Carey & Co has helped dozens of nonprofits successfully navigate this rapidly changing environment. We carefully diagnose each situation and develop a cost effective solution tailored to meet the client’s needs. We can provide interim services to help you through a transition; or become your long term partners, providing a flexible team that can grow and change as you do.
Regardless of your scale, we offer three distinct components of financial management:
Small organizations often get by on one person who “handles the numbers” or they have an Executive Director or board member who can interpret and use the numbers received from the bookkeeper or accountant. As organizations grow, it becomes necessary to have a financial leader who can shape and lead the accounting team; select and implement software; effectively interpret and communicate financial information; keep track of cash and investments; manage relationships with financial institutions; identify and manage risks; lead the budgeting process; and prepare financial projections to support good decision making. This is the skill set of a CFO.
A controller, perhaps assisted by senior and junior accountants, is an expert accountant (often a CPA) who assures that transactions are being entered correctly and uses accounting principles to produce financial statements following applicable accounting standards. Further, a controller must assure that accounting controls are appropriate and working.
When money comes in or goes out, someone needs to enter this into an accounting system in a disciplined, predictable fashion, so that the numbers can be rolled up into usable financial reports. This is bookkeeping.
