Custom software · NGOs

Build an NGO system around your funds, your field and your donors.

An NGO keeps two sets of books that must agree. One is money, split by fund and by donor. The other is work, counted in the field by a coordinator with a register and a phone.

They usually meet only when a report is due. Then somebody spends three weeks collecting spending figures, beneficiary lists and photographs from four coordinators in four formats, and the donor waits.

GullySystem designs a system that keeps the money and the work beside each other. The donation sits against the right fund, the receipt goes out the same day, the activity is recorded where it happened, and the report is assembled from both.

Share your requirements

Who this is for

Organisations we can build for.

A trust running one school and a society running six programmes on three grants report to different people, and the reporting is what shapes everything under it.

Registered societies
Public charitable trusts
Not-for-profit companies
Education NGOs
Health and nutrition NGOs
Child welfare organisations
Women’s collectives and rights organisations
Livelihood and skilling NGOs
Agriculture and rural development organisations
Water and sanitation organisations
Environment and conservation groups
Disability and inclusion organisations
Elder care organisations
Animal welfare organisations
Disaster relief organisations
Corporate foundations
CSR implementing partners
Grant-making foundations
Federations of self-help groups
Faith-based charitable institutions

What can be built

The modules, and what each one covers.

Nothing here is a fixed package. Each module is built, left out or changed to match how your organisation already works.

Donor records

One record per donor, with what she gave and why.

Donor profile
Individual, company or institution
Tax ID and address
Communication preference
First donation and last donation
Total given
Preferred cause
Recurring commitment
Receipts issued
Reports sent
Relationship owner
Do-not-contact flag

Donations

Donation received
Matched to donor
Assigned to fund
Receipt issued
Acknowledgement sent
Recorded against the project
Reported to the donor

A donor remembers a late receipt for years. The delay is usually in matching a bank entry to a name, so that matching is where the system does the work.

Donation types

One-time donations
Recurring monthly donations
Corpus donations
Restricted and earmarked donations
General or unrestricted donations
In-kind donations
Sponsorship commitments
Event and campaign donations
Payroll giving
Foreign contributions
Anonymous donations

Foreign contributions are received and kept separately under law. They are recorded in a separate fund and a separate account, and what your organisation is permitted to receive stays a matter for your auditor and legal adviser.

Receipts

Receipt number series
Donation date and mode
Fund and project
Tax-exemption details where applicable
Donor tax ID
Digital receipt by email
Printed receipt
Duplicate receipt request
Cancelled receipts with reason
Data prepared for the annual donation statement

Data is prepared for the statutory donation statement and certificates that your auditor needs. The filing itself, and what the law requires this year, stay with your auditor.

Funds

A CSR grant, general donations and foreign contributions are hard to keep apart in one long sheet with a colour code.

Fund master
Restricted and unrestricted
Corpus funds
Project-specific funds
Opening balance
Receipts into the fund
Spending from the fund
Closing balance
Inter-fund transfer with approval
Fund-wise ledger

Grants

Grant name and donor
Grant agreement and period
Sanctioned amount
Tranche schedule
Deliverables per tranche
Budget heads approved
Permitted administrative share
Reporting dates
Utilisation position
Extension and revision record
Grant closure

Grant budgets

The budget line is the unit a grant is judged on, so spending is booked to it from the first voucher.

Budget head and line item
Approved amount per line
Spent to date
Committed but unspent
Balance available
Overspend alert
Reallocation request
Donor approval for reallocation
Variance explanation

Utilisation reporting

Spending recorded
Booked to budget line
Vouchers attached
Period closed
Utilisation statement prepared
Reviewed internally
Sent to the donor

Projects and programmes

Project name and thematic area
Geography and villages covered
Start and end date
Funding source
Project team
Targets set
Activities planned
Beneficiaries targeted
Partner organisations
Project status

Activities in the field

Activity type
Date and location
Conducted by
Participants
Beneficiaries reached
Materials distributed
Photographs
Expenditure incurred
Notes from the coordinator
Verification by a supervisor

Beneficiary records

Beneficiary lists from different coordinators arrive in different formats, and duplicates surface at report time.

Beneficiary profile
Household and family members
Village, block and district
Category and vulnerability criteria
Identification reference held
Enrolment date
Programmes enrolled in
Services received
Attendance and participation
Exit or graduation
Duplicate detection

Duplicate detection is a suggestion, not a verdict. Two people in one village genuinely share a name often enough that a coordinator should confirm before anything is merged.

Beneficiary data care

Field data is personal data, and the people in it did not choose to be in a database.

Consent recorded at enrolment
Access restricted by project
Photographs held separately
Children’s records with stricter access
Export permissions
Anonymised reporting view
Record of who viewed what
Retention rules set by the organisation

What you may collect, keep and share is your organisation’s decision and your legal adviser’s. The system enforces the rules you set, and it does not set them for you.

The field application

Built for a coordinator standing in a field with weak signal and limited daylight.

Today’s activity plan
Enrol a beneficiary
Mark attendance
Conduct a survey
Capture photographs
Record distribution
Note expenditure
Location stamp
Works without a network and syncs later

Offline entry syncs when the phone finds a network. Until then the office sees yesterday’s picture, and the screen says so rather than pretending otherwise.

Surveys and assessments

Baseline survey
Needs assessment
Household survey
Midline and endline survey
Custom question sets
Skip logic
Photograph and document capture
Enumerator record
Survey status by village
Data export for analysis

Outcome tracking

Outputs are easy to count. Outcomes are what the donor actually asked about.

Indicator definition
Target per indicator
Measurement frequency
Data source for each indicator
Progress against target
Disaggregation by gender and age
Village-wise progress
Indicator trend over time
Narrative against numbers

Sponsorship programmes

Where a donor is matched to a child, a family or a unit, the relationship needs its own record.

Sponsor and sponsored record
Commitment amount and period
Payment schedule
Progress updates due
Letters and photographs shared
Consent for sharing
Sponsorship lapse
Replacement matching
Sponsor communication history

Volunteers

Volunteer profile and skills
Availability
Interest areas
Background check record
Assignment to an activity
Hours contributed
Training completed
Feedback
Certificates issued
Volunteer to donor conversion

Events and campaigns

Campaign name and purpose
Target amount
Channel used
Registrations
Donations attributed
Cost of the campaign
Volunteers deployed
Media and photographs
Follow-up with new donors

Donor communication

Receipt and acknowledgement
Thank you message
Impact update
Annual report
Project-specific report
Renewal reminder for recurring gifts
Festival and occasion messages
Lapsed donor outreach
Preference and unsubscribe handling

A receipt and a yearly note on how the money was used can go to anybody who gave. An appeal is different, and a donor who has asked not to be contacted is excluded by the system rather than by somebody’s memory.

Donor reports

Assembled from records already in the system, instead of collected again from four people.

Fund utilisation
Activities conducted
Beneficiaries reached
Indicator progress
Photographs from the field
Case stories
Financial statement per grant
Report template per donor
Version sent and date

Expenses and vouchers

Expense entry
Project and budget line
Fund charged
Voucher and bill attached
Field advance
Advance settlement
Approval workflow
Payment record
Vendor details
Unsettled advances

Assets and stores

Asset register by project
Funded by which grant
Location and custodian
Material stock at the centre
Distribution material
Issue to field
Stock received as in-kind donation
Consumption per activity
Physical verification

Staff and field teams

Staff and coordinator records
Project allocation
Cost split across grants
Attendance
Field visit record
Travel claims
Training record
Reporting lines
Exit record

Roles and access

Governing body
Executive director
Programme manager
Field coordinator
Monitoring and evaluation team
Fundraising team
Finance team
Volunteer coordinator
Auditor with read access
Donor with a limited view

Management dashboards

Donations this month
Donations by fund
Recurring donors active and lapsed
Grant utilisation position
Reports due this quarter
Beneficiaries reached by project
Indicator progress
Activities conducted
Volunteer hours
Unsettled advances
Project-wise spending against budget
Village-wise coverage

Integrations

Payment gateways and donation pages
Bank statement import
Accounting software such as QuickBooks or Xero
WhatsApp, SMS and email providers
Website donation forms
Cloud storage for field photographs
Survey tools already in use

Matching a bank statement to donors works from the narration the bank gives, which is often short and untidy. Matches are proposed and a person confirms them.

The journey

One connected workflow, end to end.

Every stage below can sit in one system, so nobody re-enters what the last stage already captured.

Fundraising
Donation received
Fund allocation
Receipt issued
Project planning
Budget approved
Field activity
Beneficiary enrolment
Spending recorded
Indicator measured
Utilisation statement
Donor report
Renewal

Built in phases

You do not have to replace everything at once.

Each phase is usable on its own, so the system earns its place before the next part is built.

1
Donors and receipts
Donor records, donations, funds and same-day receipts. This addresses late receipts.
2
Projects and grants
Projects, grant agreements, budget lines, expenditure against those lines and the utilisation position at any moment.
3
The field
Beneficiary records, the coordinator’s offline application, surveys, activities and indicator measurement.
4
Reporting
Donor reports assembled from existing records, volunteer management, dashboards and the accounting integration.

How we work

How a build actually runs.

01
Understand
We sit with your finance person and one field coordinator, who hold the two halves of the same story.
02
Map
Funds, grants, budget lines, projects, indicators, approvals and every report somebody currently builds by hand.
03
Design
The field screens are drawn for a phone with no network, and the office screens for the person who answers the donor.
04
Build
Donations and receipts usually come first, ahead of anything else.
05
Test
One project and one grant run through it for a full reporting cycle before the rest moves.
06
Deploy
Go-live starts at the office, and the field application follows after the coordinators have been trained in their own district.
07
Improve
Indicators, surveys and donor reporting templates are refined as the next grant cycle begins.

What you bring

What you bring, and when.

The build moves at the speed of the answers. These are the things we ask for, in the order we ask.

01
Donor lists and grant files
Bring the donor register, receipt books, grant agreements, budgets and recent utilisation reports. Field activity sheets help. Design follows how funds are traced now.
02
Programme lead, accounts officer and field coordinator
Every contact speaks for a department and corrects wording. Programme and finance needs can differ. The director decides.
03
Fund heads, donor rules and report formats
Fund and cost heads, restricted fund rules, donor report formats and receipt wording are fixed once the build is under way. Project and location masters follow. Each module is looked at when shown.
04
Donor history and funder access
Donors with giving history and active grants are loaded for launch. Share your payment gateway and accounting package details beforehand. The director approves go-live.

What we can build

Systems we can put together for you.

Donor management systems
Donation and receipt platforms
Fund accounting support systems
Grant management systems
Project and programme management systems
Beneficiary management systems
Field data collection applications
Survey and assessment tools
Monitoring and evaluation dashboards
Volunteer management systems
Sponsorship management systems
Donor portals
Campaign and event systems
Multi-project NGO platforms

Common questions

Questions owners ask before starting.

What is custom NGO management software?

Custom software would be written around one organisation’s funds, grants, projects and indicators, instead of a donor tool and a spreadsheet that never agree. The custom part is usually the reporting each donor insists on.

Can receipts go out the same day?

Yes, once the donation is matched to a donor. Bank entries can be imported and matched with a person confirming, so the receipt does not wait for a monthly reconciliation.

Are CSR, general and foreign funds kept separate?

Yes. Each fund has its own ledger, and spending is booked to a fund and a budget line from the voucher onwards rather than sorted out later.

Can field staff enter data without a network?

Yes. Enrolments, attendance, surveys and photographs can be entered offline on a phone and synced when a network is found.

Can it prepare donor reports?

Yes. Utilisation, activities, beneficiaries reached and indicator progress can be assembled from records already in the system, with a template per donor.

Does it handle tax-deductible donation receipts?

It can issue receipts carrying your tax-exemption details and prepare the donation data your auditor needs. Filing and what the law requires this year stay with your auditor.

How are duplicate beneficiaries handled?

It can flag likely duplicates by name, household and village. A coordinator confirms before anything is merged, because two people in one village genuinely do share a name.

Is beneficiary data kept private?

Access is set by project and by role, photographs are held separately, and views and exports are recorded. What you collect and share is your organisation’s decision, and the system enforces it.

Can donors see anything themselves?

Yes, if you want that. A donor view can carry receipts, contribution history and project updates, with the depth of access decided by you.

Does our accountant keep the books she uses today?

Usually yes. Donations, expenses and fund-wise entries can pass to your accounting software, so your accountant continues working the way she does now.

Could we launch with only donors and receipts first?

Yes. Get donations, funds and receipts working first, then grants, then the field.

Can we share it with our implementing partners?

Yes. A partner organisation can be given access to its own projects and beneficiaries and nothing else.

Your trade

How we work with this trade.

NGOs and trusts

Build a system where the money and the field finally agree.

An NGO is judged twice: once on what it did in a village, and once on what it can show a donor three months later. The second is usually harder than the first.

Take your last donor report and trace three figures in it back to a village. If that walk is an easy one, your books are in order, and the field application is the only piece missing.

Tell us how you work

Tell us how your ngos runs today.

We will tell you what can be digitised, what can be connected, what is worth automating, and what you should leave alone.

What happens after you share your requirements

A senior engineer reads your answers. Nobody phones first.
Within one business day you get a written note: what we understood, what we would start with, and the questions we still have.
If it fits, a proposal follows with the order of work, what we need from you and what you receive at each step.
No call is booked and nothing is paid until you have read the note. Your details stay with us.

Start with your requirements

Seven short steps that tell us what you need. A senior engineer reads them before anyone gets in touch.