A smooth audit starts well before the fieldwork begins. Use this checklist to get your books, records, and team ready, and to avoid last-minute scrambles.
How to Prepare for a Successful Financial Statement Audit
If audit season makes you groan, you’re not alone. The word “audit” carries a lot of baggage, but a well-planned audit can be one of the most useful things that happens to your organization all year. Here is a practical guide to preparing, drawn from a GGFOA presentation on getting audit-ready.
Client Accounting Services: Finance Support Without the Overhead
Most growing businesses reach a point where the books can no longer be a side task. You’re up late reconciling accounts, a part-time bookkeeper is stretched thin, and nobody is sure whether the numbers are right until tax season. Client Accounting Services (CAS) exists for this moment.
Staying Ahead of GASB 87 & 96: Let Us Help Manage the Details
Lease and subscription arrangements can be easy to overlook—but keeping an accurate, up-to-date listing of lease and subscription liabilities is an important part of maintaining reliable financial records.
Our firm offers a nonattest service designed to help governmental clients stay organized and keep pace with the requirements of GASB 87, Leases, and GASB 96, Subscription-Based Information Technology Arrangements (SBITAs).
The October 15th Deadline: A Good Time to Get Ahead for Next Year or the Last Chance to Maintain Compliance
As the 2026 calendar closes in on the October 15th deadline, many plan administrators are unsure if their employee benefit plan requires an audit. Our team can help you determine if your plan requires an audit or if your plan is approaching the audit threshold for the first time. With this knowledge, we can either act quickly and efficiently to ensure your audit is completed before the October 15th deadline or work with you to ensure you are properly prepared for your first audit in 2027.
Does Your Georgia Nonprofit Need Reviewed or Audited Financial Statements for State Registration?
If your organization solicits or accepts donations in Georgia, there’s a good chance you have a registration requirement you may not know about — and a reporting obligation that scales with how much your nonprofit brings in.
Here’s what Georgia nonprofits need to know.
Rushton Recognized Among the Nation’s Top Accounting Firms by Inside Public Accounting
Rushton Recognized Among the Nation’s Top Accounting Firms by Inside Public Accounting
Elisabeth Baldwin named Managing Partner of Rushton Wealth Management
Rushton names Elisabeth Baldwin Managing Partner of Rushton Wealth Management
A quick guide on how to scan documents with your phone
A Hard Conversation Made Easy
A Hard Conversation Made Easy Throughout previous stages of life, you might have become accustomed to keeping your financial matters fairly close to the chest. Now, however, would be a good time to start involving your family as you develop and effectuate your estate...
Non-profits: Guide to reporting in-kind donations
Non-profits: guide to reporting in-kind donations
Securing in-kind donations is vital for any non-profit or charitable organization, but just as important is accounting for them properly. In June 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board introduced changes to the General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for documenting and presenting the value of in-kind donations in financial statements. This article provides an overview of the changes and what you need to know.
What are in-kind donations?
In-kind donations are any non-cash contributions made to an organization. These can include time, products, or services. Although non-profits tend to focus on raising money, in-kind donations serve as a significant source of revenue for most non-profits. For donors, it is often easier to contribute items they no longer use or contribute services when they have extra capacity. With in-kind donations, businesses and individuals are able to donate far more than if they were limited to just donating cash.
Whether donations are cash or in-kind, the Financial Accounting Standards Board wanted to make the reporting of those assets clearer on financial statements.
What was changed with ASU 2020-07?
Historically, non-profits were not required to give detailed information on the value and use of in-kind donations in financial reports. This raised concern because a lack of detail can make an organization look significantly larger or smaller on paper. It also made it difficult to parse the exact value of in-kind donations and their usefulness to the organization.
The Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2020-07, issued in September of 2020, states that non-profits have to change how they present and disclose in-kind contributions.
The first change is how information is presented on a financial statement. Specifically, in-kind donations can no longer be recorded in the same line item as direct financial donations in the statement of activities. Instead of reporting aggregate contributions as a single line item, the financial statement must show a line item for financial contributions and a separate line item for in-kind contributions.
The second change is with disclosure requirements. The non-profit must disclose information on in-kind donations by category that depicts the type of nonfinancial asset. For example, categories might be Equipment, Clothing, Food, or Legal Services.
For each category of in-kind donations, the non-profit must disclose:
- Qualitative information about whether the nonfinancial assets donated were used or liquidated during the reporting period. If used, the non-profit must describe the program or activities in which they were used.
- The non-profit's policy, if any, on liquidating rather than utilizing the assets.
- A description of any donor-imposed restrictions associated with the assets.
- A description of the valuation techniques and inputs used to arrive at a fair value measure, per the requirements in Topic 820, Fair Value Measurement, at initial recognition.
- The principal or most advantageous market used to arrive at a fair measure of value if it is a market in which a donor-imposed restriction prohibits the non-profit from selling or using the assets.
How should financial statements be formatted?
There are multiple ways to present the required information within financial statements. The Financial Accounting Standards Board provides various examples of formatting the required information in their Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958) publication. While it's beyond the scope of this article to show the various formatting examples, one of our expert advisors can help your non-profit determine which format would best suit your financials.
What is the path to compliance?
Many non-profit organizations already have the raw data needed for the change, particularly if they use professional donor management software. The non-profit must track down the core data, create a workflow to include it on financials, and properly format the information in financials.
To ensure that the new guidance is properly followed on the back end, organizations that have not yet made the shift should strongly consider disseminating the requirements to staff, especially in accounting roles. On the front end, non-profits should review their donation intake and tracking procedures to ensure they capture the required information and at the level of detail needed.
When should the changes be adopted?
The ASU 2020-07 requirements should be applied on a retrospective basis and are effective for annual periods beginning after June 15, 2021, and interim periods within annual periods beginning after June 15, 2022. Early adoption is permitted.
This article provides an overview of the ASU 2020-07 changes and is not a substitute for speaking with one of our expert advisors. At Rushton, we are experts in nonprofit reporting and can support your needs. If you would like to discuss proper financial reporting for your non-profit, please contact us at info@rushton.cpa or give us a call at 770-287-7800.
Audit Readiness Checklist: 9 Steps to Prepare Before Your Auditors Arrive
A smooth audit starts well before the fieldwork begins. Use this checklist to get your books, records, and team ready, and to avoid last-minute scrambles.
How to Prepare for a Successful Financial Statement Audit
If audit season makes you groan, you’re not alone. The word “audit” carries a lot of baggage, but a well-planned audit can be one of the most useful things that happens to your organization all year. Here is a practical guide to preparing, drawn from a GGFOA presentation on getting audit-ready.
Client Accounting Services: Finance Support Without the Overhead
Most growing businesses reach a point where the books can no longer be a side task. You’re up late reconciling accounts, a part-time bookkeeper is stretched thin, and nobody is sure whether the numbers are right until tax season. Client Accounting Services (CAS) exists for this moment.
Staying Ahead of GASB 87 & 96: Let Us Help Manage the Details
Lease and subscription arrangements can be easy to overlook—but keeping an accurate, up-to-date listing of lease and subscription liabilities is an important part of maintaining reliable financial records.
Our firm offers a nonattest service designed to help governmental clients stay organized and keep pace with the requirements of GASB 87, Leases, and GASB 96, Subscription-Based Information Technology Arrangements (SBITAs).
The October 15th Deadline: A Good Time to Get Ahead for Next Year or the Last Chance to Maintain Compliance
As the 2026 calendar closes in on the October 15th deadline, many plan administrators are unsure if their employee benefit plan requires an audit. Our team can help you determine if your plan requires an audit or if your plan is approaching the audit threshold for the first time. With this knowledge, we can either act quickly and efficiently to ensure your audit is completed before the October 15th deadline or work with you to ensure you are properly prepared for your first audit in 2027.
Does Your Georgia Nonprofit Need Reviewed or Audited Financial Statements for State Registration?
If your organization solicits or accepts donations in Georgia, there’s a good chance you have a registration requirement you may not know about — and a reporting obligation that scales with how much your nonprofit brings in.
Here’s what Georgia nonprofits need to know.
Rushton Recognized Among the Nation’s Top Accounting Firms by Inside Public Accounting
Rushton Recognized Among the Nation’s Top Accounting Firms by Inside Public Accounting
Elisabeth Baldwin named Managing Partner of Rushton Wealth Management
Rushton names Elisabeth Baldwin Managing Partner of Rushton Wealth Management
A quick guide on how to scan documents with your phone
A Hard Conversation Made Easy
A Hard Conversation Made Easy Throughout previous stages of life, you might have become accustomed to keeping your financial matters fairly close to the chest. Now, however, would be a good time to start involving your family as you develop and effectuate your estate...