. They also partner with several other vendors that can extend the capability of the product, including integration with Sage Payroll Services, which enables organizations to easily handle payroll in-house. A variety of partners extend the capability of the donations function by providing both CRM and additional fundraising capability. Aplos also offers API functionality, providing those using third-party applications the ability to integrate with functionality not included in their product.

Aplos includes good help functionality throughout the product, with users able to access support from any interface screen. A chat box is available from the interface screens as well, and the Support Center offers access to a variety of help categories, webinars, and a demo. All system support is included in the price of the monthly subscription. Aplos Academy offers additional training tools and eBooks that users can access at any time. The vendor also offers a 15-day free trial, so users can try out the system prior to purchasing,

Ideal for the smallest non-profit but scalable enough to suit the needs of a mid-sized organization as well, Aplos offers three versions; Starter, which offers basic fund accounting and donation management; Standard, which offers additional functionality such as Contributions Management; and Advanced, which offers additional reporting options as well as other system options not available in the other two versions. The Starter version is $25.00 per month, Standard is $40.00 and Advanced starts at $120.00 per month, with all support costs included in the pricing.

2017 Overall Rating: 4.5 Stars