Your organization probably fits if two or more of these are true
None of that means anyone did anything wrong. It means the organization outgrew its systems, which is what happens to organizations that succeed.
Six areas, tested rather than discussed
Financial architecture
Whether your chart of accounts and QuickBooks setup can actually produce the functional expense reporting your 990 and audited statements require, or whether someone rebuilds it by hand every year. We measure how much of your activity is coded to nothing and show you the number.
Restricted fund integrity
We build a grant-by-grant roll-forward: what you started with, what came in, what was released, what remains. Then we check whether it agrees with your balance sheet. When those disagree, your auditor will find it. Better that you find it first.
Federal and state award readiness
Your total federal expenditures including pass-through funds, which still count. Whether you can produce a Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. Where you stand against the $1 million Single Audit threshold. Whether you are claiming the 15% de minimis indirect cost rate you are entitled to. Whether the required written policies exist. Whether spending falls inside each award’s period of performance. Whether you monitor any organizations you pass funds to.
Compliance calendar
Every filing and reporting deadline you are responsible for, in one place, with owners. Including whether your books currently agree with your most recently filed Form 990.
Controls and continuity
Realistic internal controls for an organization your size, which is not the same as textbook separation of duties. Who holds administrative access to the accounting system and the bank. Whether your month-end close is documented, or lives in one person’s memory.
Payroll and cost allocation
Whether salaries are allocated across program, administration and fundraising in a way you could defend, and whether staff paid from federal awards have the time and effort documentation the rules require. Misallocated personnel cost is the most common source of costs a funder later refuses to pay.
A written report you can hand straight to your board
The report is yours. Share it with your auditor, your funders or your board as you see fit.
What the report actually looks like
A complete review report built with a fictional nonprofit's numbers, so you can judge the depth and the writing before you commit to a fee.
Every finding carries a severity, the effort to close it, and a dollar figure wherever the amount can be quantified.
The findings report from the one-time review: an executive summary written for a board, every finding with its severity, effort and dollar impact, what is already working, a 30/90/180 roadmap, and the restricted fund schedule behind it.
Two weeks, start to finish
What we need from you
That is the full ask. Everything else is on us.
An assessment, not a cleanup
We identify and document. We do not correct entries, restructure your chart of accounts or rebuild prior periods as part of this engagement.
That is deliberate. You get an independent picture of where you stand, at a known price, with no obligation to buy anything further. If you want help implementing the roadmap, we can talk about that after you have read the report and decided for yourself whether it is worth doing.
Fixed fee, quoted in writing before we begin
Base
Under $1M revenue, no government funding, a small number of restricted funds.
Standard
Multiple restricted grants and funders, no federal awards.
Federal
Federal or state pass-through awards, SEFA preparation, Uniform Guidance policy review.
No hourly billing and no change orders.
Fifteen questions. No email required.
These are drawn straight from the review. Answer honestly, including the ones you are not sure about, because not knowing is usually the finding.
1Can you say today, without building a spreadsheet, how much is left on each restricted grant?
2Do your restricted grant balances add up to the restricted net assets line on your balance sheet?
3Do you record a net asset release on a regular schedule?
4Can you produce a program, administration and fundraising expense split directly from your accounting system?
5Is less than 5% of your activity sitting in an uncategorized or “not specified” bucket?
6Do you know your total federal expenditures for the year, including funds passed through a state agency or another nonprofit?
7Do you know where you stand against the $1 million Single Audit threshold?
8Are you either claiming the 15% de minimis indirect cost rate on federal awards, or have you deliberately decided not to?
9Do you have written policies for procurement, cash management and allowable costs?
10Can you show that grant spending fell inside each award’s period of performance?
11If you pass funds to other organizations, do you monitor them as subrecipients?
12Do your books agree with your most recently filed Form 990?
13Are staff salaries allocated across program, administration and fundraising rather than sitting in one bucket?
14Do employees paid from federal awards have time and effort documentation?
15Could someone other than your current bookkeeper close your books next month if they were unavailable?
0 of 15 answered
What organizations ask before they book
Why pay for this when our auditor will tell us what is wrong anyway?
An auditor tells you after the fact, in the form of findings, and those findings go to your funders too. By then the fiscal year is closed and the cost is already incurred. This is the same examination, run early enough that you can still act on it. It is also broader: an audit tests whether your statements are fairly presented, not whether you are leaving indirect cost recovery on the table or whether your compliance calendar has gaps.
What happens if you do not find anything?
You get a report that says so, with the evidence behind it. That is a genuinely useful document for a board or a funder, and several organizations are in better shape than they think. We do not manufacture findings to justify the fee.
Is this really a sales pitch for monthly bookkeeping?
No. The fee is fixed and the engagement ends when the report is delivered. We deliberately do not fix anything during the review, so there is no half-finished work pulling you into an ongoing contract. If you want help implementing the roadmap, that is a separate conversation you are free to have with us, your existing bookkeeper, or nobody.
Do we have to be in Asheville?
No. The work runs on read-only access to your accounting system and documents you send us, and the kickoff and findings calls are remote. We are based in Asheville and work with nonprofits well beyond it.
We just received a state recovery award, not a federal one. Does that put us in the Federal tier?
Probably yes. Federal money that reaches you through a state agency or another nonprofit is a pass-through subaward, and it still counts toward your federal expenditure total and your Single Audit threshold. A lot of organizations are surprised by this. The scoping call sorts it out before you commit to a fee.
How is this different from your Grant Reporting Suite?
The review is a one-time assessment of where you stand. The Grant Reporting Suite is ongoing monthly grant tracking and funder-ready reporting. Some organizations do the review and handle the roadmap themselves. Some do the review and then move to monthly support. Either is fine.
Will this interfere with our audit or our auditor?
No. We are not your auditor and we do not perform audit procedures. The report is yours to share with your auditor if you want to, and most auditors welcome a client who arrives with clean schedules and known issues already documented.
How soon can you start?
Typically within two weeks of the scoping call, subject to current capacity. We take a limited number of reviews at a time so that the two-week turnaround is real.
Not sure which tier fits?
Book a short scoping call. We will tell you which tier applies and what the fee would be before you commit to anything. If a review is not what you need, you will leave the call with a straight answer about what is.