[Nonprofit_Bookkeeper]

Hi Addison — I also hopped on to recommend you look into Greg Bossen’s QuickBooks Made Easy for Nonprofits! His program and recommendations are the gold standard for nonprofit bookkeeping/accounting. It can be confusing to set up effective nonprofit bookkeeping if you don’t know bookkeeping or QuickBooks. I specialize in nonprofit bookkeeping on one side of my business and retail/e-commerce on the other, so if you’d like, I’d be happy to jump on a call with you to take a look at what’s going on, see if I can make some suggestions or point you to some more resources. You can message me by clicking on my name to get to my profile, and then click the three little dots next to the “Connect” button.

[Nonprofit_Bookkeeper]

Hi Allison, I can’t point you to a specific guideline at the moment, but yes, generally, if you fundraise around a specific event or cause, those donations are considered to be restricted. Given that, you will want to be sure you know how much you need to raise and consider what you can do with those funds if you do not raise enough or raise too much. Many nonprofits fundraise instead for their general fund, but describe the many initiatives, or even just 2-3, they want to address with their funds. In that way, someone who may be interested in a particular initiative may feel compelled to give, but the organization is not confined by the restriction.

[Nonprofit_Bookkeeper]

DocTract is highly rated by Capterra as a source for policy and procedure writing software. I haven’t used them myself, but you could take a look there. If you’re talking about something like a nonprofit shop, you could talk to some of your retail neighbors and ask them to share their internal policies with you, as a place to start. If it is a shop, I would start with a requirement that two staff/volunteers (unrelated, not of the same household) be present at all times and then head right into a cash-handling policy first. From there you can develop inventory processing policies: receiving/unpacking inventory, periodic counts, pricing, etc. You will also want to have policies regarding staff/volunteer purchases: does the inventory have to be available for sale for a certain period before it can be purchased by staff/volunteers, staff/volunteers cannot ring up their own sales, etc. It’s easiest to think of a day-in-the-life of your venture and the individual types of policies — and procedures — that will be necessary, than to tackle it all as one big policy.

[Nonprofit_Bookkeeper]

Hi Kelle. I think you are not getting replies because of the word “legally” in your question. So, I will say that I am NOT a lawyer and cannot provide legal advice, but generally, every board member is reponsible for the integrity of your books. That is part of the “duty of care” and the “duty of obedience” that all nonprofit boards should adhere to. Different states have varying statutes regarding legal responsibility, but no nonprofit board should want to be caught in a quibble about whether they should LEGALLY have known whether their books were accurate and compliant. At a minimum, the officers should be on top of this and report to the board, and the board should receive reports, REVIEW THEM, and ask questions so they understand them. I hope that helps a bit.

[Nonprofit_Bookkeeper]

Hi Robert – Sorry I missed your question! I must not have checked off that little “notify me of new replies” box. You would want to book capital campaign contributions as restricted contributions, so it would fall into your Net Assets With Restrictions equity line, but they are still contributions, revenue, received within your fiscal year. Essentially, you’re crediting (increasing) your contributions revenue account, and debiting (but also increasing) your Net Assets With Restrictions equity account. How you do that may depend on what software you’re using and how you’re using it.