Have You Hugged Your Bookkeeper Lately?

Resource
Bookkeeping Basics: What Every Nonprofit Bookkeeper Needs to Know

Contents
What Management Needs to Know
What Bookkeepers Need to Know
Financial Terminology Demystified

From Vince Hyman, former Publishing Director, Fieldstone Alliance:

Okay, I admit to being a nerd.

In fact, I'll embrace my inner nerd and state for all to hear that I decided, midway through our work on Bookkeeping Basics: What Every Nonprofit Bookkeeper Needs to Know, that bookkeeping was probably one of humanity's GREAT inventions. It's up there with the domestication of plants and animals, the invention of the wheel, and the development of the scientific method as a civilization-building instrument. However, unlike those inventions, it's largely invisible and overlooked. And too often, so is the bookkeeper.

Bookkeepers are critical to nonprofit success. They keep track of money that flows into, through, and out of an organization, so the organization can have an enumerated sense, at any given moment, of its value and risks. With that comes the power to project future worth and foresee potential problems. How's that for a civilization-changing invention? How often have you longed for a crystal ball, when all along your bookkeeper and accountant were showing you your fortune in the form of reports?

What Management Needs to Know
We developed Bookkeeping Basics to help you understand first what bookkeeping and accounting are all about—so you can actually read that chart of accounts and know what you're looking at. It also shows you how to set up your books properly so that donor funds are accounted for the way they were meant to, and the proper bookkeeping cycles are followed.

Of the nine chapters in Bookkeeping Basics, two are devoted just to internal controls—the sort of "good financial hygiene" that helps the wise leader safeguard his or her organizational assets. These controls are critical and can help you avoid scandals.

What Bookkeepers Need to Know
Nonprofits often don't have a trained bookkeeper on staff. This crucial function goes to whomever has the time or willingness to do it. Lack of training is not only frustrating for the individual, but also potentially risky for your organization. This guide explains the bookkeeper's roles and responsibilities.

Financial Terminology Demystified
To help demystify financial terminology, we're sharing the glossary from our book Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives, by our friends at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services.

The authors of Bookkeeping Basics, Debra Ruegg and Lisa Venkatrathnam—colleagues of ours at the LarsonAllen Public Service Group—really have done a stupendous job of making this poorly understood, overlooked invention easy to understand. (By the way, the book has received two awards: best business/professional book of 2003 from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association and honorable mention from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management.) I hope that you'll take a look at it, and perhaps be ready to give your bookkeeper a hug.

After all, he or she is working at the very heart of your mission.

Best regards,

Vince Hyman
Publishing Director
Fieldstone Alliance

March 9 , 2005

Copyright Fieldstone Alliance. For reprint permission, click here.