Success Story: NFP in music

An existing client who provides decorative painting services, has a woman who works in their office that is married to a musician who has a non profit based in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA.

Clean financial statements and happy CPAs, bring about unexpected opportunities.

The NFP was struggling to receive reports on a timely basis that provided the information required for board meetings. Within a few weeks of getting access to their books, they received financials that broke out grant income (which was not done prior), and grant expenses, using QuickBooks Online. This is always important to maintain to be able to run a report at any moment.

This NFP is pretty young so it is a great time to build out the chart of accounts and make adjustments that can be carried forward as guidelines when transaction activity increases.

They came on needing a Form 990 filed at year end as well. This is a US Federal tax form that provides information about the programs of the NFP. If this form is not filed for 3 consecutive years, the organization loses its tax-exempt status.

We haven’t filed a Form 990 in the past but after looking at it we felt comfortable agreeing to fill in this form. There is a first time for everything but its also important to tell a client when the request is not something we are ok providing.