Effective financial leadership is critical to the success of your non-profit organization. When facing challenges or approaching new opportunities, outsourced CFO and controller services from PBMares can provide guidance to help your organization achieve its financial goals.
Our seasoned professionals provide expert support and insights when and where you need it most.

Issue

A non-profit foundation that provides health services and mission-related grants was a tax client of PBMares.
When the foundation’s in-house accountant retired, the foundation needed to fill this role. An employee with no accounting background or experience took over the bookkeeping responsibilities.
Months of transactions had not been accounted for. The foundation realized this was not going to be a sustainable solution.

Solution

The foundation hired Pathway, the PBMares Finance and Accounting Outsourcing Team, to begin providing outsourced controllership and bookkeeping services.

Step 1: Several months of processing transactions and catch-up to get the foundation’s financial statements and records up-to-date

Step 2: Implemented regular month-end accounting processes for the foundation

Step 3: Process optimization of the accounting processes
Once the initial project was complete, the foundation decided to keep our outsourced Virtual Controller in place rather than search for a new in-house accountant.

Hurdles We Addressed & Overcame

Hurdle #1: Lack of information. Months of transactions had not been accounted for. The former accountant had retired and the interim accountant didn’t have a deep understanding of the accounting transactions.
Outcome: Our team went to great lengths to obtain an understanding of each accounting process, as well as the accounting transactions occurring in the months that required catch-up.

  • This involved reviewing nearly a year’s worth of transactions in the general ledger.
  • We recorded several months of revenue transactions using a combination of bank statements and any bit of documentation the client had retained and could provide.
  • The foundation was already set up on bill.com to record expense transactions.

Hurdle #2: The Board of Directors was applying a good deal of pressure to the foundation’s leadership team to get the accounting caught up quickly. As a result, interactions were a bit tense in the beginning of the engagement.
Outcome: As our team brought the accounting up to date, the client began to place more and more trust in the Virtual Controller and the process as a whole. Then, when we optimized many of the foundation’s accounting processes, both the President of the foundation and the Board leaned into the relationship, recognizing the effort and the results.

ROI for the Client

By using our outsourced controller services, the foundation recognized several benefits, including:

  • No need to hire another in-house accountant
  • Efficiency and new insights from optimized accounting systems
  • Elevated confidence in financial statements for the foundation’s Board of Directors
  • Access to our information systems (bill.com, Sage Intacct, Tallie, and Expensify)

Learn More

Learn more about outsourcing all or part of your accounting or finance function. Contact us today.