Though nonprofit organizations do not work for commercial reasons, they may still have a big staff and tremendous accounting to be done. There are many cases, especially in large nonprofit organizations, where data cannot be handled manually. For this reason, there is software designed for nonprofit organizations.

Nonprofit software can be used to maintain the number of members in an organization. The members may be voluntary workers or they may be paid. If they are paid, the software can maintain a record of their salaries. Maintenance expenses such as electricity and water bills, repair expenditures, materials, etc. can be recorded and calculated by the software.

Most nonprofit organizations function with the help of grants and donations. It is necessary to record each donation and grant that is received by using nonprofit software. Fundraising data is an important aspect of all nonprofit software. The software keeps track of an event, the numbers attending, sponsors, etc. The software can be used to record information about donors, their contributions or potential contributions. The spreadsheet can help enable a nonprofit understand what kind of people to approach for securing future funding. Hence, the software becomes an essential tool in managing the proper channeling of funds and assets of a nonprofit organization.

Going by the very nature of a nonprofit organization, even nonprofit software is free of cost, or it may cost a very little amount. Most free nonprofit software is available for download from the Internet. They are generally designed as spreadsheets and are kept quite simple for nonprofit staff and volunteers to use.