Top 5 Benefits of QuickBooks Hosting for Non-Profits and Charities

Nonprofits need to account for every dollar while keeping their teams focused on the mission. Donations, grants, program expenses, restricted funds, budgets, and reporting can make financial management more complicated than standard business bookkeeping. 

QuickBooks can help nonprofits manage many of these accounting tasks. QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit includes tools designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, including nonprofit reports, donor records, class-based reporting, and configurable user permissions. Intuit currently provides nine nonprofit-specific reports with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and also supports custom reporting through Advanced Reporting. 

But organizations that run QuickBooks Desktop only on an office computer or local server may still face challenges when staff, accountants, volunteers, or finance leaders need remote access. That is where QuickBooks Hosting can help. 

QuickBooks hosting places your QuickBooks Desktop application and company files on a remote cloud server. Authorized users connect through the internet instead of depending on one office computer. Intuit describes hosted QuickBooks in the same way: the application and data are stored on remote servers and can be accessed from different locations and supported devices. 

Here are five key benefits of QuickBooks hosting for nonprofits and charitable organizations. 

1. Reduce Dependence on Office Servers and Local Computers 

Running QuickBooks on local infrastructure usually means your organization is responsible for the computer or server that stores the application and company files. 

That brings extra IT responsibilities. Someone needs to maintain the system, manage access, handle backups, troubleshoot server problems, and plan for hardware replacement. 

With hosted QuickBooks, the application runs in a managed cloud environment. Your employees can use their existing computer to connect to the hosted environment rather than relying on the machine that physically stores the QuickBooks company file. 

For nonprofits with small IT teams, this can reduce the amount of infrastructure they need to manage themselves. It also helps avoid a situation where access to accounting stops because one office computer or local server is unavailable. 

This does not mean every local device becomes unnecessary. Users still need a supported device and a reliable internet connection to reach the hosted environment. 

2. Give Access to Authorized Users Only Without Passing Files Around 

A nonprofit’s financial work rarely belongs to one person. A finance manager may handle daily accounting, an executive director may review reports, an external accountant may need access during reporting periods, and other team members may have limited accounting responsibilities. 

Emailing QuickBooks files between these users can create multiple copies of the same company file and make it difficult to know which version contains the latest information. 

Hosting allows authorized users to connect to a centrally hosted QuickBooks environment. Intuit confirms that cloud-hosted QuickBooks Enterprise allows multiple licensed users to work with the same company data from different locations. 

QuickBooks Enterprise also provides detailed access controls. According to Intuit, administrators can set individual permissions covering more than 115 activities. Certain Enterprise plans also provide data-level permissions for finer control over specific donor, vendor, and other records. This can be useful when a nonprofit wants different levels of access for: 

• Finance staff 
• Department or program managers 
• Accountants 
• Bookkeepers 
• Senior leadership 

Access still depends on your QuickBooks edition, licenses, hosting configuration, and the permissions assigned by your administrator. Hosting does not create unlimited QuickBooks user licenses. 

3. Use Non-profit Accounting Features from Anywhere 

The biggest value does not come from moving QuickBooks to another server. It comes from making the accounting features your nonprofit already relies on easier to reach. QuickBooks Enterprise has a dedicated Nonprofit edition. Intuit lists features such as: 

• Nonprofit-specific reports 
• A nonprofit chart of accounts 
• Donor information management 
• Class-based reporting 
• Customizable reports 
• Budget and financial reporting 
• User access controls 

Intuit says Desktop Enterprise Nonprofit includes nine nonprofit-specific reports. Organizations can also use Advanced Reporting to build reports from data stored in QuickBooks. 

Class-based reporting can be especially useful when an organization wants to separate financial activity by program, department, location, or another meaningful segment. 

For example, a nonprofit running education, community outreach, and fundraising programs may need to review income and expenses separately for each area. QuickBooks can help organize that accounting information, while cloud hosting makes the same environment accessible to authorized staff outside the office. 

Hosting does not add new nonprofit accounting features to QuickBooks. Instead, it makes the features available through a remotely accessible hosted environment.  

4. Add Security, Backups, and Recovery  

Nonprofits may hold sensitive information related to donors, employees, vendors, banking, grants, and financial transactions. 

Storing the only working copy of accounting data on a local computer creates an obvious risk. Hardware failure, accidental deletion, ransomware, theft, or another disruption could affect access to the files. 

A managed hosting environment can add security and recovery controls around the QuickBooks infrastructure. The exact protections depend on the hosting provider, so organizations should check these controls before choosing one. 

Ace Cloud Hosting currently lists security measures for its QuickBooks hosting environment that include: 

• AES-256 encryption 
• Multi-factor authentication 
• Firewalls 
• IDS/IPS protection 
• Endpoint security and EDR 
• Controlled data-center environments 

Ace Cloud Hosting also states that eligible hosted files are covered by 45-day rolling backups, providing recovery points if supported files are accidentally deleted, corrupted, or need restoration. 

Backups are particularly important because hosting and backup solve different problems. Hosting makes the application remotely available. Backups provide copies that may help restore data after a problem occurs. 

Organizations should still define their own access policies, password practices, user-removal process, and recovery procedures rather than treating cloud hosting as a complete security strategy. 

5. Support Remote Teams and Changing IT Requirements 

Nonprofit teams are often spread across different locations. A bookkeeper may work remotely, an executive director may need a report while traveling, and an outside accountant may need temporary access to review the books. 

Hosted QuickBooks allows these users to connect to the accounting environment through the internet without moving the company file between computers. 

Intuit states that QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise with cloud hosting can be accessed from different locations and supported devices, including PCs, Macs, and tablets. 

A hosted environment can also make infrastructure easier to adjust as organizational needs change. Instead of purchasing another physical server simply because your team is growing, the hosting environment can be resized or reconfigured based on users, storage, applications, and workload requirements. 

Nonprofits may also need tools beyond QuickBooks. Depending on compatibility, nonprofits can host accounting and business applications in the same cloud environment. Ace Cloud Hosting supports nonprofit applications and lists integration support for a range of accounting and business applications, including Clockify, Brex, Fortis, Biller-Genie, Fathom, Service Fusion, and more.   

This can give staff a more centralized workspace rather than forcing them to maintain separate office computers for every desktop application. 

Choosing a QuickBooks Hosting Provider for a Nonprofit 

The right hosting provider should do more than simply make QuickBooks accessible online. For a nonprofit, reliability, data protection, support, and recovery options are just as important as pricing. 

Before choosing a provider, review how often data is backed up, how long backups are retained, what security controls are in place, and what happens if you need help outside regular business hours. It is also worth checking the provider’s uptime commitment and whether it is authorized to host QuickBooks Desktop. 

Ace Cloud Hosting is an Intuit Authorized Commercial Hosting Provider and QuickBooks Solution Provider. Its QuickBooks hosting environment includes 24/7 support, 45-day rolling backups, multi-factor authentication, AES-256 encryption, and a 99.99% uptime SLA. 

Nonprofits can choose a hosting configuration based on the number of users, applications, storage needs, and expected workload rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all setup. 

Want to see how your existing QuickBooks Desktop setup performs in the cloud? Start a 7-Day QuickBooks Hosting Free Trial  and test the environment using your own accounting workflow.