Fonteva

Pros

Managing several organizations under a single business account has been a big advantage for our association/non-profit management company. We're able to support databases for as many as eight organizations in one place which makes it much easier for sub-teams to share knowledge, ideas and training. On the staff side, the interface feels much more engaging than many association databases which often come across as stiff, outdated and difficult to use. Another thing I really appreciate is the object-based, interconnected setup. Contacts, Accounts, Items, Sales Orders, Payment Methods and other objects all connect to one another which creates far more flexible use cases than a limited system. Instead of a basic static form tied to an annual conference page, members can go through a more interactive and customizable registration process. It's possible to build as many ticket types for an event as needed and link different registration forms to different ticket types. Tracking detailed data is also very useful. If I need to see which payment method was used for a purchase and at what time, I can drill into the sales order, then the related e-payment, then the payment method and review each piece of information directly. That relational database structure creates a lot of opportunity for stronger reporting and a better member experience overall. Reporting can be very powerful as well. You can combine fields from multiple objects to identify member companies that joined after January 2023 and are based in Florida, attendees with a certain certification who attended the last two annual conferences, members serving on committees and plenty more. The platform can handle most areas of association management, including membership, events, e-store, online communities and beyond.

Cons

That flexibility also brings a lot of complexity and at times it turns into a real headache. The system can be so involved that troubleshooting, glitches and other issues become overwhelming for both staff and members. Having a dedicated IT or technical staff person to manage the platform and act as the internal liaison feels absolutely necessary. We regularly deal with problems related to flows, especially when trying to trigger a chain of actions in the database, like having a membership purchase automatically activate the membership and send a welcome email. On top of that, there are random software issues that are hard to explain, such as the front-end purchasing page taking several minutes to load for members and event attendees. Reporting, while powerful in some ways, also has frustrating limitations because it depends on preset object templates. For instance, if you're using an "Accounts with Contacts" template, you can only pull fields tied to those object types. You wouldn't be able to include something like Attendee IDs, so staff has to be very careful to choose the right template before spending time building a report. When specific data requests come up, we often have to export multiple reports into Excel and manually sort or combine the information ourselves because the available report templates are limited. It would be much better if reporting allowed access to all relevant data in one place and reduced the amount of manual Excel work required.

Pros

Managing an association has become much more aligned for me since everything, from memberships to events and financials, sits in one place. I've found the Salesforce integration especially valuable for strengthening CRM capabilities and the reporting tools make it easy for me to track trends and pull insights when needed.

Cons

That said, the platform can be challenging to learn, especially for users who are not very comfortable with technology. Getting everything set up and customized at the beginning takes a fair amount of time and it may require hands-on help from the IT team. On top of that, some of the more advanced features seem a little expensive when compared with other options on the market.

Pros

What I appreciate most is having everything centralized in a single platform which simplifies my workflow. The level of customization available has been a big plus for me and working within Salesforce makes handling CRM data much more efficient.

Cons

Initial setup can be a bit complicated, especially for someone from a non-IT background or with little to no Salesforce knowledge. Because it has so many features and customization options, the setup process is also fairly lengthy, so implementation takes time and feels complex.