Monthly bookkeeping, Form 990 preparation, and ongoing compliance advisory for 501(c)(3) organizations with $500K–$5M operating budgets.
Most clients retain us for all three. Well-kept books are the foundation of an accurate 990, the annual return is the natural checkpoint for everything else, and the advisory work is what makes both the books and the return read like a well-run organization.
Ongoing maintenance of your books in QuickBooks Online or Xero, with regular communication and a clean trial balance every month.
Preparation and e-filing of Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-PF, including every required schedule and the governance and narrative disclosures.
On-call guidance through the decisions that the 990 will eventually expose — before you make them, not after.
We work best with organizations between roughly $500K and $5M in annual receipts — the range where a generalist bookkeeper is no longer enough but a national firm is overkill. The situations below are routine for us; smaller shops often struggle with them without the right support.
Valuing, recognizing, and reporting non-cash donations — from professional services to vehicles to investment securities.
Net-asset classification, release-from-restriction tracking, and disclosures that align with the donor's intent.
Schedule G reporting, contribution-vs-exchange revenue splits, and FMV disclosures for sponsors and attendees.
Disclosure of supporting organizations, fiscal sponsorships, and controlled entities — and the transactions between them.
Schedule F reporting on grantmaking and program activities outside the United States, including grantee due-diligence.
Government grants, foundation grants, pass-through funding, and grants made to other organizations or individuals.
Charitable solicitation registrations and renewals across the states where you fundraise — coordinated with the 990.
Officer/director/key-employee reporting, conflict-of-interest policies, and reasonable-compensation documentation.
UBIT analysis, Form 990-T preparation, and structuring program-related revenue to stay within mission.
Every engagement begins the same way: we look at your prior 990s and current books before we propose anything. We'd rather decline than mis-scope.
A free 30-minute call to understand your organization, current setup, and what's prompting the conversation. No prep required on your end.
We look at your last two 990s, your current chart of accounts, and a recent trial balance. You get a written assessment and a fixed-fee proposal.
Access setup, chart-of-accounts rebuild if needed, and documentation of the policies and workflows we'll operate under going forward.
Monthly close, quarterly check-ins with the board if useful, advisory access throughout the year, and the 990 filed cleanly each spring.
990 Books is a small, intentional practice. We don't have client managers, junior associates, or a sales team. You'll work directly with Charles, and the work he signs is the work he did.
Charles Floyd is the principal of 990 Books. His career began at a large regional accounting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he learned the discipline of audit-grade documentation and the kind of structured close that holds up under outside review.
For seven years he worked with a company that provided formation and compliance services for hundreds of 501(c)(3) organizations across the country. That work — at volume, across organizations of every shape — is where the pattern recognition came from. It's also where the conviction came from: that the 990 isn't a form you fill in once a year, it's a frame of reference that should sit behind every decision a nonprofit board makes.
He holds a BA in Economics from UC Santa Barbara and an MBA from HEC Paris. He started 990 Books to do this work at the scale where he could still know each client's organization personally, and so that the person reviewing the return at the end of the year is the same person who kept the books all year.
If you're considering switching providers, late on a filing, or unsure which form your organization should file — the answer is probably below. If it isn't, send us an email.
Form 990 is due by the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends — so May 15 for calendar-year organizations. You can file Form 8868 for an automatic six-month extension, which we generally recommend if there's any question about whether the books are ready. Missing the filing for three consecutive years results in automatic loss of tax-exempt status, which is expensive and time-consuming to reverse.
It's tied to gross receipts and total assets. Organizations with gross receipts under $50K can file the 990-N postcard; under $200K in receipts and $500K in assets can usually file the 990-EZ; everything else files the full 990. Private foundations file the 990-PF regardless of size. We figure out the right form during the records review — it's surprisingly common for organizations to file a more complex form than required, or the reverse.
It's routine. The records-review step is exactly designed for this — we look at where the prior bookkeeper left things, identify what needs cleanup, and either fold the cleanup into the engagement or quote it separately so you can decide. We're careful about the transition so nothing falls through during the handoff, and so the year that crosses providers still closes cleanly.
Yes. If you're one year late, we'll prepare and file the missing return and help you respond to any IRS correspondence. If you're approaching three years and at risk of auto-revocation, that becomes the priority. If revocation has already happened, reinstatement is its own process (Rev. Proc. 2014-11) and we'll walk you through which streamlined option applies to your situation.
QuickBooks Online and Xero. We're certified ProAdvisors in QBO and Xero Advisor Certified. We have a preference for QBO with most US nonprofits because the nonprofit ecosystem around it (donor systems, payroll, payment processors) is more mature, but Xero is excellent and we're happy to work with either. We don't typically take on desktop QuickBooks files without a migration to QBO as part of onboarding.
For an existing client where we've kept the books all year, the return is typically ready for board review within three to four weeks of the close. New clients in their first year with us run longer, mostly because of the records review and any reclassifications that come out of it. Complex returns — significant foreign activity, multiple related entities, a Schedule B with many large donors — take longer.
Churches: yes, though most churches are not required to file a 990. We can advise on what to keep on the books anyway. Private foundations: we prepare 990-PFs but generally not for foundations whose primary need is investment accounting. 501(c)(4)s and other non-(c)(3) exempt orgs: case by case — the disclosure regimes are different and the engagement looks different.
Document exchange happens through an encrypted client portal — never email. Access to accounting platforms is granted to us as a discrete user with appropriate role-level permissions, not as a shared login. Multi-factor authentication is required on every system we touch. We carry professional liability and cyber liability coverage; the certificate is available on request during the proposal stage.
New engagements begin with a 30-minute call. We'll ask about your organization and current setup, and answer anything you'd like to ask us. There's no follow-up unless you'd like one.
The fastest way to start is to send a short note about your organization. If you'd rather just put time on the calendar, the link below works too.