The New 990 - Topic for October 28, 2008

Our next meeting, Tuesday October 28, Allan Larson and Darrell Songer from LarsonAllen LLP will take us through the complexities and intracacies of the new IRS form 990. We covered this topic last year but felt that so many areas remain unexplored that we should cover it again. So please join us, come filing time next year, you won't regret doing so!

Trading our Tips of the Trade

The nfpFMA members came well-prepared to share valuable tips at the meeting September 23, 2008.

Here are the tips we shared:

• To enter a series of numbers in an Excel spreadsheet: Highlight cells, then click Edit, then Fill, then Series.
• Enterprise Leasing’s Trip Optimizer is a time saving and money saving tool.
• You can save on food budgets by partnering with a Co-op.
• Use accounting software’s recurring invoice feature to manage recurring expenses.
• Keep in mind that Disaster Recovery plans are critical.
• Keep all documents related to each grant together in one place.
• Use the comment feature in Excel to keep notes on the expenses are included in each line item for grants.
• Require that any trip outside metro area be made using Enterprise rental cars. All time in the rental car is company time. No need to reimburse mileage at IRS or state rates.
• Disaster Recovery – appoint someone to make backups; protect data from viruses, stay current of updates, try Open Source accounting software, Visit Tech Soup to learn about deals for non profits, take advantage of the non-profit services consortium.
• Don’t hesitate to change vendors to save money. Bid out services on a regular basis. Also, use caution when relying too heavily on pledges to fund capital projects. The donor can back out and the nfp has no recourse.
• For nfp’s with more than 150 employees, consider self-insuring for medical coverage. Request discounts from Fedex and UPS. Don’t pay more than 5 cents per minute for long distance and don’t pay for full minutes if partial minutes are used.
• Take time to develop a job procedures chart for all tasks accounting staff does. The chart will prove invaluable during extended employee absenses.
• Use stock donation form when receiving gifts of stock.
• Consider reaching out to volunteers to fill staffing needs to cut back on training costs.
• Draft Interim Communication with Auditor letter to give advance notice to auditors of significant changes , issues and events.