501c3, Non Profit

[geekgirldany]

I have a good customer that is wanting to send a referral to me. The only thing is that the referral is wanting to form a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation and will need help with setting up quickbooks.

I have never dealt with a nonprofit return and/or bookkeeping for one. I am always willing to learn.
I just want to ask those that do 990 returns and bookkeeping for nonprofits if it is a great deal of work and is there alot to learn in preparing the returns?

Like I said I am willing to learn. I noticed that the NATP has a guide on 990 return.

Would appreicate any input.
Thank you

[taxmandan]

501c3

A lot of work? Yes, they have volunteer boards and some of the board members can drive you crazy with their perception of what a financial statement should look like and what information it should include. We do bookkeeping for one and the first few years were easy enough, then last June they got a new Treasurer, a bank branch manager, so you know she is an expert on financial affairs. She insisted on reworking the monthly financial reports so she could understand them. Total PITA, I thought the executive director was going to resign because of all the meddling by the new board members. But she prevailed and the Treasurer finally resigned saying she thinks the books are a mess and she can't deal with the frustration. (The last audit was A+, the only ding was that we had to rename an expense account to please the auditor).

If you can develop a strong rapport with the executive director it can be a good engagement. Their payroll is straight forward but the numbers you get from the director can sometimes be puzzling unless you know how she thinks.

There is a book "Running Quickbooks in Non-Profits" that is an excellent guide.

[KBTS]

QB Resource

A good QuickBooks resource is "Running QuickBooks in Nonprofits" by Kathy Ivens. I picked this up on Amazon for under $30. It walks you through the setup of a non-profit as well as some work-arounds you can use to make QB work for non-profit accounting.

[geekgirldany]

Thank you guys for posting. Dan your post really did help shed light on the possibilty of what I may have to deal with. After doing a little research I think that I will offer to help them setting up QuickBooks but I think that I will pass on the tax preparation. I am sure they would want someone with more experience working with nonprofits anyways.

Thank you again for posting.

[Gretel]

A good QuickBooks resource is "Running QuickBooks in Nonprofits" by Kathy Ivens. I picked this up on Amazon for under $30. It walks you through the setup of a non-profit as well as some work-arounds you can use to make QB work for non-profit accounting.

When you say "to make QB work for non-profit accounting" are you talking about the normal QB or the non-profit version? I would think that you won't need work-arounds in the non-profit version?

[ecb34691]

I do 4 Police Athletic League (PAL's) (football) each year. There is the problem of the continual changing of directors/treasurers that you have to "re-teach" each year. All of mine are now filing on the 990EZ since they raised the gross dollar above $100K. I use QB and normally can do the entire years accounting in from 2-4 hours. Heavy income in March/April/May from registrations. Heavy expenses in the summer for purchasing new football/cheerleading equipment. Normal expenses during the football season for concession stand purchases, etc. Hardly nothing for Nov to Feb. Use Proseries to do the return. Once you get a P&L, it's not that difficult, now that 990EZ don't need balance sheets and some of the previous breakouts of expenses between general/program/administrative.

[JCH]

Thank you guys for posting. Dan your post really did help shed light on the possibilty of what I may have to deal with. After doing a little research I think that I will offer to help them setting up QuickBooks but I think that I will pass on the tax preparation. I am sure they would want someone with more experience working with nonprofits anyways.

Thank you again for posting.

The Form 990 can be tedious, but it's not difficult to prepare (although I haven't seen a draft of the revised version coming out this year, I believe). They prepared returns are public information, and you can view some examples at www.guidestar.org. By the way, you can also see what they're being charged for accounting fees in previous years. I actually enjoy preparing them, especially if I'm working with the right group.

[KBTS]

When you say "to make QB work for non-profit accounting" are you talking about the normal QB or the non-profit version? I would think that you won't need work-arounds in the non-profit version?

Even with the non-profit edition, there are still work-arounds needed: especially for fund accounting and the net assets (Retained Earnings for a regular company) area. Also, the non-profit version has some specialized reports available but keeps most QB terms such as customers (instead of donors) and jobs (instead of grants).

[Lion]

Non Profit

You can use the QB for Nonprofits or the regular QB and revise the chart of accounts to work for your nonprofit. Sleeter Group also publishes a book on using QB for Nonprofits and has other resourses available:

Sleeter.com

[Gretel]

The Form 990 can be tedious, but it's not difficult to prepare (although I haven't seen a draft of the revised version coming out this year, I believe). They prepared returns are public information, and you can view some examples at www.guidestar.org. By the way, you can also see what they're being charged for accounting fees in previous years. I actually enjoy preparing them, especially if I'm working with the right group.

Thank you so much. What a great resource.

[Gretel]

Thank you. I gather from your responses that it is actually not worthwhile having the non-profit version? QB Pro or Premier is sufficient for a small non-profit?

I was asked to look over the books for a non-profit and help setting them up a little better. Right now they are using a very old version of Pro but want to purchase a new one. I am not doing their tax return (I have done one before but decided it is too much work) and didn't feel comfortable giving them advise on which QB to buy before knowing what additional requirements the new forms have.

[KBTS]

The non-profit edition is actually one of the Premier versions available, not an entirely different product. It does come with some reports that might be useful to a non-profit, but I believe you could actually build the same report using the Pro version. The Premier version comes with the Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA) already loaded, but you can download it and use it in Pro as well. Overall, I think the non-profit edition is mainly marketing hype by Intuit, and if you are good with QB you can make the pro version work just fine for a small non-profit.

[Gretel]

The Premier version comes with the Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA) already loaded, but you can download it and use it in Pro as well. Overall, I think the non-profit edition is mainly marketing hype by Intuit, and if you are good with QB you can make the pro version work just fine for a small non-profit.

Thanks, KBTS. One/two last question(s): How do you download the UCOA? Is it in a format ready to import into QB?

[KBTS]

Thanks, KBTS. One/two last question(s): How do you download the UCOA? Is it in a format ready to import into QB?

You can download it directly from the publisher of "Running QB in Nonprofits" website at www.cpa911publishing.com - There is a link on the left hand side of the page called "Downloads".

It is an .IIF file, which means you can import it into QB once you save the file to your computer. There are some other directions given for the process in the book, so if you are really interested send me a PM and I can try to get them to you.

[geekgirldany]

Thanks so much to you all for responding.

Yes thanks about the different versions. I found that even with Contractors edition is is basically that the Chart of Accounts and Reports are already setup. I was setting these up before in Pro. Definately a marketing thing for Intuit. I am going to recommend that this nonprofit consider just getting the pro.