Customer Reviews

Running QuickBooks in Nonprofits: The Only Comprehensive Guide for Nonprofits Using QuickBooks

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I wish I had found this book when I first transitioned from the private sector to running a non-profit organization! Coming from a media background, I was familiar with budgets, etc., but I always had a bookkeeper for the actual accounting, so I found myself having to learn fast on my feet; add to that the need to learn how non-profits differ from for profit business and I felt completely behind the eight ball at times. After the first year, I had a functional handle on it, but things were still not where they should be and the annual financial review proved that there was more to learn.

Enter *Running Quickbooks in Nonprofits*; this book taught me more in one reading than a year of muddling through it and bothering the accountant with "free" questions until he was blue in the face. Not only did I finally get a good handle on the basics of accounting for a non-profit, but I was able to finally utilize the full power of Quickbooks within its inherent non-profit limitations - even the version of Quickbooks for non-profits isn't well adapted for the purpose as it was not built from the ground up for the unique accounting needs of non-profits. With this book, you will learn how to adapt Quickbooks for you non-profit organization and make it work for you, not against you.

What makes *Running Quickbooks in Nonprofits* easy to read and understand and why it delivers is because the author is an accountant working with non-profit clients, so she can deliver real world advice that makes sense to those in the non-profit world.

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

If you are going to use QuickBooks to manage your church finances, buy this book. Read it BEFORE you begin your installation. It will answer your questions. It will save you time. It will help preserve your sanity. It will make you a better person. It will help you to lose weight. Well, maybe not that last one so much... but it IS a darn good resource. Even if you've already installed and are using QuickBooks, buy it and read it.

I have used Quicken/Quickbooks for several years personally and have been very pleased with its ease of use and reporting functionality. Recently, I was confronted by a church deacon, who was questioning the appearance of some of the reports being provided to the finance committee and wanted suggestions as to how to "correctly" enter the data to get the information necessary for each "fund". They had been told repeatedly that it couldn't be done, that the program wasn't capable, etc. After reading several chapters of this book, I passed it on to the committee to review and as proof that they didn't need a more expensive program.

We are moving our accounting software to QuickBooks. QB is operates differently, makes assumptions that are different, and is overall designed for the regular corporate/business. It does and can work for non-profits. That's where this book helps greatly!
Iven writes from the perspective of a person who knows accounting principles and practices demonstrating how this will work in QB for non-profits. She will walk you through each step within your accounting needs giving suggestions and direction about setup, planning, day-to-day usage, reporting, and why it works best as described. This book is toned down from a pure accountant's view but is not designed for a beginner or a person knowing basic accounting of balancing a check book. Some accounting terms and practices are explained, but not all. This is as it should be since QB is designed for more. But for someone willing and desiring to learn more, this is an excellent tool.
Read this book BEFORE starting to setup your QB company file. We could not simply setup QB like our old software was setup. It will not report properly. And there are advantages in the day-to-day accounting that proper setup gives. It is the best explaination of "classes," their usage and function. It tells you why certain data entry methods will and will not work with reasoning behind it.
QB is weak as far as a "contributions module," but if you follow the suggestions in this book it will work smoothly. Afterall, contributors are customers. The QB non-profit version will change titles on screens and menues to match your usage.
Overall, this book is an excellent tool and should be a required purchased and read before converting to QB and setting up your file for the first time as a non-profit.

This book would be really helpful, if you already know bookkeeping terms. For example, it's not very helpful for a person who has never done any bookkeeping and is a volunteer treasurer for a small church.

The nonprofit organization I run has entered into joint operations with another nonprofit - so I had to enter into a much more complicated usage of Quickbooks for Nonprofits. After I hired a very experienced bookkeeper, I realized I needed to know more myself, so I came online and ordered 4 np accounting books. This one was the only one I read all the way through and still use. I referred to it several times during my first working meeting with the new bookkeeper and he was impressed at how well I understood things - so he went out and bought the book! He recently told me the last chapter alone was worth the price of the book. For me, the information on Chart of Accounts and using Customer:Job and Classes will mean we can run detailed reports for all our funders' requirements without hours of extra work.

And I totally agree with the author: you'd think a global find and replace would have been easy to accomplish so we could have labels and terms that reflect a nonprofit world. Shame on you, Intuit!

Buy the book - it is worth it!

We've been using QuickBooks for years and have had a number of frustrations because it's not specifically for non-profits. This book has been very helpful. The only reason I can't give it five stars is because it's not quite as helpful for those who already have QuickBooks up and running. The majority of the information is for someone just setting up a non-profit QuickBooks company.

If you already have some experience with quickbooks this book goes in a bit deeper with great descriptions and explainations on different ways to set up your files.

Having worked in the accounting business most of my life and with non-profits for about half that time I find this book one of the best I have seen for assisting the treasurers and CFO's of Non-Profit organizations in setting up and keeping an accurate set of books with ease. I highly recommend it.

_Running Quickbooks in Nonprofits_ very thoroughly addresses many accounting issues that non-profits face, and presents countless ways to implement solutions to those issues in Quickbooks. The author is creative and very knowledgable of both Quickbooks and non-profit accounting principles, and ties them together very well.

This is a very comprehensive book on using Quickbooks in a non-profit organization. It is not, however, a tutorial or a beginning accounting manual. I highly recommend this book to any financial manager of a non-profit, but I also recommend supplementing this with basic and intermediate accounting training. This book will help bring order to many areas of non-profit accounting--but it cannot be utilized well without the firm underpinnings of both accounting theory and practice.