Not-for-profits and charities

Smarter accounting systems for not-for-profit organisations

Many not-for-profits still run on manual systems that slow the organisation down and add risk. We have moved organisations off spreadsheet-based processes and into Xero, integrated properly: event bookings and publication sales automated, annual membership invoicing streamlined, compliance straightforward and audits far less stressful. We also work alongside IT people to build the parts that do not exist off the shelf.

Book a Call Today Read the case study

What this sector gets wrong in Xero

Restricted funds are not spendable cash

The accounts say one thing and the grant spreadsheet says another, and reconciling them is somebody's weekend four times a year. It is a structural problem, not an effort problem.

A duplicated chart of accounts per fund Every grant gets its own set of accounts, so the chart grows to hundreds of lines and no report reads cleanly again.

Restricted and unrestricted money mixed Funds with conditions attached sit in the same balance as general revenue, so nobody can say what is actually available to spend.

Committee reports rebuilt by hand The same report reassembled from scratch each quarter, by a volunteer or a part-time treasurer, with a different result each time.

Before and after diagram, What is actually available to spend: before, restricted and unrestricted money are mixed, with funds that have conditions attached sitting in the same balance as general revenue; after, unrestricted money is visible, because restricted money is tracked and the committee can see what is genuinely available — The same money, before and after the restricted funds are tracked.

What we do

Tracking categories, not a bigger chart

1 Funds as tracking categories Grants and funds tracked as categories rather than duplicated accounts, so the chart stays readable and you can still report per fund.

2 Restricted money visible Conditions attached to funds are reflected in the file, so the committee can see what is committed and what is genuinely available.

3 A migration that respects the history Moving off MYOB or spreadsheets with the comparative years intact, because a not-for-profit board needs to see last year beside this one.

4 Committee reporting on a set date The same report, produced the same way, every quarter. Minutes rather than a weekend, and identical each time.

Diagram comparing a chart of accounts per fund, which grows to hundreds of lines, with funds as tracking categories, where the chart stays readable and you can still report per fund

The tools this sector actually uses

The tools not-for-profits actually run

Membership and donation data usually lives outside the accounts. Connecting it is what turns acquittal reporting from a rebuild into a report you run.

CRM and donor management Keap, Salesforce and HubSpot. Donor and member data connected to the accounts, so acquittals stop being a manual exercise.

Xero tracking categories Fund and grant reporting handled in Xero itself rather than a parallel spreadsheet nobody else can maintain.

Volunteer-friendly workflows Processes documented simply enough that a new treasurer can pick them up without a handover meeting.

How we handle integrations

CRM and donor management

Your donor and member data, inside your accounts

The systems that hold your members, donors and event bookings are usually the ones furthest from your accounts, which is why the fund or grant a payment belongs to is the field that gets lost. We connect them.

CRM and donor management Donor and member records connected to Xero, so a receipt, an invoice and a fund allocation are one piece of work rather than three.

Membership and publication invoicing Annual membership runs and publication sales raised automatically, coded to the right income account and the right fund.

Whatever you already run Keap, Shopify, WooCommerce and more. Where there is no official Xero integration at all, we build the connection directly.

If your team is rebuilding the same report by hand every quarter, that is the thing to automate first.

Before and after

From spreadsheet chaos to reporting a board can read

Not-for-profits juggle several funding sources, volunteer bookkeepers and systems nobody chose. This is the move from manual process to something that holds up.

Before Manual data entry in spreadsheets. Fund allocation nobody can explain. Missed deadlines, and audit season spent reconstructing. Limited staff and volunteer time going into re-keying. No real financial visibility between meetings.

After Reporting produced by Xero rather than rebuilt by hand. Every dollar traceable to its funding stream. Compliance and audit as a review, not a reconstruction. Hours a week back for the work the organisation exists to do. Current numbers available to the committee whenever they ask.

Portrait of Jitka, Senior Bookkeeper at NN Accountability — Jitka, Senior Bookkeeper

Proof

An organisation we work with

Their expertise in tailoring Xero processes to suit the complex bookkeeping needs of a non-profit organisation has been invaluable.

Thanks to their guidance, our financial systems are now more efficient, compliant, and well-structured.

Cheltenham Golf Club Not-for-profit

Read all results

Questions from this sector

Questions we are asked most

Can you track grants without wrecking our chart of accounts? Yes, and that is the point. Funds and grants are tracked as categories rather than duplicated accounts, so you keep a readable chart and still report per fund.

We are on MYOB. Is moving worth the disruption? Usually, and the migration is less disruptive than most committees fear. We bring the comparative years across so the board can still see last year beside this one.

Our treasurer is a volunteer. Can they maintain this? That is what we design for. Processes are documented simply enough that a new treasurer can pick them up without a long handover.

Do you prepare the reports our committee needs? Yes, on a set date each quarter, produced from the file so the numbers cannot drift between the accounts and the report.

Do you work as our not-for-profit accountant as well? Yes. Fund accounting is where the two roles have to meet: restricted and unrestricted funds have to be tracked as the year goes rather than reconstructed at the end, or the acquittal becomes an archaeology exercise. Keeping the file and preparing the reports in one place is what avoids that.

Book a Call Today Read the case study

The free Xero Health Check from NN Accountability

The free checklist

Download Your FREE Xero Health Check

Identify common bookkeeping errors and discover simple fixes for smoother financial management, written in plain English.