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Invoice paperwork for non-profit organizations

so nonprofit paperwork we're going to talk about that today let's get started [Music] hey y'all this is tiffany with boston the budget i help new and small nonprofits get up and running if you need help or know someone who needs help with starting their non-profit please subscribe to this channel because i do drop a video every week okay so today i'm just going to run through some important non-profit paperwork you just need to have available simply because nonprofits are held accountable for record keeping and making sure they are transparent about their operations so there are just some paperwork or some forms you just need to have available and also if you want to apply for things like grants you're going to need certain documentation readily available and also it's just good record keeping to have all of your records in one place so i'm going to just throw out a couple of examples of paperwork that you should have handy for your nonprofit organization first things first you have to have your formation documents now because you set up your non-profit in your state and i always say every form is different this is going to look different depending on what state you're in but first things first in order to incorporate in your state you had to submit some kind of documentation you might have submitted a separate piece of paper that had your articles on it or you filled out a form whatever you submitted keep a copy of that but also keep a copy of what you got in return some states call it a certificate of organization whatever it is to confirm that you are an organization and you're actually legit you need to keep that information as well okay because a lot of times funders and other people interested in your organization are going to ask for your formation documents which is more than just your 501c3 letter your 501c3 letter is separate it's not actually a formation document so especially for things like your formation documents i have a non-profit mini kit which as a part of it it includes a table of contents for your corporate binder and a little index and cover sheets that you can use for your binder so you might want to check that out in the description box below to help you organize your own corporate binder another letter you want to keep is what you received when you signed up for your ein so your employee identification number with the irs you can just go online and they'll give you a pdf which has that number keep that number handy because once you apply for 501c3 status that number becomes your 501c3 number that leads me to my next one have your 501c3 letter handy okay this is a very important piece of documentation almost every funder who's going to fund you is going to ask for this also if you want just certain perks or certain discounts and things like that most vendors are going to want to see your 501c3 letter they're going to want more than just your number so it's important to keep this document in a safe place because the irs doesn't always just redistribute or resend out those letters other types of forms you want to think about is thinking more about the state level again there are certain things you have to have in place to be compliant with your state so for example you might have to fill out an annual form you want to keep copies of anything that you submit for your annual form or any confirmation you got from that you may need some kind of certificate of good standing and that's a piece of documentation that you would need especially if you're doing business within your state you also want to think about any property tax exemptions or sales tax exemptions anything that you receive to give you exemption from certain purchases you want to keep that as well because you're going to have to submit that information often and then you need to think about your charitable solicitation so i've talked about this in other videos but i'll go a little into detail here so in order to fundraise in most of the states you have to be approved for charitable solicitation so that means in order to ask for money from the residents in that state the state is going to require you to register with them so that they can make sure that you're a legit organization and so that they can protect their residents now every state has a different process has a different threshold for requirements of filling out the form they have different definitions of what they consider solicitation some states consider solicitation just having a donate button on your website this is a tricky area so any documentation you have around charitable solicitation especially in your home state which you should have and then in other states you want to keep handy just in case you're asked about that the other thing you want to think about is any licenses or permits so sometimes as a result of the type of business that you're doing you're going to need a business license or a permit to do the work so for example say that you do hair or you do some kind of things with beauty and in your state you're required to have a barber license or a different kind of license to do that work then that has really nothing to do with your non-profit status it has more to do with the actual business activities that you're carrying out so that just depends on your state and that depends on the type of business that you're doing but it's always worthwhile to check with your secretary of state in your state but also check at the county level as well because the county level depending on how your state is set up may have different requirements for licenses and permits as well so you want to check into all of that get get in good with the people at the state and the government offices so you can make sure that you're covering all your bases the other thing you want to think about are maybe leases or mortgages so obviously in our personal lives we keep that documentation but it's especially important when it comes to your non-profit especially because there's not one owner so you need to track down that information you don't want to have one person who only has access to that key information in case if people move on or people step down from their offices you can't access that information so that's important to have in store as well another thing you need to think about is your insurances so you absolutely need to have some kind of insurance coverage as a non-profit so you need to have at least like a general liability policy and director and officers insurance so your dno insurance and then based on the type of work you do you may need additional insurances but whatever you have in terms of your or your certificate of insurance you need to have that handy especially when it comes to contracts and grants and if you have to do some type of work or fill out some paperwork in order to complete the contracting process your contracting officer is going to need that information so always have that handy as well specifically related to the board you want to have a list of your board members you also want to have a list of their roles their terms and all of that also related to the board you want to have your meeting minutes so the irs suggests that you permanently keep all meeting minutes for your board so that means you're not destroying anything so you need to have some kind of mechanism for keeping all of that information organized and in one place and if the irs ever reaches out to you and needs that information you want to make sure it's easy to find another thing you want to think about and i'm not going to go too deep into this but i can't leave the video without mentioning this your financial accounting data so any information around your revenue your receipts for things that you receive and also receipts and invoices for things that you pay for you want to keep track of that and you want to have a system that helps you do your bookkeeping and your accounting so that you make sure that you're accounting for everything based on what the irs expects because when it's time for you to complete your 990 form you want to have all those records in place so you make your life easier and then the other thing you want to just keep track of is your 9.90 form so every year you should be submitting your 990 tax form whether that's the 990 n or the 990 ez or the full 990 form so you want to store that information and also sometimes funders will ask for your 990 forms especially if you don't have audited financial statements that will ask for your your tax form so you want to have that handy so that it's easy to access and you can send it to people right away okay so the reason why i wanted to cover this is because for many reasons you're going to have to supply certain information to appease your donors to appease your funders and maybe even your board members maybe even for internal purposes so you want to have some kind of mechanism or way to track all of this information so that it's easy to find so i wanted to throw this stuff out to you so you guys wouldn't be surprised or unprepared when you need it i would suggest you have some kind of spreadsheet or tracker form that tracks where all this information is but also this is so key y'all also for all the different accounts you may have to sign up for for like pay.gov and then your state may have multiple sites you want to keep track of those web addresses and the username and password information now i'm not going to speak to password security and all that but at least at a minimum have the web address and the username so that people can find this stuff because sometimes you don't look at this stuff except once a year and when it's time for you to submit your annual form if you have to do it online it's going to be so difficult to track down and so frustrating to track down that information so have it in one place that multiple people have access to so it's not difficult to find what you need okay y'all so i hope that was helpful again i have a mini kit that has a non-profit corporate binder it has a table of contents for that if you need help organizing that process for yourself so go ahead check out the description box to see the link for that below if you need any other assistance from me please reach out to me at .bostonthebudget.com and i will see you in the next video you