Nonprofit CPA in
Los Angeles, CA
The hard part about nonprofit finance in Los Angeles is rarely the accounting. It is the number of people you have to report to.
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Nonprofit CPA in Los Angeles, CA
A mid-size LA organization can easily be running on a county contract, a city grant, two or three private foundations, a state pass-through, and individual giving — all at once. Each one wants its money tracked separately. Each one has its own reporting format, its own period, and its own definition of an allowable cost.
None of those funders coordinate with each other. So the finance team ends up maintaining several parallel versions of the truth, and reconciling them by hand.
That is the environment we work in. We serve nonprofits, government agencies and districts, and small businesses exclusively — so restricted funds and multi-funder reporting are not an edge case for us, they are the normal case.
Nonprofit financial statement audits
In LA, the audit requirement usually arrives from a funder rather than from the organization deciding it is time.
A county contract requires audited financials. A foundation will not renew without them. The organization crosses California’s revenue threshold for registered charities and the obligation attaches.
- financial statement audits to nonprofit accounting standards
- Uniform Guidance (Single) audits where federal pass-through funding is involved
- compliance audits tied to specific contracts and grant agreements
- reviews and compilations when a full audit is not required
- internal controls review, which is where most findings originate
For a first-time audit, the real work is usually cleanup: getting restricted funds, grant periods, and expense allocations into a state where they can actually be tested. We would rather tell you that at the start than discover it during fieldwork.
Uniform Guidance & Single Audits
LA organizations end up in Single Audit territory more often than they expect, and usually by accident.
Federal dollars come through the county, the city, or a state department, and by the time they reach the nonprofit they look like a local contract. Nobody traces the funding back to its source until the totals cross the threshold and the requirement is already in effect.
If you hold county or city contracts and have never confirmed whether any of that money is federal in origin, that is worth checking before your fiscal year closes.
- tracing and correctly classifying federal pass-through funding
- building the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA)
- testing compliance requirements for each major program
- findings, questioned costs, and corrective action plans
Fund accounting for multi-funder organizations
This is the section most LA nonprofits actually need.
When an organization has grown funder by funder, the accounting system usually grew the same way — one workaround at a time. Restricted funds get tracked in a spreadsheet next to the general ledger. Grant periods that do not align with the fiscal year get reconciled manually. Staff time gets allocated across five funding sources using a method nobody can fully explain.
It works until it is audited, or until someone leaves.
- fund accounting structured so restricted and unrestricted balances are actually in the system
- grant allocation across programs, periods, and funders
- functional expense allocation — program, management, fundraising — with support behind it
- time and effort documentation that holds up under federal testing
- funder-specific reporting packages built from one source of truth
Form 990 preparation & nonprofit tax
In a city with this much philanthropic competition, the 990 is part of your fundraising material whether you treat it that way or not.
Program officers pull it. Watchdog sites score it. Major donors and prospective board members read it. A return that is filed correctly but presented carelessly — thin Schedule O, program expenses buried in management, governance questions answered without thought — costs an organization credibility it did not need to lose.
Watch public support testing in particular. An organization that becomes dependent on a small number of large funders can slide out of public charity status over several years without anyone noticing until it happens.
- Form 990, 990-EZ, and 990-PF preparation
- required schedules, including Schedule A public support testing
- California Attorney General Registry of Charities and Fundraisers filings
- unrelated business income (UBIT) analysis for earned revenue and rentals
- exemption and ongoing compliance questions
Fractional CFO & advisory
A lot of LA nonprofits hit a stage where the finance function has outgrown the bookkeeper but cannot yet justify a full-time CFO.
That gap shows up as budgets built on hope, cash flow managed by checking the bank balance, and board packets nobody outside finance can interpret.
- fractional CFO and controller services
- budget development and multi-year cash flow forecasting
- internal controls appropriate for a small finance team
- grant reporting support and funder-facing financial packages
- board and finance committee reporting a non-accountant can read
Where LA nonprofits get caught
Usually one of these.
- Federal pass-through inside a county or city contract that nobody traced
- Restricted funds tracked outside the accounting system
- Expense allocation across funders done by estimate, with no documentation
- Reporting deadlines from four different funders landing in the same month
None of it is unusual. It is just what happens when funding grows faster than the finance infrastructure underneath it.
How we approach it
We start with your actual funding mix, because that determines everything else — what has to be tracked separately, what has to be tested, and what has to be reported to whom.
Then we look at what your records genuinely support today. If there is cleanup required before an audit is feasible, you hear it in the first conversation, with a realistic timeline attached.
The firm brings 25+ years and more than 100 audits, working only with nonprofits, government entities, and small businesses. The advantage is not that this work is exotic — it is that we already know the places it tends to break.
Where to start
If you already know what you need:
Nearby work
We work with organizations across Los Angeles County, including Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Santa Monica, Long Beach, and the San Fernando Valley, as well as Sacramento and the Central Valley.
If you are not sure what you need yet
Many first calls are not specific. A funder asked for “audited financials” and nobody is certain whether a review would satisfy them. The books are behind. A new contract arrived with compliance language attached that nobody has read closely.
That is a normal starting point.
Tell us your annual revenue, where the money comes from, and what is being asked of you. We can usually tell you in one conversation whether you need an audit, a review, or something else — and what it will take to be ready.
Call 1-888-616-8070 or schedule a consultation to get started.
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