Not-for-profits and community organisations
Alpine Accounts provides bookkeeping and management accounts for not-for-profits, charities, clubs and community organisations across the Fraser Coast and Australia. The defining difference from a trading business is that much of the money is not freely spendable: grants come with conditions and acquittal deadlines, donations may be restricted to a purpose, and the committee or board needs reporting they can actually govern from. The work is about keeping restricted and unrestricted funds clearly separate and making acquittal a by-product rather than a project.
Grants are not revenue, they are obligations
A grant arrives as cash but carries conditions: spend it on this, by then, and prove it. Organisations that treat it as ordinary income discover at acquittal time that they cannot evidence where it went, and reconstructing that under deadline is miserable and sometimes impossible.
Tracked properly, each grant is its own cost centre from the day it lands. Expenditure is coded against it as it happens, so the acquittal report is something you print rather than something you assemble.
Restricted and unrestricted funds
A healthy looking bank balance means very little if most of it is committed to a specific purpose. Boards routinely make decisions on a cash figure that is far less available than it appears.
Separating restricted from unrestricted funds in the reporting is what lets a committee see what it can actually decide about, which is the core of governing an organisation responsibly.
Reporting a volunteer committee can read
Committee members are usually volunteers with other jobs, not finance people. A twelve page report nobody reads is a governance risk, not a control.
We produce reporting that answers the questions a committee actually has: where we are against budget, what is committed, what is free, and what needs a decision this month.
Common questions
Can you produce grant acquittal reports?
Yes. Each grant is tracked as its own cost centre from the outset, so expenditure against it is coded as it happens and the acquittal report comes straight out of the books rather than being reconstructed at the deadline.
Do you work with volunteer treasurers?
Often. The usual arrangement is that we handle the day to day processing and reconciliation while the treasurer retains oversight and reports to the committee. It removes the burden without removing the accountability.
Can you handle ACNC reporting?
We keep the underlying records and produce the financial information that reporting draws on. The statutory return itself should be reviewed and lodged by your registered agent or auditor.