Bill.com Pros & Cons – Part 1 – General Overview
What is Bill.com? – Bill.com is a cloud-based financial solution that helps manage your payables (APs) and receivables (ARs). Our firm has been using it for the past few years and has consistently found it to be an asset to our clients. Read on for an insider’s list of pros and cons (with a few…
Read MoreThe Journey From College Student to Becoming a Full-Time Professional
For millennials, the transition from college to full-time work is fraught with barriers and roadblocks. The underemployment rate for recent college graduates stands at 46%, so when I received my job offer from Lumix to become its first digital media and administrative assistant, I was grateful (and relieved) to have the privilege of finally calling…
Read MoreInterpreting Results of Operations for Non-Profit Entities
For obvious reasons, executives and board members of non-profit organizations prefer to see that revenues exceed expenses. This difference would normally be described as net income, but for non-profits, it’s referred to as the change in net assets. Since non-profit organizations have a special type of revenue recognition, this bottom line on the financials can…
Read MoreAren’t Nonprofits Penalized for Having a Reserve?
This is a question, and many times, a forceful statement I hear at least once a month. My clients and members of nonprofit boards I belong to have a deep misconception that nonprofits are not allowed to accumulate savings (aka reserves). Several years ago, I did an extensive search and asked various experts in the…
Read More“Is It Too Early to Start Saving for Retirement?”
I was a teenager when Congress created the Individual Retirement Account, and as soon as I had my first summer job, my father advised me to open an IRA. You can imagine my reaction; I didn’t yet have a full-time job, and my father was talking about retirement! However, my father managed to persuade me by…
Read More4 Fiscally-Responsible Changes You Can Make as a Board Treasurer
It is an honor being asked to be treasurer of the Board of a not-for-profit organization. What seems like a time-consuming task is truly an opportunity to make a fiscal difference for the organization you are invested in. As a CPA with an understanding of nonprofit experience, I have been lucky enough to serve on…
Read MoreCreating a 5 Point CFO Report
Providing monthly financial statements to the president or executive director of a non-profit organization is essential to help them guide their organization to meet their strategic objectives, but the financial statements should be geared towards board members, too. Unfortunately, many executives and board members may not understand what they are looking at. To help these…
Read MoreHelp Wanted
This blog was originally published on the AICPA’s subsidiary, CPA.com,website. Maribel is a member of the Advisory Board for CPA.com and the AICPA Digital CPA Conference. As an advisory board member, Maribel helps empower CPAs and businesses for the digital age. It’s no secret that staffing a CPA firm with truly qualified candidates has been a…
Read More“My financial statements are always late!”
This is the number one complaint we hear from clients who reach out to us for services. About a year ago we started working with a new client. He reached out to us for our CFO services to help him understand whether his organization’s accounting work was too much for the one-person accounting department he…
Read MoreKeeping the Focus on the Mission
This blog was originally published on the Standards for Excellence Institute® website, for which Maribel is a peer reviewer. As a peer reviewer, she evaluates an organization’s application for compliance with the Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector. You start with the mission – Point A. This is your intent. You…
Read More