Outsourced accounting for nonprofits Restricted funds, grants and a close on a published date.
Millrace Finance Partners provides outsourced accounting for nonprofits anywhere in the US, including California, from $2,000 a month for a smaller set of books, and a fractional controller from $7,000 a month, with no hourly billing. The accounting service covers fund accounting, restricted-fund and grant tracking, functional expense allocation and the month-end close. For Form 990 we prepare the financial information and schedules your tax preparer needs, without signing or filing the return, and a fractional controller owns audit readiness and the audit schedules for your auditor.
These services do not require a state licence, and we are not a CPA firm.
What do you do for nonprofits?
Millrace Finance Partners runs fund accounting and the month-end close for nonprofits as one outsourced monthly service: restricted-fund and grant tracking, functional expense allocation, bookkeeping, payables, receivables and reconciliations, closed on a published calendar that targets the fifth business day. A reporting package arrives each month on a day you pick. The fee starts from $2,000 a month for a smaller set of books and scales with the work.
- Fund accounting
- Restricted-fund and grant tracking
- Functional expense allocation
- Accounts payable, with a payment run you release
- Accounts receivable and a collections cadence with dates on it
- The month-end close, on a published calendar
- Reconciliations kept as standing working papers
- Multi-entity consolidation and intercompany eliminations
Not included: signing authority, custody of your funds, payroll processing, and tax returns.
Do you offer a fractional CFO for nonprofits?
We offer nonprofits a fractional controller rather than a fractional CFO, from $7,000 a month: a named senior finance lead who works about a day a week, owns the close and the controls, prepares the audit schedules and owns the number in front of your board. Budgets, rolling forecasts, board packs and scenario modelling are available as fixed-fee business planning support.
The controller is also your auditor’s first point of contact, and can be bought on its own or alongside the accounting service. Its fee scales with the number of entities you consolidate, how mature your close is and how ready you are for your auditor; our page on what a fractional controller costs sets out the detail.
How do bookkeeping and Form 990 support work for a nonprofit?
Millrace Finance Partners keeps, closes and reconciles your books every month, and for the Form 990 we prepare the financial information and schedules your tax preparer needs, without signing or filing the return.
We give your tax preparer a clean trial balance and the schedules they ask for, which usually shortens their work and their bill. We do not prepare, sign or file tax returns, and our services do not constitute tax advice.
How do you work with our auditor?
We prepare your nonprofit for its auditor. At Millrace Finance Partners, a fractional controller owns audit readiness, prepares the audit schedules and is your auditor’s first point of contact; the accounting service keeps reconciliations as standing working papers; and every schedule is built so your auditor can follow it without us.
In the first month we write down what your auditor would ask for that you cannot currently produce, and what each of those costs to fix. First-audit preparation is available as a fixed-fee advising project. We are not your auditor: we express no opinion on any financial statement, and the reports we prepare are management’s reports, which you are free to share with your auditor.
What does outsourced accounting or a controller cost for a nonprofit?
Millrace Finance Partners charges nonprofits the same published fees as any other organization, in California or anywhere else in the US: the accounting service starts from $2,000 a month for a smaller set of books, a fractional controller starts from $7,000 a month, and there is no hourly billing.
At about $5,000 a month the accounting service covers the work of roughly one staff accountant plus half an accounts payable clerk. The fee scales with the volume, the number of entities and the complexity, and is quoted against your actual books after a read-only look. Advising and planning work is scoped per project, and the discovery call is free.
The published fees, the scope and the date guarantee are set out in full on the pricing page.
Do you work with nonprofits in California?
Yes. Millrace Finance Partners offers outsourced accounting to nonprofits anywhere in the US, including California. The work runs in your own systems under named accounts of our own, and a named person is reached through a shared Slack or Teams channel, a direct email and a standing monthly call.
Everything runs in your systems, on your licences, in your tenancy: your ERP, whether QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, NetSuite or Xero, and document storage in your own folders. There is nothing you lose access to on the day we stop working together.
How does a nonprofit engagement start?
With a free 45-minute discovery call. In the first month we take over the day-to-day work and run your first month-end close. Your close calendar is published during the build in months two and three, with a standard target of the fifth business day, and from month four the close runs on that calendar.
The date guarantee: if we miss a published close date and the cause is ours, we refund half that month’s fee. Each stage is set out step by step in the three stages of taking over your accounting. Comparing firms? Our checklist for choosing an outsourced accounting firm for a nonprofit works for any firm, including us.
Tell us how your nonprofit closes today.
Book the free 45-minute discovery call. We ask which close dates you are missing, how many entities you consolidate, which system you run and who does the work today, and you get a direct answer on whether we fit.
No lock-in: thirty days’ notice ends an engagement, and nothing is billed by the hour.