Blackbaud Introduces Purchase Cards and Expense Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®

Designed to help social good organizations streamline financial processes and maximize mission delivery

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Feb 05, 2019, 09:02 ET

CHARLESTON, S.C., Feb. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, today announced its new Blackbaud Purchase Cards, which provide social good organizations with an efficient and convenient alternative to traditional procurement methods and paper-based payables processes such as checks, purchase orders, and invoices. Blackbaud Purchase Cards enable organizations to set spend controls for individual cardholders, track business expenses across the organization, and ensure that policies are being enforced—all through a user-friendly online portal. Blackbaud Purchase Cards will soon integrate with Expense Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT^®, enabling non-financial staff members to track and submit their own credit card transactions and invoice requests for approval, drastically reducing the staff time required to manage this process.

"Blackbaud is committed to helping our customers improve operational efficiency and maximize mission delivery," said Kevin Gregoire, president, Enterprise Market Group at Blackbaud. "We are excited to work with Regions Bank to deepen this commitment with the introduction of Blackbaud Purchase Cards, which help enable social good organizations to make the transition to automated purchasing and employee expense processes—drastically reducing administrative costs and fraud risk."

Blackbaud is working with Regions Bank to issue chipped Visa® cards to social good customers to use for travel and operational purchases. Blackbaud Purchase Cards, which come with no annual fee, are available to customers in the United States with approved credit. Additional benefits include automatic annual cash back on all purchases, Visa® Signature Business benefits including travel coverage and liability waiver, and 24/7 access to a secure online portal for purchase card program management.

"Regions has a commitment to improving our communities and making banking easier for all those we serve," said Jay Darnell, senior vice president, Commercial Card Group at Regions Bank. "We look forward to working with Blackbaud to provide their customers with more flexibility, convenience and control through the new Purchase Cards."

According to the RPMG Research Corporation's 2017 North American Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey, annual purchasing card usage is expected to grow 10.5% per year through 2021. The report also states that—compared to traditional payment methods—purchase cards can lead to benefits such as reduction in procurement cycle time, increased savings through supplier discounts, and working capital and cash flow improvements. Blackbaud will address these needs with its new purchase card offering along with its deep integration with Expense Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT.

Blackbaud Purchase Cards and Expense Management deliver a robust accounts payable and expense solution—from core accounting system to the method of payment—to enable customers to decentralize daily purchasing while implementing and monitoring the right controls in a scalable way. With Blackbaud Purchase Cards and Expense Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, customers can:

Set spend limits and authorization controls—unique to each cardholder—on everything from vendor type to amount and frequency of cash advances
Give their non-financial staff members secure access to track and submit their own expenses directly in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Provide their finance teams with maximum visibility and control of organizational spending with secure, reliable purchase card integration
Make timelier payments and gain greater insight into vendor spend to negotiate better rates based on spend volume
Reduce the need for burdensome, paper-based processes—such as purchase orders, invoices, checks, requisitions, and approvals—to alleviate administrative effort and simplify reconciliation

"With Expense Management in Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT, I can easily log in to the system to review expense requests and transactions—and even drill into each line item to view details and attachments," said Tracee Wright, development assistant at Commemorative Air Force. "Because credit card transactions are automatically populated in the system, I have the information needed to proactively reach out to cardholders when additional documentation is needed. It's such a huge time savings to have everything in one place."

Customers are already experiencing the benefits of Blackbaud Purchase Cards and the insights that it provides to organizations' financial teams. "With much of the data prefilled, it was so simple to complete the online application process for the Blackbaud Purchase Card," said Regina De Hoyos, associate chief financial officer, StarCare Specialty Health System. "The online portal is easy to use, and it allows me to do everything from setting limits by user to reviewing and downloading cardholder statements."

For more information on Blackbaud Purchase Cards, click here. For more information on Expense Management, click here.

Click to Tweet: Now available: @Blackbaud Purchase Cards from @askRegions and Expense Management in Financial Edge NXT help social good organizations more efficiently manage financial processes https://blkb.co/2WJoRuH

About Blackbaud
Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good community—nonprofits, foundations, companies, education institutions, healthcare organizations and individual change agents—Blackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through cloud software, services, expertise, and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and CRM, marketing, advocacy, peer-to-peer fundraising, corporate social responsibility, school management, ticketing, grantmaking, financial management, payment processing, and analytics. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com, or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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Forward-looking Statements
Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks related to our dividend policy and share repurchase program, including potential limitations on our ability to grow and the possibility that we might discontinue payment of dividends; risks relating to restrictions imposed by the credit facility; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles, particularly in larger organization; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud's investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.

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