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Nonprofits

Nonprofit bookkeeping in Ventura County

Restricted grants, functional expense allocation, and a board that needs to understand the numbers without a finance background. Nonprofit books have a job that for-profit books simply do not.

We keep fund balances straight, allocate expenses across program, management and fundraising, and hand you statements your board can read and your auditor will accept.

Book a free 20-minute call 805-225-4959

Every nonprofit client gets

Board-ready, on the same date every month.

  • Restricted and unrestricted funds tracked separately
  • Functional expense allocation you can actually defend
  • Board-ready statements by the 15th
  • A 30-minute review call before your board meeting

Three things that break nonprofit books

These are the ones we find in almost every file we take over.

Restrictions

The restrictions live in a spreadsheet

The accounting system shows one pot of money and someone tracks what is restricted on the side. When that person is busy, or leaves, the organization loses the only record of what it is allowed to spend.

Result: nobody can say what is genuinely available.

Functional expense

Program and admin split once a year

Expenses go in by type all year, then someone estimates the program, management and fundraising split in a hurry at year end. Grant applications and the 990 then rest on a number that was largely guessed.

Result: figures you cannot defend to a funder.

Donations

Gifts recorded at what arrived

A $100 online donation lands as about $97 after processing. Booking the net understates contributions, hides what your donation platform costs, and puts the books out of step with the acknowledgment the donor received.

Result: your donor system and your books disagree.

What's included

The monthly cycle, built for nonprofits

  • Fund tracking: net assets with and without donor restrictions maintained in the accounting system, and releases recorded when the purpose is met
  • Functional expense allocation: program, management and general, and fundraising, applied monthly using a method we agree with you and apply consistently
  • Grant tracking: spend against budget for each grant, with what is left and what has to be spent by when
  • Contributions recorded gross: the full gift as revenue and the processing fee as a cost, so your books agree with what the donor was thanked for
  • Platform reconciliation: payouts from your donation platform tied back to the individual gifts behind them
  • Payroll: run through Gusto and allocated across programs, because staff time is usually the largest program cost
  • Board reporting: statement of activities and financial position, budget against actual, and a call before your board meeting rather than after it

Who this is for

  • Human services and community organizations
  • Arts, culture and education
  • Faith-based organizations
  • Foundations and grantmakers
  • Associations and membership groups

We work in QuickBooks Online and Xero, and reconcile to whatever donor system you already use rather than asking you to change it.

Typical fit

Organizations with roughly $250K to $10M in annual revenue, a handful of staff, and enough restricted funding that keeping it straight has become somebody's second job.

Money with strings attached

A restricted gift is revenue when you receive it, but you cannot spend it on anything you like. It stays in net assets with donor restrictions until the purpose is satisfied, and only then does it move across.

That timing is what makes nonprofit books feel like they are lying to you. A large multi-year grant arrives and the year shows an enormous surplus. The following year you deliver the program, spend the money, and show a deficit. Neither number describes how the organization is actually doing, and a board that has not been walked through it will draw the wrong conclusion from both.

We keep the restrictions in the accounting system, release them as the work happens, and report unrestricted operating results separately, so you can see whether the organization covers its own costs before the grants are counted.

What we track for each restricted fund

  • The donor or grantor and what they specified
  • Amount received and amount released to date
  • Spend against the grant budget by line
  • The period the funding has to be used in
  • Reporting dates the funder expects
  • What remains, and whether you are on pace to use it

Unspent funding heading toward a deadline is something you want to hear about in month four, not month eleven.

How it starts

Three steps, and the first two cost you nothing.

1. A 20-minute call

Your programs, your funding mix, how many restricted grants you carry, and what your board keeps asking for.

2. A quote in 24 hours

A flat monthly price in writing, plus a separate one-time fee if the funds have to be untangled first.

3. Setup and first close

Funds and programs structured properly, the allocation method agreed, then your first board-ready statements.

What we do not do

Said up front, so nobody finds out in month three.

  • We do not prepare or file your Form 990, or your annual registration with the state. We hand your preparer a clean package with functional expenses already allocated.
  • We do not audit or review your financials. An auditor has to be independent of whoever keeps the books, so we cannot be both. We prepare for the audit and work with your auditor through it.
  • We do not advise on exempt status, unrelated business income or lobbying limits. Those are questions for a nonprofit attorney or CPA, and we will tell you when you have one.
  • We do not write grant applications or manage program compliance. We give you the financial reporting a funder asks for.
  • We do not replace your donor management system. We reconcile to it, so gift records and accounting records agree.

Nonprofit bookkeeping FAQ

Do you prepare our Form 990?

No. The 990 is a tax filing and it belongs with a CPA or a preparer who does them regularly. What we do is make sure the numbers they work from are right.

That matters more than it sounds. The 990 asks for expenses split by program, management and fundraising. If that split has been done properly all year rather than estimated in a hurry, the filing becomes straightforward and the figures hold up if a funder asks about them.

Can you work with our donor management system?

Yes, and we would rather you kept the one your development team already knows. We reconcile it to the accounting system so gift records and financial records agree, which is the thing that usually goes wrong.

The mismatch normally comes from processing fees and from timing, where a gift is dated when it was made in one system and when it was deposited in the other. Both are fixable once someone is actually looking at them each month.

We have an audit coming. Can you help?

We can get you ready for one and work alongside your auditor, but we cannot perform it. An auditor has to be independent of whoever keeps the books, so a firm doing both is not something you want.

What we do is keep the file in a state where the audit is not a crisis: reconciled accounts, documented restrictions, a consistent allocation method, and support filed where it can be found.

How do you allocate shared costs between program and admin?

With a documented method we agree with you at the start and then apply the same way every month. Usually that is staff time for salaries and related costs, and square footage or headcount for occupancy and shared overhead.

Consistency is what makes it defensible. A method you can explain to a funder in one sentence is worth far more than a more elaborate one nobody can reconstruct a year later.

Our treasurer is a volunteer. Will they be able to follow the reports?

That is who we write them for. Most board treasurers are generous people with day jobs, not accountants, and handing them a statement of activities with no explanation is how boards end up asking the same three questions every quarter.

You get a short written summary with the statements, and we are happy to join a board or finance committee meeting when it helps.

We are small. Is this worth it for us?

Sometimes not, and we will tell you. An organization under a couple of hundred thousand with two or three unrestricted funding sources can often manage with a good volunteer and a well set up file, and we would rather help you get there than sell you something you do not need.

It becomes worth it when restricted grants arrive, when staff are paid across more than one program, or when a funder starts asking for reporting you cannot easily produce.

Know what you can actually spend

Twenty minutes on the phone and you'll have a flat quote within a day.

Book a free 20-minute call 805-225-4959