What’s New and What’s Next: Why Your Finance Team Should Attend bbcon This Year

Budget season. Audit prep. Month-end close. Board reports. Grant reporting. Endowment tracking. If you work on a nonprofit, foundation, or school finance team, your calendar probably has a few “busy seasons” that somehow overlap into one long season.

That’s exactly why bbcon is such a valuable reset.

At bbcon 2026, finance leaders and their teams can step away from the daily scramble to hear what’s coming next, learn from peers who are solving similar problems, and get practical ideas for making financial operations stronger. This year’s agenda includes a thoughtful mix of Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® product sessions, accounting best practices, AI and automation conversations, and broader leadership topics designed for people who care deeply about financial sustainability and mission impact.

Whether you want to sharpen your reporting, rethink your close process, learn more about AI-assisted finance workflows, or hear directly from Blackbaud leadership on the future of our solutions, there’s plenty for finance teams to add to their bbcon list.

See What’s Next for Financial Edge NXT

If your organization relies on Financial Edge NXT, bbcon is your chance to hear directly from the teams building and supporting the solution. Product-focused sessions will cover practical ways to improve everyday finance work, from subledger reconciliation and budgeting to reporting, queries, bank reconciliation, imports, and accounts payable.

For teams looking to improve the accuracy and consistency of their books, sessions like Close with Confidence: Guided Reconciliation + Healthier Books in Financial Edge NXT and Moving Bank Reconciliation into Financial Edge NXT: The Time is Now! will speak to the familiar finance challenges of getting the numbers right without losing days to manual review. These sessions pair well with No More Spreadsheet Gymnastics: Reporting with Financial Edge NXT, which addresses the reporting work finance teams often have to do after the data leaves the system.

There are also sessions for teams that want to better use the tools they already have. Unlocking the Power of Queries in Financial Edge NXT can help finance users get more comfortable finding and organizing the data they need, while Beyond Global Change: Mastering Imports for Mass Updates in Financial Edge NXT Webview focuses on managing larger updates more efficiently.

And because budgeting is rarely simple, Taking Your Financial Edge NXT Budget Process to the Next Level offers a timely opportunity to think through how your finance system can better support planning, collaboration, and decision-making.

Make AI and Automation Feel Practical, not Abstract

AI is already changing how finance teams think about time-consuming work. But many organizations are still looking for processes where it can actually help.

Several bbcon 2026 sessions focus on AI and automation in the places finance teams feel the pressure most. From Transactions to Intelligence: Meet the Financial Edge NXT Financial Agents will introduce attendees to emerging AI-assisted capabilities designed for financial workflows. Spend Less Time in AP with Financial Edge NXT: AI-Assisted Invoices, Payment Automation + What’s Nextbrings that conversation into accounts payable, where small improvements can make a big difference for lean teams.

Learn from Finance Peers Tackling the Same Messy Work

Of course, bbcon isn’t only about product updates. Some of the most valuable sessions are the ones that help finance leaders step back and compare notes with people facing similar pressures.

If month-end close has become a recurring fire drill, Month-End Close Optimization: From Chaos to a 10-Day Close in Nonprofit Finance, presented by Ashton King from the Local Office on Aging, Inc., should be high on your list. It speaks directly to the work of creating a more predictable, manageable close process, something that finance teams often need before they can make progress on larger strategic goals.

For leaders thinking beyond the next close cycle, Strategic Planning and Fiscal Sustainability for Nonprofit Finance Leaders offers space to focus on long-term financial health. Presenters Paul Preziotti and A. Michael Gellman focus on how you can move beyond just reporting on the past so you can help shape the decisions that determine what’s possible next.

For those managing endowments or thinking about starting one, Strong Endowment Stewardship: Strengthening Oversight, Reporting, and Trust focuses on a topic that sits at the intersection of accounting, governance, and donor confidence. Susan Smith, CPA, CITP, Blackbaud Functional Sales Executive and former Chief Operating Officer at the University of South Carolina Foundations, helps connect day-to-day financial practices with the trust your organization builds over time.

Finance leaders working with grants may also want to look at Managing & Reporting for Time Based Grants with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® and From Spreadsheet Chaos to Live Dashboards: Managing Millions in Federal Grants with Power BI + Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®. Both sessions reflect a challenge many organizations know well: grant reporting requires clean tracking, clear communication, and the ability to tell a financial story without rebuilding the numbers every time someone asks a new question.

Find Ideas Built for Lean Teams and Complex Organizations

Not every finance team has a deep bench. Many teams are expected to manage complex reporting, compliance, and reconciliation work with limited time and staff.

That’s why sessions like Lean Teams, Lasting Impact: Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® Tips for Small Teams are especially relevant. Andrew Horrow, Nonprofit Finance Director and founder of Finnovate for Good, will equip attendees with practical, immediately applicable strategies for getting the most out of Financial Edge NXT when operating with lean staff.

For K–12 schools and education-focused organizations, Winning Where It Matters: Leveraging Connected Workflows for Financial Aid, Enrollment, Billing & Accounting to Power the Business Office and Beyond QuickBooks: Future-Proofing Your School’s Financial Operations bring finance into a broader operational conversation. These sessions can help business office leaders think about how connected systems support better visibility across departments, not just cleaner accounting.

A regular bbcon favorite, Stephanie Skryzowski, is coming back this year to present a topic that resonates with small teams and complex organizations. In the Financial Luminary session, The CFO of Your Own Life: 9 Ways to Thrive in Work and Well-being, she dismantles the belief that meaningful work requires sacrificing your own prosperity, and shows why the usual fixes for burnout don’t work. Through her own story and the real experiences of finance professionals at every level, from the AP clerk to the CFO, she makes the case that the people who steward the sector’s money deserve lives that thrive as much as the causes they serve. When they do, their organizations’ impact multiplies.

Don’t Miss the Mainstage Moments

Make room in your schedule for the mainstage sessions, too.

Blackbaud leadership will share exciting new advancements and functionality, giving attendees a clearer view of where Blackbaud is headed and how innovation across the portfolio can support the social impact community. For finance teams, these sessions can help connect the product-specific updates you hear in breakouts to the bigger picture: how technology, data, AI, and connected workflows are shaping the future of mission-driven work.

Along with updates from Blackbaud leadership, you’ll hear from two keynote speakers whose perspectives reach far beyond finance.

Award-winning actor, songwriter, and New York Times bestselling author Leslie Odom, Jr. will join bbcon for a fireside chat on creativity, resilience, leadership, and delivering excellence through change. Drawing on a career that spans Broadway, film, television, music, and literature, Odom will share lessons learned from navigating high-pressure environments and sustaining performance at the highest level, followed by a live performance designed to leave attendees energized and inspired.

You’ll also hear from Priya Lakhani OBE, entrepreneur, educator, and founder and CEO of CENTURY Tech. A recognized voice on artificial intelligence, ethics, and innovation, Lakhani has advised governments around the world on AI policy and helped shape conversations about responsible technology adoption. Her keynote will explore how organizations can embrace innovation in practical, human-centered ways, offering valuable insights for leaders thinking about the role AI will play in their teams, workflows, and long-term strategy.

Together, these sessions bring a broader perspective to the conference experience, pairing practical product and accounting education with conversations about leadership, innovation, and what it takes to thrive through change.

Join Us at bbcon 2026

bbcon 2026 is a chance for finance teams to learn what’s new, compare notes with peers, and find practical ideas they can bring back to their organizations. In addition to great sessions, stop by the Expo Hall for demos of new functionality and visit with some of our great partners. 

Explore the full agenda and register for bbcon 2026 at the bbcon website. Can’t make it to Columbus? Register for bbcon virtual!