Nonprofit Audit Committee Toolkit

Does your organization have and audit committee? Is it supposed to have one? Even if the answer is "no" I do recommend you have one in addition to your Finance Committee. The nice folks at the AICPA have put together a tool kit just for your audit committee to help them get there job done. From the website:

Audit committees have a big job to do in an organization—tough when the members have other responsibilities and the audit committee role is a part-time job with huge accountability. The AICPA Audit Committee Toolkit: Not-for-Profit Organizations is the needed help for audit committees to do the job they need to do as effectively and efficiently as possibly.

You can find the kit here with details on all of its elements. For those of you who don't want to download all this info you can buy it as well.

More New 990 Webinars

From NCNA and the Nonprofit Congress come this series of webinars. Are you a CAN member? You get a discount on each webinar or the whole series. Post an comment below with an email and I will send you the coupon codes.

See you on the calls!

Deloitte Announces Pro Bono Program

Thanks to a CAN Board member we got this piece of news today. On February 13th Deloitte LLP announced that it is launching a three year plan to help strengthen the nonprofit sector.

"The strategic new program establishes a formal budget, as well as the policies and procedures to support up to $50 million in outcomes-focused pro bono engagements, to provide in-kind professional services to eligible nonprofit organizations, over the next three years. Deloitte will be particularly focused on helping nonprofits deal with the business and operational issues that challenge their capacity to address social problems."

For more information about Deloitte’s pro bono program, visit www.deloitte.com/us/probono. There is little more written at this time about the program, who is eligible, how to submit for the program, etc. I have contacted them and hope to have more information available shortly.

How To File The 990-N e-Postcard

The IRS has released the instructions and published all the information you will need to file the 990-N. Click here for all the info you will need to file including the place to file it on-line.

Alan

Where Does the Money Come From?

It is time for another edition of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, where a blogger writes about another blogger's site.

If you are The Finance Person in your nonprofit do you know how the income is generated for your nonprofit? Someone has to bring in the money so we can manage it. The finance staff plays a key roll in assisting those who bring in the funds your group needs to function.

From budgets to reporting, finance and fundraising need to work together to make sure all the bases are covered. Are we asking for enough funding? Does the proposal's budget narrative match the budget numbers? Are the numbers in our financials accurate? Do they accurately tell the story (in numbers) of our organization? Are the funds received restricted? If yes, in what way?

But where can we go to get information about fundraising? A good place to start is Seeking Grant Money Today. There you will find some really good basics from the real world of grant writing. For example "How Do We Tighten Up Our Grant Proposal?" And "How to Coordinate the Executive Director, the Board, the Volunteers and the Staff to Successfully Raise Grants." And "Top 10 Grant Money Myths."

I asked CAN's Deputy Director to look at this blog and she responded, "Most books and classes just tell you how to research, write and submit a grant. They don't tell you how to figure out if you're ready for the world of grants yet or not, how to manage the submission and building process, how to get the whole staff involved in the process or how to take a serious red pen to your first draft. This is really good, real-world stuff."

So there you have it, good stuff to be found there.

Another QuickBooks Resource

Along with the other resources for QuickBooks we have listed for consultants and the Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA) I have added a backed up company file. It ties in with Christine Manor's book on setting up QuickBooks Pro (which I recommend over the Premium versions) for use in a nonprofit.

This zipped file (for information on zipped files click here) contains a backed up company file, and backed up chart of accounts (the UCOA) and some instructions on importing either of the files into QuickBooks 2008. The chart is for importing into a company file already in use for which you want to upgrade your chart of accounts to the UCOA.

The company file is for a group staring fresh. It has the UCOA in it with all the accounts inactivated, you "turn on" only the accounts you need, the Classes set up with sample programs for you to modify as you like and Customers and Jobs for you to modify to your liking as well. You will of course have to redo the Company info for your organization, but it gets you stared with a fresh functional accounting system.

To download the file click here, it is almost 4.5 megabytes so it might take a few minutes.

Those files, along with these books should get you st up right. And if you need hands on help you can get that too.

Alan

Really?

Most Obvious Headline Nominee, 2008

New 990 webinar

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center is putting on the first webinar that I know of that will be going over the new 990. It is on February 6th at 11:00 am. I'm definitely going to be on it.

I encourage you to check out there other webinar offerings this year as well as all the other stuff they have going on.

Shopping for Charity / Embedded Giving

So did anybody out there buy products and gift for folks because a portion of the proceeds went to charity? Did any of you have one these programs for your organization? So how would you book those?

I think as the popularity of these kind of programs continues to grow there will be more and more questions raised. I'm for encouraging donations but there needs to be some serious accountability in these programs to make sure the $$ gets to the charities. And will programs like these hurt direct contributions to charities in the long run?

Boot Camp Blog in '08

CAN and I will continue to bring you financial and accounting related tidbits in 2008 but I am still catching up after a long Holiday break. There will be a lot to talk about this year what with:

• The new 990 - I have read through the new form and read other comments on the updated form and I will be giving my two cents in the coming days
• The 990 N - It is now in effect.
• Accountability - and all the assorted efforts of Feds and States to regulate our sector.

Finally I wanted to pass on this really interesting story from the Nonprofit Quarterly in case you have not run across it yet. Maybe businesses will need to be more nonprofit like? Huh? Who's with me? I guess we will have to see.