We’re happy you are part of the Aplos family, and we are here to help you get started. Below are recommended steps to help you get on your way. Each step will provide a link to the referenced area in the software, as well as a resource that specifically goes over the process in more detail. If you have any questions, contact our Customer Care Team.

Step 1: Add Your People

It’s easy to import contacts within Aplos! If you have an Excel file of your donors and/or vendors, along with their contact information, our contact import tool can quickly bring those details into your account.

Importing And Updating Contacts

Step 2: Edit Your Chart of Accounts and Set Your Starting Balances

We have started you with a basic chart of accounts that you can edit to reflect your preferred structure. You’ll want to set the starting balances for any of your asset or liability accounts so your register balance matches your bank. These should be the balances of your bank accounts as of the first transaction you enter in Aplos.

Setting Up Your Chart Of Accounts

Nonprofit Chart Of Accounts

Step 3: Create Your Budget

Setting up your budget will help you project income and expense goals for your fiscal year. Once you set your budget, and as you enter transactions, you can run budget reports to see if your spending and revenue are matching your goals.

Creating Your Annual Budget In Aplos

Step 4: Create and Link Your Purposes

To track donations and prepare contribution statements in Aplos you need to create purposes in the Donations section. You can then link this purpose to the related accounts in your accounting if you want your contribution deposits to also post in the bookkeeping.

Purposes In Aplos

Step 5: Online Donation Form

Giving people an option for recurring donations will help keep your donations a little more predictable. Integrate Aplos with Raisely to create your online giving campaigns, and share this with people, or add it to your website so they can set up a weekly or monthly recurring gift to your organization. To learn more about the integration with Aplos and Raisely click here

Getting Started with Raisely

Donation Form: The Basics

Setting up your Donation Form

Step 6: Invite Other Users

You can share access with the rest of your team by adding them as a user with a role permission in the Settings section. If you have members of your team that need to only have access to specific reports, create custom report managers as well.

Adding And Managing Users

Custom Report Managers