Simple Nonprofit Accounting Template

Summary

This nonprofit accounting template is designed to make it easy to keep track of various accounts, manage budgeting and build basic financial statements.

Features

• General Ledger
• Dynamic financial statements
• Automatic population of transaction information onto account sheets
• Easy-to-customize accounts
• Integrated budgeting

Wishlist

• More nuanced statements
• Time-sensitive financial statements with carryover balances

Setting Up the Template

To set up this template:

• Go to the Chart of Accounts
• Change the Account Names to those relevant to your purposes
  • 100 accounts are Assets, 200 accounts are Liabilities, 300 accounts are Revenues, 400 accounts are Expenses, 500 accounts are Funds
• Add descriptions, budgets and starting balances as appropriate
• Delete any rows or account pages in excess of you need
  • Be sure to delete corresponding lines on Financial Statements sheet
• Add rows as necessary for additional accounts
  • For each new account, make a new sheet using the "New Debit Account" or "New Credit Account" template
  • Rename the sheet and type the ACCOUNT NUMBER into cell B1 on the new sheet
• Add rows to the Financial Statement to correspond to new accounts added to the Chart of Accounts
  • For Assets, Liabilities or Fund Accounts, formulas should follow the convention: =SUM('Chart of Accounts'.$E28, '500'.$G$1) where 28 would be the row number for the account on the Chart of Accounts page and 500 would be the Account Number
  • For Revenue or Expense accounts, formulas should follow the convention ='450'.G1 where 450 would be the Account Number

Using the Template

• Mark transactions in the General Ledger
• Be sure to include date, account number and the appropriate amount under DR or CR
• Account names will self-populate
• Account sheets and financial statements will also self-populate
• Each affected account should be recorded as its own entry in the General Ledger

Notes

1. I built this based on limited accounting background dating back to a couple college classes almost a decade ago. For that reason, the financial statements are rather basic. I'd encourage anyone with more accounting know-how to add some nuance to what exists here.
2. This template would be more useful if financial statements could generate based on period and if balances could carry from one period to the next. If someone wants to add the time dimension to this template, that would be great!