Industries · nonprofits & churches
Fund accounting, kept by someone who's sat on the board side.
Twenty years at board level with a national nonprofit. Five years keeping a church's books. Your designated funds, restricted gifts, and grant dollars — tracked so your board can always answer for every one of them.
Operational bookkeeping only — no Form 990 preparation, no audit work. We make both easy for the professionals who do them.
In brief
Nonprofit bookkeeping, in plain terms.
What's different about nonprofit books?
Accountability replaces profit as the organizing principle: money is tracked by purpose — operating, donor-restricted, grant-bound — so the board can always show each dollar honored its terms. That's fund accounting, and it's our daily work.
Why Westgate for this?
Because David spent twenty years at board level with a national nonprofit and five keeping a church's books — your reports are built by someone who has sat where your board sits and knows what they need to govern.
Do you do the Form 990?
No — that's tax work and we're not a CPA firm, plainly stated. We deliver the clean fund-level books and documentation that make your 990 preparer's job fast and your filing defensible.
What does it cost?
Published framing, same as everywhere: monthly from ~$450 (typical $450–$1,500), cleanup typically $1,500–$5,000 — fixed fees in writing after a free review. Pricing →
The differentiator
Books read by someone who has sat on the board side.
Most bookkeepers learn nonprofits from a chart-of-accounts template. David learned them from the boardroom: twenty years of board-level financial work with For Kids' Sake, Inc., a national nonprofit — two decades of reading the reports trustees actually have to govern from, asking the questions funders ask, and carrying the accountability a board carries.
That changes what your bookkeeping looks like. Fund balances aren't an afterthought column — they're the headline. Budget-versus-actual reads like a sentence, not a spreadsheet. And when something needs the board's attention, it's flagged in plain English before the meeting, not discovered after it. The vignettes are on the about page — including the program-design moment that twenty-year relationship produced, and a county conservation district guided through grant-billing rules.
Funds tracked by purpose
Operating, designated, restricted, and grant money each in its own lane — never silently blended.
Board-ready reporting
Statement of activities, financial position, fund balances, budget-vs-actual — readable by a volunteer trustee. The senior read →
Grant-compliance bookkeeping
Spending matched to grant purpose and timeline, documentation a funder or auditor will ask for, kept as you go.
The work, concretely
What nonprofit bookkeeping includes here.
Fund-level books, reconciled monthly
Every account reconciled to source, every transaction coded to its fund — the monthly close, run to the same by-the-10th standard as every file.
Designated & restricted giving
Donor restrictions honored in the books from the day the gift lands; board designations tracked so they're spendable on purpose, never by accident.
The board packet, monthly
Activities, position, fund balances, budget-vs-actual, and the plain-English note — in the board's hands before the meeting.
990-ready handoff
Year-end books and documentation organized for your CPA or 990 preparer — the filing is theirs; the readiness is ours.
Not in scope, plainly
Form 990 preparation, audits, and tax advice — CPA work. Donor tax letters' tax content — your tax professional. We make all of it easier; we don't do it.
Churches, specifically
Five real years of church books.
Church bookkeeping is its own rhythm: weekly giving counted and recorded with controls a congregation can trust, designated funds — the building fund, the missions fund, the roof fund — kept visibly separate, benevolence handled with discretion and documentation, and a treasurer or finance team that changes every few years without the books losing their memory.
David kept the books of Lincoln City Church of the Nazarene for five years. The reserve-planning moment from those years — a designated Roof Fund proposed when giving covered the present but not the future — is told in his words on the about page. The point here is simpler: when your church hands its books to Westgate, the person setting the standard has carried a church's trust before.
Weekly giving, recorded with controls
Counted, recorded, and reconciled in a way two unrelated people can vouch for.
Designated funds with memory
Every fund's history travels with the books — treasurers change; the record doesn't blink.
A board that can answer
Reports an elder board or finance committee can read, defend, and govern from.
Treasurer transition coming, or funds that have drifted? A free review tells your board exactly where the books stand.
Free books assessment
A nonprofit's books carry something a business's don't: other people's trust, given for a purpose. Twenty years on a board taught me what it feels like to answer for that trust. The bookkeeping I'll put my name to is the kind that makes answering easy.
Twenty years with a national nonprofit. Six years at a resort hotel — spa, restaurants, and golf course. Five years with a church. He has seen these books from the inside.
Nonprofit & church FAQ
The questions boards and treasurers ask.
Books behind or tangled? Start with a cleanup. More industries: who we serve →
For boards, treasurers & directors
Get your funds reviewed — free, board-honest.
A senior operator looks at where your books stand — fund by fund — and tells you the truth with a fixed-fee scope in writing. No pressure; your mission isn't a sales target.