Abila Adds Social CRM in Avectra Buy

Nonprofit accounting software provider Abila has acquired nonprofit-focused social CRM provider Avectra for an undisclosed amount, just one month after officially changing its name from Sage Nonprofit Solutions.

In July, Sage Nonprofit Solutions was rebranded and renamed Abila just four months after it was sold by Sage Group Plc to private equity concern Accel-KKR.

Abila will retain Avectra’s staff and offices in Mclean, Va., Chicago, and Maitland, Fla. as well as its customers which brings Abila’s total base to nearly 8,000 organizations.

For now the company will be known as Avectra, an Abila company as it already says on its Website. Abila also plans to leverage the relationships Avectra has established in the accounting community, including the American Institute of CPAs and CPA2Biz.

In April, Avectra became part of the CPA2Biz Trusted Business Advisor Solutions program with a focus on having the company become the preferred provider of constituent management services to CPA firm clients. Specifically, CPA2Biz and Avectra are looking to have the product be utilized by CPA firms to better serve niche client areas with a heavy emphasis on nonprofit organizations.

“We are very excited at the prospect of working closer with the CPA community and we’re looking forward to sitting down with the executive team (at CPA2Biz) and fleshing out how we keep what’s in place and take it to the next level,” said Abila chief executive Krista Endsley. She claims that in advance of the acquisition being finalized she had met with executives from the AICPA and CPA2Biz to make them aware of the deal.

“This is one of the largest, most important relationships [Avectra] has and we didn’t want them to find out through a press release so we let them know what we’re doing and assured them they were very important and we wouldn’t change anything.”

As for the deal itself, Abila had been actively looking for complimentary solutions in the market and Accel-KKR had made them aware of Avectra. Endsley said she found many complements to both companies upon learning more about Avectra.

“In order to be a one-stop provider in this space we went aggressively looking to see what would be out there to bring in to our culture,” she said. “We already have sectors we serve that work well together. They go into deals where they need accounting [software] and now we can go in with an entire front to back office solution, especially on the membership side.”

She also noted that some of Avectra's partner channel also represent Abila's products.

Abila offers fund accounting, donor and grant management, fundraising and relationship management. The company’s customers include nonprofits, government agencies, associations, membership organizations and higher education institutions.