Financial Management

Yes, we provide end-to-end financial management for nonprofits and can take on the full financial responsibilities of an in-house team, or supplement internal staff activities. Our solutions include bookkeeping, reporting, compliance, and reconciliations, although we can take specialist roles for larger organizations with complex accounting needs.

Our accounting systems track revenue and expenses at the grant level, supporting grant-specific timelines and reimbursement cycles. In addition to audit trails and the documentation necessary to meet transparency requirements, our systems include workflows for fund usage and compliance reporting. This also meets funder requirements across different sectors.

Yes. Our systems are fully scalable. adapting to your changing needs as your organization grows and your funding becomes more complex. This includes reviewing your solution so it continues to align with your evolving operations and adapts to your changing structural and reporting needs. No matter what the adjustment, your books always comply with regulations.

Yes. We use tools like Sage Intacct modules designed specifically for nonprofit accounting. Nonprofit solutions include revenue recognition, grant billing, spend control, and tracking restricted funds and multi-year grants. Software solutions comply with reporting and auditing needs, while ensuring accuracy and efficiency in nonprofit-specific processes.

Financial management for nonprofits is all about efficiency, resilience, and scalability. It’s designed to provide insights that facilitate informed decision making, in real-time. For instance, scalable systems enhance reporting across programs, grants, and departments.

Compliance is a pretty big issue, with serious consequences for instances of noncompliance, even if they’re entirely accidental. Our financial management services have compliance built into workflows, which is more than enough to meet funder and regulatory requirements.

Clean processes, from entry to reconciliation, speed up closings, while end-to-end oversight increases accuracy across all functions. Both contribute to clear audit trails, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes the IRS happy.

There’s one more primary solution designed specifically for nonprofits. Transparency in program-centric accounting establishes a clear connection between finance activity and mission outcomes. This is important to manage donor expectations, optimize grant cycles, and assign accountability.

Grant compliance is critical to nonprofits’ work. One of the quickest ways to make grants dry up is to consistently fail to comply with regulations. Obviously, this is not something you want for your organization. 

We’re on your side, which is why our approval workflows are aligned to federal, state, and private grantor rules. This includes clear documentation paths that facilitate audits and review monitoring. 

Our financial management services are industry-specific, so reporting structures are designed to meet funder requirements and deadlines. Real-time data is also structured in a way that makes it easy for stakeholders (without in-depth financial knowledge) to understand.

Transparency assures funders and donors that their money is being used judiciously to further your nonprofit’s mission and achieve greater outcomes. However, transparency also establishes clear ownership of tasks. This level of accountability results in fewer misses during busy cycles.

We’re a Sage Partner, so we use Sage Intacct nonprofit-specific software to apply revenue recognition logic to deliver data that provides insight into your revenue with real-time updates. Spend-tracking data plays a big role in determining the overarching status of your revenue, especially when it’s tied to programs and restrictions.

Sage Intacct’s nonprofit solutions are designed to be transparent for two primary reasons: 

1) Ensuring documentation and approval paths stand up to scrutiny by leaders, donors, other stakeholders, and the IRS.

2)  Providing visibility into balances and movements for clean, unambiguous reconciliations and a clear audit trail for the taxman.

Software with automation all but eliminates manual processes, reducing human error, and storing files in the cloud. This ensures there are fewer offline files to worry about and increased accuracy at month end. Data provides you with insights into revenue and margins. 

Our solutions are fully scalable, so we can scale up to provide full department support for small organizations and startups that need to outsource all of their financial and accounting needs. This can include CFO consulting services that provide greater understanding of an organization’s financial health and strategic guidance for current and future sustainable growth.

We provide individual specialized financial and management services to larger organizations with limited internal financial staff. For instance, our solutions can manage complex funding models, cost reimbursement grants, restricted funds, and donor contributions across multiple streams. This includes automating cost allocation and improving audit readiness. 

Services can be adjusted to suit changing circumstances, like seasonal hires and evolving funding models for things like expansion into new regions and adding new donor trusts. Training is available for new hires and internal promotions so existing staff members can take over some specialized roles as their skills levels and qualifications improve.

Boards and funders expect transparency in financial records to see exactly what’s going on, where funding is spent (outcomes, programs, operations), resources allocated (staff ,training, community skills development), and expenses managed (streamlined overheads, energy-saving light bulbs).

Part of this includes program-centric views that link dollars to impact, similar to ROI per program, as well as grant-level detail that matches funder reporting templates. 

They want consistency and clarity in financials, which are always audit-ready. This includes timely (predictable) reporting cycles with real-time data for oversights that are always current, enabling informed decision-making to optimize opportunities and mitigate risks as soon as they appear. 

Accurate source data (the original data generated that hasn’t been processed) is used as a basis for financial narratives, which give meaning to data within your nonprofit’s specific context. It can also be used to generate (customizable) dashboards that provide a bird’s eye view of your nonprofit’s financial health.

Similar to your car’s dashboard, a dashboard of your finances provides an overview of everything that is going on. We provide customizable dashboards that you can tailor to the metrics you want to display, like individuals served.

You can also set dashboards to provide program-centric accounting data that mirrors service operations.

From the face-value (totals) of dashboards, you can drill down into individual transactions, repeat donors, legacies, etc. for quick or even more in-depth answers to how programs are performing.

Visibility across departments ensures finance and program teams have access to the same information that keeps them aligned. Connected departments can operate semi-holistically, making decisions or taking action with the impact on the other side in mind. 

Finally, dashboards provide data regarding current spending/donor trends that demonstrate outcomes over grant cycles. This can highlight inefficient programs with poor impact and weigh them against the outcomes generated by more efficient, impactful projects.

Role-based access improves efficiency, accuracy, and productivity because each user sees only the data they need to do their job. There’s less noise, fewer rabbit holes, and fewer errors that can result from information overload. 

Program managers get an accurate view of their project’s performance by viewing spend data vs. budget tied to outcomes. They can address imbalances, redirect resources to where they’re needed, and curb maverick spending. 

Executives can easily access data that covers cash, risk, and runway, without wasting time hunting for data sources. Automation eliminates the need for any manual data entry and calculations, which improves accuracy and provides a clearer view of the actual figures. 

Clear audit trails that document every transaction, including gifts and expenses, provide the evidence that auditors need in the structure/format required.

Ultimately, leaders can trust that data is updated and shared in real-time to make faster decisions because back and forth requests are eliminated.