Saturday, April 21, 2012

Financial Statement Presentation for Non Profits

There seems to be some confusion as to if non-profit entities are required to present a Cash Flow Statement with the "historic" Balance Sheet and Income Statement.  FASB Statement 117 clears it all up and YES VIRGINIA, the Cash Flow statement is required along with the Balance Sheet and Income Statement for financial statemet presentation by a Non Profit. 
Fasb 117 rquirements are studied below:

Summary of Statement No. 117
Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Organizations (Issued 6/93)
Summary
This Statement establishes standards for general-purpose external financial statements provided by a not-for-profit organization. Its objective is to enhance the relevance, understandability, and comparability of financial statements issued by those organizations. It requires that those financial statements provide certain basic information that focuses on the entity as a whole and meets the common needs of external users of those statements.  (Questions about the use of depreciation often arise when there is no tax consequence to a nonprofit)
This Statement requires that all not-for-profit organizations provide a statement of financial position, a statement of activities, and a statement of cash flows. It requires reporting amounts for the organization's total assets, liabilities, and net assets in a statement of financial position; reporting the change in an organization's net assets in a statement of activities; and reporting the change in its cash and cash equivalents in a statement of cash flows.
This Statement also requires classification of an organization's net assets and its revenues, expenses, gains, and losses based on the existence or absence of donor-imposed restrictions. It requires that the amounts for each of three classes of net assets-permanently restricted, temporarily restricted, and unrestricted-be displayed in a statement of financial position and that the amounts of change in each of those classes of net assets be displayed in a statement of activities.