infoodle is a Xero add-on designed to manage the charity, its donors, its donations, and volunteers. It uses Xero to augment its CRM data to include a donors financial contributions and thereby generate tax receipts, Gift Aid claims, donor statements etc.

1) It’s Easy and well supported

Usually there is a limited supply of technical people in a charity so it’s important to not only ensure the products are intuitive, but there is also sufficient ‘hand-holding’ to ensure users get the most out of the efficiencies that can be leveraged by using specific solutions over a paper based (or Excel based) solution.

With no software to install, update or backup because both products are hosted on the internet it removes what can be a huge headache and ensures all parties are using the same version, supported and managed the same way.

They are easy to get around. With clear navigation and simple search methods to find information. They both have easy help systems and videos if you get stuck – or your can contact a human on the phone or email if you get stuck.

2) It’s quick and accurate

Most charities are time-poor. They need the tools to do as much work for them as possible.

Xero automates the process of getting data from the bank, infoodle automates the process of getting data out of (and back into) xero. This reduces human errors.

Xero has bank rules, bulk data entry and repeating invoices to improve reliability and reduce workload. infoodle has automatic reconciling of xero data; workflows to trigger changes, emails, tasks, work queues automatically based on other actions; schedule reports, emails, texts and app notifications to ensure your work is being done even when you’re not around.

3) Easily report on and re-use data

Xero can easily produce your financial reports to see how your organisation is tracking financially. infoodle has reports to enable you to generate lists for emailing or address labels for instance. It can report on combinations of the CRM and financial data held to provide understanding of your donors, and donations along with many other aspects of your organisation and its community.

4) Anyone can use the data

The data collected by charities, be it about the finances, donors, volunteers or members of your community and key stakeholders is valuable data and can be powerful when made available to your organisation as a whole – with relevant permissions of course. Think of a directory, centrally managed and up to date in real-time; think of the committee wanting to review financial progress without waiting for the quarterly meeting; what about your volunteer coordinator needing the same contact details the volunteer phones into the office. Centralising a database is a massive benefit – one contact record managed by everyone (permission dependent) but available to everyone (permission dependent). This removes the issue of multiple lists on various computers in various formats. You are all singing from the same hymn sheet!

Being cloud systems means the data can be accessed from anywhere there is internet, you no longer need access to the office computer to check on someones details!

5) Manage everything, in 2 places

In general only a small number of people would access Xero. Xero has limited control over what people can see and so limits the ability to share this resource with more people. infoodle can manage fine-grain control over who and what data people can see and what they can do with it. Separating the donor data out from Xero but keep it all sync’ed means you can safely enable more people to manage more data but from a single software solution.

With infoodle you can enable your CRM, data collection, communications, calendars, rosters, event and service planning, checkin, attendance, document management and so much more, all managed safely and securely centrally.

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