Lesson 10.3: Running Financial Statements and Budget Reports
The core requirement of any nonprofit accounting system is the ability to produce accurate, FASB-compliant financial statements for the Board of Directors, funding sources, and management. FastFund Online is designed to generate these reports automatically based on your daily transaction entries, without the need for complex manual spreadsheets.
This lesson covers how to run the standard Financial Statements (Statement of Activities, Statement of Financial Position, Cash Flow) and how to generate Budget Comparison reports to monitor your organization’s fiscal health.
1. Standard Financial Statements
FastFund’s financial statements are designed to be compliant with FASB 116 and 117 (now ASU 2016-14). By default, these reports are “multi-layered,” meaning they can print your Organization Totals, followed by totals for each Fund, and totals for each Cost Center (Program/Department).
Key Financial Statements:
• Statement of Activities (Revenue and Expense): Reports the organization’s financial performance over a specific period. It details support and revenue, expenses, and the change in net assets.
• Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet): Reports assets, liabilities, and net assets at a specific point in time (“As of Date”).
• Statement of Functional Expenses: A matrix report detailing expenses by natural classification (e.g., Salaries, Rent) across functional areas (e.g., Program Services, Management & General, Fundraising).
• Statement of Cash Flow: Shows how changes in balance sheet and income accounts affected cash and cash equivalents. Note: This requires specific Account Designators to be set up in the Chart of Accounts.
• Statement of Activities and Changes in Net Assets: Combines the revenue and expense activity with the beginning and ending net asset balances for the period.
2. Report Parameters and Options
When running financial statements, you have several options to customize the output:
• Date Range vs. As of Date:
◦ Revenue/Expense Reports: Require a Date Range (Start and End Date). You can run these across fiscal years (e.g., for a grant year).
◦ Position Reports: Require an As of Date. These reports are always generated based on the fiscal year structure.
• Org Totals Only: Check this box if you want a summary report for the whole organization without breaking it down by Fund or Cost Center pages.
• Round to Whole Amounts: Useful for Board presentations where cents are not material.
• Rollup Cost Centers: If you have a multi-tiered structure (e.g., Program > Location), checking this summarizes data at the top level. Unchecking it shows every sub-cost center.
• Comparative Reports: You can enter a Comparative Date Range to generate a report that compares the current period against a prior period (e.g., This Year vs. Last Year) and calculates the dollar change.
3. Segment Filtering (The “Modified Financials” Warning)
By default, FastFund prints every account with a balance. However, you can filter reports to show only specific Funds or Cost Centers.
• How to Filter: inside the report window, look for the Segment Type dropdowns (Funds, Cost Centers). Uncheck “Select All” and check only the specific items you want to print (e.g., only the “Restricted Fund” or only the “Youth Program”).
• The Warning: If you filter out segments, the report header will display “Modified Financials – Does not include all account segments.” This is a control feature to alert readers that the report does not represent the organization’s entire financial picture.
4. Running Budget Reports
Budget reports allow you to compare your actual financial activity against the budget numbers you entered in Module 5.
Budget Comparison Report This is the most common management report. It displays:
1. Actual: What you spent/received.
2. Budget: What you planned to spend/receive.
3. Variance: The difference between the two.
4. Remaining: The annual budget minus actuals.
Understanding Variances: FastFund follows standard accounting logic for variances:
• Revenue: If Actual > Budget, the variance is Positive (Favorable). If Actual < Budget, the variance is Negative (Unfavorable).
• Expense: If Actual < Budget, the variance is Positive (Favorable). If Actual > Budget, the variance is Negative (Unfavorable).
Report Types:
• Year to Date: Compares YTD Actuals to YTD Budgets.
• Current Period and YTD: Shows columns for “This Month” (Actual vs Budget) and “Year to Date” (Actual vs Budget).
• Custom Range: Allows you to run a comparison for any specific date range (e.g., a specific quarter).
5. The Trending Report
The Trending Report is a powerful analytical tool that displays revenue and expenses in a spreadsheet-style format, with accounts listed down the left side and months listed across the top.
• Use Case: This helps identify seasonality in donations or spikes in expenses.
• Exporting: This report is ideal for exporting to Excel for further analysis or for use as a basis for creating next year’s budget.