I often talk about the two most common financials of a nonprofit- the Statement of Financial Position and the Statement of Activities. Well, those two terms can be easily confused since they sort of sound alike. So today, I'm going to share a helpful way of remembering these two common repor...

     I’m often asked questions like, “What should a nonprofit treasurer be doing?” or “How should the board be engaged in the finances?” So, this is the first in a new series of articles to address questions like these. This series will not cover what the role of a treasurer is, because I’ve alre...

How can we create a reserve fund and manage it effectively?  How to Find Your Reserve Funds on Financial Statements      Reserve funds represent the net income after expenses from prior years that are held by the nonprofit and not needed for the current year’s operations. So how do we find our ...

  The most common question that I’ve been continually asked since starting my nonprofit financial consulting practice is, “How do you use QuickBooks to track restricted funds and how do you enter their transactions and find balances?” Well, in this three part series, I'm tackling that question. I...

    Year end financial planning is one of the most critical things you'll do in a nonprofit organization. So, as we approach the end of the calendar year, I want to encourage board members and Executive Directors by giving you some concrete steps to help you focus on your financial situation and ...

     As nonprofit organizations, we have to remain committed to protecting and stewarding all of our resources. Yet, I’m often asked, “What do you actually do? How do you even do that if you only have a small staff with one finance member?”  To help with these common questions, I've provided a se...

Nonprofit Ratios: Debt to Net Assets Decisions about debt can be very daunting. In fact, they can actually sink a nonprofit in a very short period of time. So today, let's take a look at the debt to net asset ratio, which is a very important metric to consider when evaluating the strength of you...

Nonprofit Ratios: Operating Reserves      Financial ratios are essential metrics that can help you evaluate the oversight needed for the bigger picture of your organization's finances. Today, we’ll discuss the operating reserve ratio. This ratio answers the question, “How long can your nonprofit...

Planning for the Future: What To Do When Your Nonprofit Experiences a Net Profit      As a nonprofit leader, you know that financial health is completely essential to your organization's success. So what do you do when you actually have a profit? Let's talk about how to track and plan for a prof...

How to Make Sense of a Difficult Nonprofit Financial Report      My hope is that you're getting a clear and understandable financial report that makes your nonprofit decisions easy and actionable… but my experience says you're probably not. So I wanted to give some ideas on what to do if you're ...