How adoption of Weel by not-for-profits can boost donations and turbocharge their success

A recent study commissioned by Weel revealed 61% of Australians would donate more if charities had a spend management solution in place.

Utilising spend management systems allows non-for-profits to manage spending and safeguard donations. It’s a simple way for charities and nonprofits to provide existing donors confidence and encourage them to continue to show their support. 

The current economic environment makes this even more important. The aftermath of the pandemic and spiraling inflation requires charities to be even more transparent with their operations to continue raising funds from individuals who may be feeling less charitable. 

To demonstrate best practice and confidence to stakeholders, Australia’s 600,000 plus not-for-profits may do well to implement systems that would manage donations and minimise the risk of misappropriation of funds.

Weel's virtual expense cards and expense management software helps overcome these concerns by allowing for spend management and streamlining of operations to cut costs and boost efficiency and staff well-being.  

Donors have a strong bias to support not-for-profits with expense management systems 

Findings from Weel's Not-for-profits and Charities Report: Tracking and Safeguarding Donations reveal that 90% of Aussies believe that charities need an expense management system in place to identify and protect against fraud.

The report also confirmed that individuals are more likely to donate to charities that can demonstrate their commitment to minimising fraud. 61% of Australians said they would donate more to charities if they had expense management systems in place to protect donations from fraud and being misused.

It’s even more essential for getting younger Australians to donate.

Charities face greater risks than other types of businesses 

Another factor that makes spend management systems attractive to not-for profits is that they tend to lack spend policies and documentation, resulting in poor review and approval processes. 

Not-for-profits need to balance sending funds compliantly and quickly to those in need, as well as limiting and restricting spend across categories that aren’t impactful. 

Under these circumstances, it’s incredibly tricky to ensure cash isn’t mismanaged (i.e. by GST costs not being recovered in full)  Another challenge is the possibility of non-for-profit employees having limited finance skills and qualifications, making this task even harder. 

Charity workers can be treated better by not having to rely on reimbursements

The philanthropic nature of charities and not-for-profits means that they are often heavily staffed with volunteers.

Unlike their peers in the private sector, workers are motivated by the cause and mission statements of their not-for-profit organisations, and devote time out of the goodness of their own hearts rather than for financial rewards. 

These individuals don’t have a lot of spare cash so it isn’t always easy for them to wait to be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses related to them performing their roles. 

Requiring volunteers to incur out of pocket expenses may be a disincentive to them devoting their time and could be damaging to goodwill. 

How Weel protects the funds of not-for-profits

Weel's virtual expense cards and expense management software is a single solution that not-for-profits can use to distribute funds anywhere instantly they are needed. Finance teams are given full spend control so that rules can be set to restrict specific merchants and transactions above a certain limit. Virtual cards can be issued to the workforce via their smartphones, irrespective of their locations and can be cancelled at any time. 

The Weel platform also ensures for accurate reporting and GST submissions. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology automatically extracts GL codes and GST values.  

Fraud is minimised by AI-powered fraud detection tools analysing user behaviour and immediately blocking suspicious activity. Zero liability protection is also in place so unauthorised transactions can be reversed.  

Integrations with leading accounting providers streamline expense reports for finance and general staff

Other benefits to Weel include significant time savings from integrating with many leading accounting software providers, including Xero and MYOB. 

This makes reconciliations easy and saves significant time by OCR data from receipts automatically exporting in real-time to accounting software. Staff members are freed up to spend their time on making an impact rather than filling out expense reports. 

Employees of Uniting Agewell, a not-for-profit providing care services to those in need in Victoria and Tasmania, collectively save 164 hours of admin time since incorporating Weel. 

“Weel has changed things in a big way,” Rubi Bonsaria, Accountant, Uniting Agewell.

Instant visibility 

Weel also provides CFOs and finance leaders instant visibility on spending across merchants, individuals, categories and locations.

Automating Finance, a recent report from Weel that surveyed over 500 CFOs globally, revealed that 52.3% of CFOs have paid for finance automation tools not being used. 

Finance leaders can minimise this wastage by using Weel as a basis to create sub-asset registers. This ensures value for money is demonstrated by questioning members about their use of subscriptions. 

Charities are put under more scrutiny than other types of organisations and face unique challenges related to compliance and distribution of funds. 

Incorporating an all-in-one expense management solution built for not-for-profits such as Weel will give confidence to new and existing supporters to donate funds. This will enable not-for-profits to fine-tune their spend, maximise their impact and eliminate the need for volunteers to incur out-of-pocket expenses.