Black Mountain School Accounting
blackmountainsoftware.com
What it is
Black Mountain School Accounting is a web-based school finance solution within Black Mountain Software’s government accounting and ERP offerings. School tools cover payroll and teacher benefits, annual reporting, student accounts, and reconciliation with a County Treasurer’s office. Fund Accounting handles accounting, budgeting, and procurement, including general ledger, accounts receivable, and cash receipting. Student Accounts manages activity funds and supports accounts payable, receipt printing, purchase orders, and purchase processing. The school tools were originally designed for Montana and Alaska; schools elsewhere can discuss their needs with the company. Deployment uses BMS Cloud, which the company says is available anywhere with an internet connection and includes nightly backups and disaster recovery. Hosted applications are described as SOC 2 Type 1 certified, with encrypted connections, verified access, monitoring, and scheduled backups. Implementations receive a dedicated team, configured plan, and timeline, with data conversion from text, Excel, CSV, and Word files. Training is included at no extra cost, and support is unlimited by phone, email, and online. Pricing is customized by population and applications needed; no price is listed.
Spec sheet
- What it does
- Black Mountain School Accounting is a governmental fund-accounting system for schools, covering accounting, budgeting, payroll, student funds, reporting, and County Treasurer reconciliation.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Purpose
- Black Mountain describes its software as integrated government accounting and ERP solutions for municipalities, counties, special districts, and schools.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Integrations
- School General Ledger integrates with Black Mountain Payroll, Human Resources, Asset Manager, and Budget Preparation, while other Black Mountain modules can post accounting entries automatically.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Security
- The vendor states that BMS Cloud hosted applications are SOC 2 Type 1 certified and that its report is available to current and potential clients under NDA upon request.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Support
- Support is offered by ticket, email, and phone Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mountain Time.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Headquarters
- The company is headquartered at 110 Main Street, Suite 3, Polson, Montana.Read 21 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Founded
- LinkedIn lists Black Mountain Software as founded in 1993.Read 21 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Asset management
- Asset Manager tracks inventory and assets and can create depreciation, acquisition, and disposal schedules with journal entries.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Availability
- BMS Cloud documentation states a guaranteed 98% uptime and identifies a weekly maintenance window from 11 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday Mountain Time.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Backups and recovery
- The hosting service performs automated nightly backups seven days a week and provides disaster-recovery processes.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- BBB standing
- BBB gives Black Mountain Software LLC an A+ rating and says the business is not BBB accredited.Read 21 Oct 2026 · bbb.org
- Budgeting
- Budget Preparation is integrated with General Ledger for collaborative expenditure and revenue budgets without exporting or importing external files.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Cloud deployment
- Black Mountain offers BMS Cloud, a hosted service for Black Mountain applications that is accessible wherever internet service is available.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Cloud hosting
- The company says its BMS Cloud is hosted by Amazon AWS and provides access wherever there is an internet connection, with nightly backups and disaster recovery.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Cloud infrastructure
- BMS Cloud uses Amazon Web Services, encrypted connections from approved sources, and backup redundancy across three physical locations.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Company legal identity
- BBB identifies the business as Black Mountain Software LLC and lists Black Mountain Software Inc. as an alternate name.Read 21 Oct 2026 · bbb.org
- Company size
- LinkedIn lists the company size as 11–50 employees, while the vendor’s About page says it has more than 50 employees.Read 21 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- County Treasurer integration
- School solutions integrate with a County Treasurer’s office for account reconciliation.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Documentation
- SourceForge lists documentation, live online, in-person, and video training, plus phone and online support.Read 21 Oct 2026 · sourceforge.net
- Double-entry accounting
- The system automatically generates double-entry fund accounting from the configured chart of accounts and blocks unbalanced entries.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Financial reporting
- The school ledger advertises compliant TFS reporting, budget-versus-actual reports, cash and bank reconciliation, claim reports, and vendor and budget queries.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Fund accounting
- Fund Accounting supports accounting, budgeting, and procurement, with functions including general ledger, accounts receivable, and cash receipting.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- General ledger
- The school ledger supports personalized governmental charts of accounts, payable processing, vendor records, 1099 information, compliant reports, and drill-down analysis.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Implementation
- The company says each implementation gets a dedicated team and a configured plan and timeline, and that it can convert data from formats including text, Excel, CSV, and Word files.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Integration
- The school solutions integrate with a County Treasurer’s office for account reconciliation.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Limit: geographic specialization
- The vendor states that its school solutions were originally designed for Montana and Alaska, which may require validation for other states.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Limit: integrations visibility
- SourceForge reports that no integrations are listed on its product profile, despite the vendor documenting integrations on its own pages.Read 21 Oct 2026 · sourceforge.net
- Limit: pricing transparency
- Pricing is not published as a numeric schedule; buyers must request a customized proposal.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Module ecosystem
- The document library lists more than 30 applications, including school ledger, school payroll, student accounts, budget preparation, purchase orders, cloud hosting, and employee portals.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Payroll
- School Payroll manages employee wages, benefits, deductions, leave, journal entries, W-2s, 941s, and payroll reports.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Praise: support reputation
- ProvenExpert describes the company as emphasizing exceptional customer support, timely assistance, and updates.Read 21 Oct 2026 · provenexpert.com
- Pricing model
- Pricing is based on population size and applications needed, with no per-user fees, usage fees, or hidden fees.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Purchasing and encumbrances
- The Purchase Orders add-on manages procurement and encumbrances, emails or faxes purchase orders, and creates correcting entries when orders cross fiscal years.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Rating on ProvenExpert
- 5.00 out of 5 from 5 reviews, comprising 2 Google Maps reviews and 3 Facebook reviews.Read 21 Oct 2026 · provenexpert.com
- Rating on SourceForge
- 0.0 out of 5 from 0 reviews; the listing says the software has not yet been reviewed.Read 21 Oct 2026 · sourceforge.net
- School market
- The school solutions were originally designed for Montana and Alaska, and the company invites schools in other states to discuss their needs.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- School market focus
- The school software was originally designed for Montana and Alaska, although the vendor invites schools in other states to discuss requirements.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- School use
- School solutions cover payroll and teacher benefits, annual reporting, student accounts, and balancing with the County Treasurer’s office.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Security certification
- The vendor says BMS Cloud hosted applications are SOC 2 Type 1 certified and that the report is available to current and potential clients under NDA.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Security controls
- The security statement describes encrypted connections, verified user access, monitoring, and scheduled nightly backups for BMS Cloud servers.Read 3 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Student accounts
- Student Accounts manages activity funds with accounts payable, receipt printing, purchase orders, purchase processing, and rule-based allocation of miscellaneous income or charges.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
- Training
- The vendor says online training is free and unlimited, with monthly online classes and on-demand classes.Read 21 Oct 2026 · blackmountainsoftware.com
Plans and prices
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Covers payroll and teacher benefits
- Includes student activity fund accounting
- Cloud access with nightly backups
- Dedicated implementation team
- Training included at no extra cost
Limits
- Pricing is available only on request
- Originally designed for Montana and Alaska
- Cloud access requires an internet connection
Who it suits
This software suits schools seeking integrated accounting, budgeting, payroll, student-account, and reporting tools. It is especially aligned with organizations using the Montana or Alaska-oriented school workflows, while others can discuss requirements.
Verdict
Black Mountain School Accounting combines school finance functions with cloud hosting, implementation assistance, training, and support. Its customized pricing and regional origins mean prospective schools need a requirements discussion before purchase.
Where Specifiction places it
- School Accounting Software#5 of 278.1