Gary  (Sparkrock): 
Hello, everyone! Thank you for joining our live webinar, Empowering Your Nonprofit with Key Finance Features to Overcome Industry Challenges. We're going to get started in just a moment, but before we do, I want to go over a few housekeeping items: 

Please note that today’s session is being recorded and will be shared with all attendees once it’s ready. Everyone joining is automatically muted and cameras are turned off. If you have any questions during the session, please use the Q&A panel in the top right corner of your console. We’ll address all your questions at the end of the webinar. 

All right, let’s get started. 

Once again, welcome! I'm really happy to see you all here, and excited that so many of you have joined today’s session. I can see more attendees joining as we speak, and I even recognize a few names from our first webinar: De-risking Your Nonprofit Technology Platform and Increasing Employee Happiness. Thank you for coming back! 

For those of you who missed that first session, I strongly encourage you to check it out. It’s full of valuable information that I believe will be useful to many of you. 

Today’s webinar is the second in our series designed to empower nonprofit organizations with the tools they need to make an even greater impact in their communities. 

For those who don’t know me yet, my name is Gary Servius. I’m a Senior Account Executive here at Sparkrock. I’ve worked in the ERP space for over a decade, helping both for-profit and nonprofit organizations find the right solutions to manage and automate their finance and HR processes. 

The more I worked with nonprofits, the more I realized that I wanted to focus exclusively on supporting mission-driven organizations. That’s what led me to Sparkrock—it gives me the chance to do just that. And I look forward to connecting with many of you who joined us today. 

As you may know, we are a Microsoft business partner and work closely with Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact team. So before we dive into today’s main content, I’d like to hand things over to Brian Allen from Microsoft to kick things off and share more about the incredible work they’re doing in the nonprofit space. Please welcome Brian. 

Bryan Allen (Microsoft): 
Thanks for the introduction, Gary. Good morning—or good afternoon, depending on where you’re joining from—and thank you for being here. 

My name is Bryan Allen. I’m a Territory Channel Manager with Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact team. This business unit focuses on providing nonprofit organizations with Microsoft software solutions that help them achieve their mission outcomes. 

In 2017, Microsoft created this dedicated group to align with our broader mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We took our commercial operations model and adapted it with a social impact lens to better serve the nonprofit sector. 

Since then, the Tech for Social Impact team has played an instrumental role in helping our partners support nonprofits around the world. We offer both discounted and granted Microsoft software to eligible organizations. 

Now, if you look at this slide, you’ll see one of the key solutions available to nonprofits: Dynamics 365 Business Central. It integrates seamlessly with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 and Power Platform. It also runs on Microsoft Azure, providing secure cloud access and strong data protection. 

Business Central is primarily a financial solution, but it also includes capabilities for HR and other functions. Interestingly, many nonprofits initially think they don’t need something like Business Central—but more and more are realizing how essential it is, especially when integrated into donor management systems and used to track expenses, grants, and program impact. 

I’m not sure if that was my last slide, but if so, I’ll pass it back to Gary to continue. Thanks again. 

Gary (Sparkrock): 
Thank you, Bryan—and thank you for that great reminder of the fantastic work Microsoft is doing to support the nonprofit community. 

Many of you are already familiar with Sparkrock, and some of this might sound a bit repetitive if you joined us for the first webinar. But for those who are new—or just curious about what Sparkrock is all about. We’ve partnered with Microsoft since day one. Sparkrock was founded in 2003—over 20 years ago—and we’ve held a unique position in the market ever since. From the beginning, we’ve been part of Microsoft’s Embedded Partner Program, working end-to-end with Microsoft to bring ERP solutions to our customers. 

Now, when most people think of Microsoft, they don’t immediately think of ERP. But Microsoft has actually been in the ERP space for over 30 years. As Microsoft has evolved with innovation and cloud technology, so have we. 

Today, Sparkrock is built on top of Microsoft’s ERP cloud platform, Business Central, which Brian just mentioned. Business Central is a robust and proven ERP solution originally designed for for-profit organizations—and many of you may already be familiar with it. 

But here’s the challenge: when you work with nonprofits and human services organizations, Business Central—like most commercial ERP systems—lacks key functionality specific to your needs. 

We’re talking about things like: 

• Invoice approval workflows 

• Fund management 

• Grant accounting 

• Complex, regulatory-specific reporting 

These features are critical for nonprofits but aren’t necessary in for-profit ERP implementations. So what happens? Nonprofits that adopt these business-oriented tools often spend time and resources on workarounds and manual processes. That not only adds operational strain—it can actually get in the way of your mission. 

Before Sparkrock came along, nonprofit organizations had to choose between two options: 

• A well-established, business-focused ERP system that doesn’t meet their unique needs 

• A nonprofit-specific solution that lacks the robustness, reliability, or long-term investment of systems like Microsoft’s 

That’s not a great choice. And to make it worse, many of the nonprofit systems on the market simply don’t offer the level of security, stability, and support that larger platforms like Microsoft provide. 

That’s where Sparkrock is different. We bring together: 

• The security, stability, and infrastructure of Microsoft 

• The sector-specific expertise and feature set tailored to nonprofits and human services organizations 

With Sparkrock, you truly get the best of both worlds. 

You benefit from Microsoft’s ongoing investment in Business Central—not just in features, but also in cloud infrastructure, privacy, security, mobility, and seamless integration across the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft continues to invest heavily in this space, and frankly, they’re doing an impressive job. 

Most of us here are Microsoft users. We rely on Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Outlook—tools that power our everyday work. And in just a few minutes, when James starts the demo, you’ll see how Sparkrock integrates with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and the full Office 365 suite. 

So not only are you leveraging the full weight of Microsoft’s investment, but you’re also getting the nonprofit-specific functionality Sparkrock has spent 20 years developing. 

That’s why I feel confident saying: Sparkrock is purpose-built to meet the expectations of nonprofit organizations in a way no out-of-the-box ERP system on the market can. 

Before I hand things over to James to walk us through the demo and show how Sparkrock’s finance features help address nonprofit challenges, I want to quickly share a customer success story.  

Gary (Sparkrock): 
Before I hand it over to James to present how key finance features can help address nonprofit challenges, I want to share a customer success story. 

Every day, I have the chance to sit down with nonprofit leaders—Controllers, Directors of Finance, CFOs—and help them tackle real-world challenges. One story that stands out comes from the end of 2021, when we were approached by an independent nonprofit in Alberta. Their mission is to support marginalized youth through various programs. 

As demand for their services grew, they started to struggle with transparency and accountability in their legacy system. It was simply too cumbersome to support optimized fund management or provide adequate budgetary control. Reporting was slow and labor-intensive, and many of their processes were still manual and paper-based. 

The result? Time-consuming workflows, inefficiencies, and staff frustration. 

That’s when they started looking for a system purpose-built for nonprofit needs. And that’s where Sparkrock came in. 

Because our finance solution is designed specifically for nonprofits, their users found the system intuitive and easy to navigate from the beginning. The benefits they gained included: 

• Optimized fund management 

• Tighter budget control with automated budgeting and reporting 

• Time savings through real-time reporting 

• Stronger departmental integration 

• Simplified financial statement production 

• Improved visibility on purchases 

• Automated requisition, budget checks, and approvals 

• Easier administration with personalized, data-centric tools 

Soon after implementation, staff immediately noticed time savings. Retrieving financial information became much easier. The long-standing burden of manual reporting was gone.

With improved reporting and analytics, the board and senior leadership had the data—and time—they needed to make better, faster decisions. They gained full visibility from purchase order to payment through requisition workflows and automated order creation based on business rules. 

And importantly, staff were no longer buried under piles of paper invoices or rekeying the same information again and again. 

Thanks to their transition to Sparkrock, they were able to grow and scale their operations, reach more community members in need, and even launch a new program for young adults. 

This is the kind of partnership we’re incredibly proud of. It’s a great example of how having the right tools empowers your organization to better serve your community. 

So now that you have a clearer sense of who we are and what we do, let’s get to the main event.

I’d like to introduce you to our Senior Project Consultant, James Fa. 

James (Sparkrock): 
Thanks very much, Gary—and thank you again, Brian. 

Welcome, everyone. 

Today, we’re going to focus on four key themes. But first, a quick intro: I’m James Faw, and I’ve spent over 25 years helping nonprofit organizations make informed technology decisions. I’ve worked in implementation, product development, and strategic advising—helping leaders choose solutions that fit their mission and operational needs. 

Now, back to today’s session. We’ll look at four major finance and procurement challenges nonprofits face. For each, I’ll highlight the common issues, how to tell if they’re affecting your organization, and the tools Sparkrock provides to help overcome them. 

Let’s dive into the first theme: Getting Control of Your Budgets. 

Nonprofit organizations face unique challenges when it comes to budgeting. Unlike for-profit businesses, where revenue streams and operational goals are often more straightforward, nonprofits usually manage many small funding sources—often from grants or restricted contributions. That means more complexity, more reporting, and more accountability. 

Managing that complexity—from the planning stage to final payment—can be incredibly difficult without the right tools. The gaps between planning and execution are where uncertainty and inefficiency tend to live. 

So let’s talk about the common symptoms we see in organizations that don’t have tools built to handle this complexity: 

• Managers building shadow systems: 
  If your systems don’t provide visibility, budget owners often track approvals and expenses in spreadsheets outside of the ERP. 

• Managers avoiding responsibility: 
  When it’s difficult to track spending in real time, some managers defer everything to finance—and only engage when there’s a problem. 

• Finance teams scrambling to respond to questions: 
  Without real-time visibility, finance staff spend hours compiling actuals vs. budget when asked for updates. 

The solution? 
Implementing tools that give real-time visibility into your budget position—so you know exactly where you stand at any point in time. 

One of the core concepts we’ll look at next is commitments and encumbrances—tools that help track your budget usage as spending is approved or committed, not just after it’s been paid. 

James (Sparkrock): 
Let’s move over to the application so I can walk you through what this looks like in Sparkrock 365. 

Today’s demonstration is focused on finance—specifically financial management and procurement. What you're seeing now is the Accounting Manager Role Center, designed for a senior finance user. Here, I’ve got key performance indicators that alert me to the things I need to pay attention to—right on the home screen. It’s a quick and easy way to get insight into the financial health of the organization at a glance. 

We’ve been talking about commitments and encumbrances—and understanding where you are in relation to budget. So let’s dive into the Chart of Accounts. 

From this screen, I can search through accounts quickly. For example, I’ll type “program” into the search bar, and the system pulls up all accounts related to our programs. It searches across multiple columns to bring up relevant entries—allocations, programs, and more. 

Now let’s focus on the key columns: Budget, Commitment, Encumbrance, and Net Change. These columns tell us exactly where we stand against our budget. This view is built for finance—it’s a roll-up across the entire organization of all program-related accounts. 

We can see: 

• Total program budget 

• Actuals 

• Budget remaining 

• And a breakdown of where funds are tied up (in commitments or encumbrances) 

Commitments are usually tied to internal approvals—requisitions, for example. If I want to spend funds on a program, I create a requisition. Once approved, that amount is "committed" and tied to that budget line. The system reflects this so finance can track pending obligations even before a purchase order is created. 

One major advantage in Sparkrock 365 is that commitments are fully drillable. I can click the commitment total and see the exact line items creating that balance. Unlike other systems that show vague debits and credits, Sparkrock gives you clarity. I can see the masks I ordered, the vendors they’re assigned to, and more. I can even open the full requisition document from here, see additional line items, comments, approvers, and the current approval status. 

Now let’s look at the Encumbrance column. These are tied to purchase orders or contracts—external commitments. Once you've issued a PO, those funds are legally committed, even if the product or service hasn’t been delivered yet. 

Just like with commitments, encumbrances are drillable. I can click into them to view the specific line items, open the full purchase order, and review everything from notes and status to the full approval trail. 

If your organization doesn’t have tools like this, it can be transformational. Getting everyone aligned around the same real-time budget data—especially in planning stages—removes guesswork, reduces manual tracking, and improves decision-making. 

Now let’s go back to the PowerPoint. 

So again, that was our first theme: Knowing exactly where you are versus your budget. 

The second theme is closely related: Ensuring budget availability—when and where users need it. 

This is a big challenge for many organizations. Why? Because the people managing budgets in the field—program managers, team leads—are experts in service delivery, not necessarily in finance. They need support from the system to stay on top of budgets, without having to become accountants. 

When organizations don’t have the right tools, a few things tend to happen: 

• Managers receive budget reports after the fact. 
  In most systems, field managers rely on reports generated by finance. These are often sent out after month-end, which means the data is already two to three weeks old by the time they get it. 

• Outdated data leads to poor decision-making. 
  Managers are expected to make time-sensitive spending decisions—but they’re doing so with stale data. 

This causes the same behavior we discussed in the first theme: people either create shadow systems or abdicate responsibility entirely, leaving finance to chase down discrepancies later. 

James (Sparkrock): 
Maintaining shadow systems or abdicating responsibility are common challenges when real-time budget access isn’t available. When you can’t see what’s happened in the time between submitting and approving expenses—or track what’s in motion—it leads to a heavy reliance on finance for budget decisions. And honestly, that cycle becomes frustrating for both sides: the managers and the finance team. Everyone’s just trying to do their job, but the process creates friction. 

So let’s look at a better way: providing real-time budget access, embedded directly in the process, right where users need it. 

I'm going to pivot over to a different role center in Sparkrock 365. This one is for department managers—it’s designed specifically for users in the field. These folks are program managers or team leads, and here's what we’ve learned: in nonprofit organizations, budget managers need to act like mini CFOs—but only for their slice of the budget. 

They need deep visibility, but only into the programs, grants, or departments they’re responsible for. That’s what this role center is built for. When I log in, I can instantly see the status of requisitions, payment requests, expense claims, and purchase orders—filtered by my security access. So if I only manage two cost centers or three grants, everything here is scoped to those areas only. 

Let’s focus on real-time budget checking—and I’ll show you how that works using a requisition. 

Say I’m planning an event for one of my programs. I start a new requisition. The system auto-assigns the requisition type, and I select some meeting supplies. I add a quick description and cost, then choose an account set. As I do this, the system automatically fills in all the dimensions: funder, grant, department, fund, contract, region, GL account—everything’s pre-filled based on my selection. 

Next, I add another line for additional supplies using a different account to demonstrate how it handles multiple budget lines. 

Now, let’s imagine I’m a busy manager. I’ve got program deadlines, field staff coordination, client needs—you name it. In a traditional system, at this point I’d stop, open a month-old report from Finance, and try to figure out if I have enough budget left. I’d cross-reference line items manually and hope nothing major has changed since the report was issued. 

But in Sparkrock 365, I don’t need to do any of that. I simply submit this for approval, and the system performs a real-time budget check. 

Here, the system tells me: 

“This requisition will put you over budget. Do you want to continue?” 

My setup allows this as a warning only, but your organization can configure it differently—maybe it blocks the request, or requires an additional approval if it’s over budget. In this case, I click “No,” and the system pulls up a live budget-to-actual report specific to this request.

Let’s break this down: 

• The second line (my lower account) shows I still have budget remaining. 

• The first line, however, is the issue. I had no budget in this category to begin with—and I can now see that I’m already $61,000 over budget, even before submitting this request. 

Even better, if I’ve forgotten what’s already tied up, I can drill down directly into the commitments and encumbrances from this screen. I can see what’s been submitted, what vendors are listed, what transactions are in progress—without leaving the page. 

This level of visibility saves massive amounts of time and gives managers real transparency. No more guesswork. No more manual cross-checking. It’s all right here, right when I need it.

This real-time budget checking can also be enabled at other points in the process: 

• At the invoice stage 

• At the purchase order stage 

• During payment requests 

• And most notably—on expense claims, which is especially unique to Sparkrock 365 

If you’re a budget-driven organization, these tools are game-changing. 

Instead of relying on Finance to calculate everything manually, your managers always know exactly where they stand—in real time. 

James  (Sparkrock): 
Making sure everyone stays on top of approvals can be incredibly complex—especially in nonprofit organizations. Unlike for-profits, where most financial matters are centralized within the finance department, nonprofits often rely on a decentralized network of approvals tied to different funding sources. 

You may need approvals from: 

• A department manager 

• A grant manager for transactions tied to specific grants 

• Or a program manager responsible for individual programs 

Without the right tools, this gets messy. Some of the common symptoms we see include: 

• Manual or email-based approvals that are hard to track 

• “Signature shopping”—where users approach the person most likely to approve something, even if that person isn’t the right one 

• Splitting up transactions across multiple documents just to meet single-threaded approval paths 

• After-the-fact approvals handled by Accounts Payable, which is risky since the money has already been spent 

These scenarios lead to inefficiencies, audit risks, and frustration on both sides—managers and finance. 

The key is to move approvals upstream, earlier in the process—like at the requisition or purchase order stage—so your organization can evaluate expenses before the money goes out the door. 

That’s why Sparkrock 365 uses system-enforced approval policies. 

You define: 

• Who approves what 

• What the thresholds are (e.g., dollar amounts) 

• What routing logic should apply based on grants, departments, programs, or regions 

Once that’s set, the system takes care of the rest. 

Let me show you how that looks in Sparkrock 365. 

I’ll go back to the same requisition we created earlier. We already know it’s over budget, but for the sake of the demo, I’ll continue and submit the approval request. 

You’ll see it immediately starts routing through the appropriate workflow. 

Scroll down, and notice this: 

• The system has automatically sent the admin department line to Josh 

• And the program department line to Sherry Hashimoto 

• Each line item follows its own approval path based on its budget segment 

• The workflow rules kicked in automatically—I didn’t have to make any decisions manually 

If I want to review approvals in progress, I can open the Approvals panel and see: 

• Who needs to approve 

• The approval sequence 

• Comments (if any) 

• And the current status—right now, both are still pending 

Now let me show you what it looks like from the approver’s side. 

I’ll switch to my Finance user role and go back to the home screen. You’ll see I’ve got a section labeled Requests to Approve. Here’s the requisition we just submitted—#236. 

As an approver, I can: 

• Open the document and view all its details 

• Be notified by email or through in-app alerts 

• And if I’m out of the office, I can still access everything using Sparkrock’s mobile or tablet apps on any major platform 

So even if I’m working remotely or in the field, I can quickly review and approve transactions without delays. 

This eliminates manual routing, avoids bottlenecks, ensures compliance with funding rules, and gives auditors clear visibility into who approved what—and when. 

James  (Sparkrock): 
Let’s wrap up our approvals section and move into our final theme. 

To finish this demo, I’ll go ahead and approve the requisition. I’m using a feature called “Approve as Administrator”—which is typically restricted to only a few users—but I’m using it here just to move things along for the demo. 

Even with this override, Sparkrock 365 maintains a clear audit trail: 

• The original sender was "Demo1" 

• Approvers were supposed to be Sherry Hashimoto and James Faw

• But it shows the requisition was approved by me (JF) as an administrator 

I can also add notes explaining why I overrode the standard flow—maybe Sherry was unavailable, or I had verbal confirmation. There's also a timestamp for both when the request was submitted and when it was approved. 

This is incredibly helpful from an audit perspective. It proves that approvals happened before the expense—not after. 

Bonus benefit: you can track average approval times across your organization. If certain approvers are consistently slow, you now have data to back up that conversation. There’s even a Power BI dashboard that visualizes this. 

Ultimately, this means: 

• All stakeholders can participate in the approval process, regardless of location 

• Approvals are tracked automatically 

• Auditors are happy with the built-in compliance 

• And if you're still relying on paper signatures, this system allows you to automate and speed things up—whether someone is in the office or on their mobile/tablet app 

Real-Time, On-Demand Access 

Now let’s talk about our final theme: real-time, on-demand access to financial data. 

This addresses one of the biggest issues we see—organizations waiting until month-end to gather and distribute reports. That delay means managers are often making decisions based on outdated data. 

So whether it’s proactive budget checking (which we’ll cover now), or real-time embedded budget checks (which we covered earlier), it’s critical that users can access information without relying on manual work from finance. 

Common challenges without these tools include:

• Heavy reliance on finance to determine if there’s available budget 

• Managers working off stale reports 

• Delays that slow down spending decisions

So let’s look at the solution: real-time, self-service access for managers—without extra burden on your finance team. 

I’ll return to the Department Manager Role Center in Sparkrock 365. 

This dashboard is designed specifically for field managers. Everything is filtered by security access, so each user only sees data for the grants, departments, programs, or cost centers they’re responsible for. 

For example, if I look at posted purchase invoices, I only see the ones tied to my department. Even within shared transactions, only my relevant line items are visible. 

Next, let’s explore a tool called Reporting & Analytics Reports. 

These are simple, user-friendly reports created by finance and assigned to users or groups. They respect each person’s security settings, making sure people only see what’s relevant to them. 

Let’s open the Departmental Analysis – Overview: 

• I see only the three departments I’m responsible for: Admin, IT, and Education 

• I get a clean breakdown of Budget, Commitments, Encumbrances, and Actuals 

• I can change the date range or apply filters as needed 

• It’s easy to understand and drill into for detail 

Here’s another example: a rolling forecast view. 

• It shows actuals from January to July 

• Budgeted amounts from August onward 

• I can drill into each cell to view the source documents and transaction details 

All of this is available in real time—without waiting for finance to generate reports. 

 Recap 

Let’s recap the four key themes we explored today: 

• Commitments and Encumbrances 
  Help you see where you stand against your budget—before money is spent 

• Real-Time Budget Checking 
  Empowers users to stay within budget without contacting finance or reviewing old reports 

• Electronic Approvals 
  Increases transparency, speeds up processes, and supports audit compliance 

• Real-Time, On-Demand Access 
  Gives managers the information they need, when they need it—without creating extra work for finance 
  

It’s a simple Excel-based questionnaire. You just go through the list of statements, answer “yes” or “no,” and input your responses. Each “no” answer is scored as a 5, and each “yes” as a 0. At the bottom, it tallies your total and gives you a health score that maps to a few recommended next steps. 

If you’re finding that your current tools don’t support the processes we covered today—or if your existing systems aren’t meeting your needs—this assessment can help spark internal conversations about where you’re at and what to prioritize. 

And of course, if you’d like support walking through the assessment or want more information about any of the tools we shared, don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at Sparkrock. 

Upcoming Webinar: HR & Payroll 

Before I hand it back to Gary for Q&A, I want to mention our next session in the series—our third webinar. 

If you missed the first session (focused on platform and technology) or this one (finance and procurement), you can always watch the recordings. But our upcoming webinar will focus on: 

• Human Resources and Payroll 

• Streamlining staff scheduling 

• Integrating HR requests into seamless workflows 

• Tools to support employee management and workflow automation 

Just like today, we’ll walk through real tools and demonstrate how Sparkrock 365 can simplify and strengthen your operations. You’ll receive an invite to register soon—we’d love to see you there. 

With that, I’ll hand it back to Gary for Q&A. 

Gary (Sparkrock): 
Thanks, James! Now it’s time for the Q&A portion of our session. 

If you haven’t submitted your question yet, please use the Q&A section in the top right of your console. We already have a few great ones lined up, so let’s dive in. 

Q1: I’m a current Microsoft GP user. What does the migration to Sparkrock 365 look like? 
James: 
Great question—and one we hear often. GP (Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains) is actually the system we migrate from the most, so our team has deep experience there. 

The migration process depends on how much you want to change or retain from your current setup. A move to Sparkrock is a great opportunity to rethink your chart of accounts or clean up historical data. 

• If you’re happy with your current structure, we can migrate as-is 

• If you want to optimize, we can map your old data to a new structure 

• Either way, historical data can come over and be easily accessed in the new system 

We’re happy to discuss this in more detail one-on-one. 

Q2: We have so many accounts in GP. Can your system help simplify that? 
James: 
Absolutely. GP uses a segmented GL account string (with dashes between each segment). For many nonprofits, that becomes a very long and cluttered trial balance with thousands of accounts. 

Sparkrock 365 uses a hybrid chart of accounts model: 

• It supports both segmented and logical structures 

• You don’t have to create new GL accounts for every combination 

• This means fewer accounts and a cleaner structure 

Our consultants can help you design a chart that stays lean and scalable. 

Q3: Can budget checking take into account multiple accounts or groups of accounts? 
James: 
Yes—and I’m glad this came up because it’s an important capability. 

Sparkrock 365 has a feature called budget categories. You can group similar accounts into one category and track budget across that group. 

For example, if you have 20 different supplies accounts but you want to manage budget at the category level, not individually, you can group them together and Sparkrock will: 

• Perform budget checks at the category level 

• Prevent overspending across the combined group 

• Still allow you to report by individual account if needed 

It’s a powerful feature, especially for organizations with complex budgets and many accounts. 

Q4: Can budget checking roll up across account groups? 
James: 
Yes, and that’s a great question. Sparkrock 365 uses budget categories, which allow you to group similar accountstogether for budget checking purposes. 

For example, if you have multiple “supplies” accounts, the system won’t flag a budget issue just because one account is over and another is under—it rolls all of them up for a total category check. This is critical because without it, budget checking can become more of a burden than a help. 

So yes, Sparkrock 365 supports category-level budget validation, which really improves usability and accuracy. 

Q5: What happens if two departments try to draw from the same budget at the same time? Is there a risk of oversight? 
James: 
That’s a more technical question—thank you for asking it. 

The short answer is: the system handles it well. Sparkrock 365 runs on Microsoft’s platform and uses a method called optimistic concurrency. That means: 

• If two users submit a transaction at nearly the same moment, the system still ensures both are calculated in the right sequence 

• There’s only a millisecond gap between requests, and transactions in progress are factored into budget checks 

• We’ve successfully implemented this for both small and very large organizations, with thousands of users 

So yes, the system scales and handles simultaneous access without creating budget oversights. 

Gary (Sparkrock): 
Thanks, James! That wraps up our live Q&A for today. 

We did see a few more questions come in via chat that we didn’t get time to address. No worries—we’ll follow up via email with answers for each of you directly. 

Also, as James mentioned earlier, we’ll be sharing: 

• The Finance Health Assessment tool we reviewed 

• A recording of this webinar so you can rewatch it or share with others on your team 

Next Webinar Reminder 

Our next session in the series will be held on October 17. We’ll be diving into: 

• Human Resources and Payroll 

• Staff scheduling workflows 

• Automation for HR and employee-related tasks 

If those topics are important for your organization, we strongly encourage you to sign up. You’ll receive an email invitation shortly—we’d love to see you there! 

Final Note from Sparkrock: 
Thank you again for spending time with us today. We hope this session was valuable and helped you better understand how Sparkrock 365 supports nonprofit finance teams. 

If you have additional questions, or if your question wasn’t answered live, feel free to reach out. We’re happy to schedule a one-on-one conversation to explore your specific needs. 

📧 connect@sparkrock.com 
That’s the best way to reach us directly. 

Thanks again—and enjoy the rest of your day!