Not-for-Profit Accounting Guide

Accounting guides can be useful to nonprofits.

Nonprofit accounting guides can help nonprofits in their daily tasks and in compiling reports. Many organizations are staffed by volunteers with not much experience, and guides can help out with the basics.

Significance

An accounting guide can provide nonprofits with information about how and when to recognize unrestricted and restricted revenues and other typical nonprofit transactions.

Types

Guides could be related to a specific software or could be general. Some guides are geared toward certain nonprofits, such as universities, while others are made for welfare agencies. Large grantors may give recipients accounting guides, too.

Considerations

When considering an accounting guide, pay attention to the date of the publication. Things change in business, and the nonprofit sector is no exception.

References

• "Guide to Non-profits: From the Trenches"; Sheila Shanker; 2009