Quickbooks, financial reports, audits… Oh my!
Managing the financials for organizations of any size can be a daunting task, and stepping into that role is no easy chore. You never know what you are walking into (seriously, we have seen individuals who were previously managing these responsibilities essentially making their own rules for bookkeeping).
We have managed the books for a substantial number of organizations over the years. Many times we interview for jobs and price is cited as the reason we are not hired. Considering how fundamentally important bookkeeping is to any organization, it is perplexing that organizations try to skimp on administrative costs for this task.
Poorly managed books can results in a myriad of problems including financial penalties and potentially even losing 501c3 status. We have seen, far too frequently, organizations that end up paying more because of mistakes made by inexperienced bookkeepers than they would have paid to have seasoned professionals do their books.
Problems we have seen include:
- Payroll deduction payment mistakes resulting in huge fines
- Organizations going out of business because the bookkeeper could not give the board the actual cash position of the organization and no one on the board or staff knew the right questions to ask
- Organizations operating in a non-viable way and losing money month after month and not having enough information to do something about it.
- Organizations tapping into the base funds of their endowment to use at operating funds
- Organizations selling property to keep afloat
- Not having up-to-date books, making it difficult to protest charges incurred by employees that are not approved as an organizational expense
DSA has managed finances of organizations ranging from start-ups to organizations with budgets upwards of $5 milllion. For all of these organizations we have presented the board with clear financials, timely reporting, methods to save money and ways to raise more money. To learn how DSA can manage your organization’s financials, email us at teddy@dsaboston.com.