Accounting at a Nonprofit – 2026

One of the things that is special about working at a nonprofit, such as Yad Ezra, is that I have gotten to see the different roles within the organization. As an Accountancy major, I was excited when I got the opportunity to observe Heather Axe, the accountant here. In my classes, I have been told how public accounting and industry accounting are very different from accounting at nonprofits or not-for-profits. While that is true, a lot of what Heather does in her role is similar to what accounting looks like in industry.

I got to see what Heather does on a day-to-day basis. She showed me the accounting system she uses, which is QuickBooks. I got to see how she records the P&L (profits and losses) that are associated with the organization. She does a lot of bank reconciliations, which I did not have much prior knowledge about, so I was able to gain some insight into that. She also showed me how she pays invoices and keeps track of the expenses and revenue the organization generates.

I was very impressed by how organized everything was. Organization is a very important skill to have in the field, so I enjoyed seeing this brought to life in practice. Heather maintains both digital and physical copies of folders, reports, invoices, and more. As an accountant, you handle many different tasks and keep track of a lot, so it was nice to see how everything had its place.

I think a noticeable difference between a smaller nonprofit accounting role and that of industry accounting or an accounting firm is how many documents are still on paper. For instance, when Heather receives an invoice from a company from which we purchased food, it is initially on paper. From there, Heather scans it and uploads it to QuickBooks. Public accounting is very digitalized and has been increasing its use of Artificial Intelligence, which I found to be one of the more notable distinctions between the different accounting roles.

Heather also showed me an overview of the financial statements. She uses them to make informed decisions about how the organization spends its money. As someone who had just taken an intermediate financial accounting course this past semester, the financial statements felt very fresh in my mind, and I was able to identify the different accounts. In particular, Heather showed me the PPE (Property, Plant, and Equipment). One of the depreciation methods is called straight-line depreciation, which is what Yad Ezra uses to allocate the cost of its PPE over its useful life. As time passes, a depreciation expense determined by the straight-line method is recorded, which in turn increased the accumulated depreciation balance.

Another account I was familiar with was A/R (Accounts Receivable). This account tracks money owed to the organization that has not yet been paid. For example, if someone makes a pledge at the annual dinner, accounts receivable would increase, indicating that the total outstanding amount owed to Yad Ezra has gone up. Once that person pays, A/R would decrease, reflecting an increase in current assets – in this case, cash.

As an aspiring CPA (Certified Public Accountant), I enjoyed seeing an accounting role from a nonprofit lens. Even though it may not be quite what I will do in the future, there are so many similarities in both the day-to-day work and the core skillset required in both types of accounting. It is also worth noting that many nonprofits do not have an accountant or even a bookkeeper, which makes Yad Ezra especially fortunate to have someone as knowledgeable and dedicated as Heather!