Nonprofit Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Tracking and reporting on mission impact require additional performance indicators and qualitative measures beyond traditional financial statements. Implement a robust system to track all donations and contributions received by the nonprofit. This includes recording donor information, donation amounts, and any restrictions or conditions attached to the contributions.

Financial Statements for Nonprofits

Class tracking allows you to categorize income and expenses by various dimensions, enabling accurate fund accounting. Without it, you can’t easily differentiate restricted vs. unrestricted funds or track the financial performance of individual programs/grants. Organizing and maintaining receipts is essential for transparent and accurate financial reporting and ensures you’re audit-ready. Managing nonprofit finances can get complicated, especially if you have a tight budget and limited staff. However, using nonprofit accounting software like Quickbooks streamlines the process. It helps track expenses, create financial reports, and make accepting donations easier—all while saving time and minimizing errors.

Nonprofit Bookkeeper: Key Responsibilities & Skills (+ Sample Job Template)

However, one drawback is that the system comes with a steep price, making it suitable for only larger nonprofits. Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is adept at grant and fund-specific budgeting capabilities. The platform aids grant management by offering detailed tracking and reporting capabilities, allowing nonprofits to monitor spending, compliance, and performance against specific grant requirements. We like that users can create a separate financial record for each restricted fund, enabling transparent usage tracking and reporting. Entelyglobal Solutions has highly qualified, certified, and experienced bookkeepers who help nonprofit organizations accurately maintain their financial records through the process of bookkeeping. We do not just document, but provide the right insights that have helped many organizations grow and become a credible source of nonprofit service.

• 👉 Statement of Activities, which breaks down your income, expenses, and net assets — showing what’s left after all costs are accounted for.
• Almost every software solution on this list offers a free trial or demo tour.
• Non-profits must file annual reports to maintain tax-exempt status; non-profit accounting supports these filings.
• You’ll get an idea of your cash flow, your top expenses, and the projects that you undertake.
• This affects everything from how you handle financial transactions to how you prepare your financial statements.

Our team of CFOs give you expert bookkeeping and accounting supportto help your nonprofit thrive.

• All funds that come to your organization are restricted, unrestricted, or temporarily restricted.
• Many first look to hire an outsourced accountant or bookkeeper once they hit $150,000 in revenues.
• Accounting software can help non-profits with tracking and categorization activities.
• Most nonprofits aim to keep administrative and fundraising costs reasonable while maximizing program spending.
• By the end of this guide, you’ll have the skills to confidently manage your nonprofit’s accounting needs.

Fortunately, we created ZipBooks to be a no-hassle accounting solution for busy foundation executives like yourself. With our free nonprofit accounting software, your foundation’s finances are in good hands. Now you can easily accept donations, manage account balances, and create accurate budgets, which means you can stop stressing over budgets and get back to doing what you do best—changing lives. Implementing some best practices enhances financial transparency, accountability, and organizational effectiveness in the nonprofit sector. However, consulting with accounting professionals and legal experts specializing in nonprofit accounting is always recommended to ensure compliance with specific laws and regulations in your jurisdiction. For more information related to the blog, or any financial requirements, contact Monily.

SaasAnt Transactions is a robust tool streamlining importing, exporting, and modifying large volumes of financial data within QuickBooks Online and Desktop. It directly connects external data (such as spreadsheets and bank statements) to QuickBooks, drastically reducing manual data entry for donations, grants, and expenses. The IRS Form 990 requires expenses to be categorized by function (program, management, fundraising). Consistently allocate shared costs to these categories to ensure accurate reporting.

Compliance and Reporting Burden

We voted Wave Accounting as a good free option for nonprofit accounting, valued for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly interface. When you’re on a budget, it’s easy to feel like you need to do it all yourself. The cost of an in-house nonprofit CFO (or even a phone call to your nonprofit CPA) can feel like an unnecessary expense. It’s time to stop worrying about when you’ll get your financial reports this month.

Nonprofit leaders have a lot on their plate — but there’s no need to handle everything on your own. Nonprofits use a different approach to accounting than for-profit companies called fund accounting. The goal of a nonprofit is not to make money but instead to raise money and use it toward a stated purpose, so it makes sense that there would be different requirements for accounting software. Between meeting with Board members, tracking volunteers, and applying for grants, you’re probably low on spare time. This lack of time means you have less energy to focus on accounting and bookkeeping.

Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. With a Pro Plan subscription, you can connect your bank account with Wave and automatically import your transactions. See our step-by-step guide here on how to switch to Wave from Quickbooks. “Wave makes your life a whole lot easier and takes that worry off you. I’ve tried Quickbooks—it’s a bit more complicated and technical, and takes more time to set up.” We provide different levels of support, depending on the plan and/or the add-on features you choose. GrowthForce accounting services provided through an alliance with SK CPA, PLLC.

• In this way, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT provides secure data management and enhances strategic decision-making based on accurate financial data.
• If you’re searching for accounting software that’s user-friendly, full of smart features, and scales with your business, Quickbooks is a great option.
• Systematically tracking income and expenses ensures accurate reporting and effective budget planning, enabling nonprofits to make informed decisions.
• Properly categorizing these transactions prevents mismanagement and ensures compliance with donor requirements.
• Complete every schedule that applies and double‑check that program expense ratios reflect reality.
• Bench is the all-in-one financial solution that helps you grow your business.

To rank the best accounting software for nonprofits, we first considered whether the software offered nonprofit-specific features, like donation tracking accounting services for nonprofit organizations and Form 990 generation. We also considered price, ease of use, data security, types of plans, and customer reviews. Blackbaud serves a variety of nonprofits, including faith communities and churches, arts organizations, educational institutions, and just about any other type of nonprofit you can imagine. It supports peer-to-peer fundraising, grant and award management, nonprofit marketing, and donor payment acceptance. Unfortunately, while Aplos’s nonprofit features stand out, its accounting features are more limited.