For Your Bookkeeper

Starting off the next fiscal year with MonkeyPod and want to give your bookkeeper the information they need? Feel free to forward this article that is made especially for them!

General Overview of MonkeyPod

MonkeyPod is a fully integrated CRM, Accounting, Email Marketing, Fundraising, and Budgeting system for nonprofits. It is built by nonprofit people for nonprofit people. Want an intro to the software in general? Check out our Welcome to MonkeyPod YouTube Playlist.

In general, as a bookkeeper for an organization who is using MonkeyPod, most of what you need is either in Transactions or Reports. You may be doing some initial setup in our setup menu as well.

This menu is where you will track revenue and expenses:

Setting up MonkeyPod

The setup for the Chart of Accounts, Classes, and Tags can be found under the organization's name:

Accounts, Classes, and Tags

The accounting system in MonkeyPod is rooted in the concept of Accounts, Classes, and Tags.

To explain the concepts more clearly, we're going to use an example of a Graphic Design expense for an Annual Gala Fundraiser.

Accounts

Accounts in MonkeyPod are listed in the Chart of Accounts. You are doubtless already familiar with this concept. If you need a refresher, check out our article on the Chart of Accounts.

For our example, an expense for a graphic designer would come from the account 8403: Graphic Design.

In general an Account describes what the expense was, but doesn't give detail as to why we spent that money.

Classes 

Classes in MonkeyPod are likely a new way of classifying transactions. They are functional categories;  they give the why for the expense. MonkeyPod comes with four initial Classes.

  1. Management and General
  2. Programs and Services
  3. Fundraising
  4. Shared Expenses

In our example you can see that an expense is coming from the Graphic Design account and from here we can select the Fundraising class. 

(Want to know how we got to this screen? It's from "Transactions" -> "Write a Check." Want more guidance on where to click? Check out this YouTube playlist)

Can we make subclasses?

Yes! You can make subclasses and we recommend doing this for programs/services/fundraisers that you hold every year.

Tags

Tags are for management accounting purposes. They don't impact official financial statements, they're not connected to GAAP rules, and they are entirely optional. Tags can be extremely useful, though! MonkeyPod users use tags to track income and expenses related to events, fundraising campaigns, projects, chapter offices, and much more. 

Some bookkeepers even create a tag called "To Review". They'll use this tag to flag transactions that need management attention for proper categorization or other reasons. Once the review is complete, the tag can easily be removed.

For our graphic design example, we have tagged the transaction with "Annual Gala 2023." This means we will now be able to see this transactions from three levels: the Graphic Design account level, the Fundraising class level, and the Annual Gala 2023 tag level.

Creating a Demo Organization

If you are interested in seeing MonkeyPod in action before you commit to a Chart of Accounts/Classes/Tag schema you may want to launch a demo organization in MonkeyPod. Several of the bookkeepers we've worked with find this an easy way to see the system in action.

Financial Reports

MonkeyPod supports the big three non-profit financial reports: 

  • Statement of Activities
  • Statement of Financial Position
  • Statement of Functional Expenses

These can all be run with a single click, but can also be filtered and customized as needed. You can even save your customizations and come back to it later. 

Under the same menu, you'll find more accountant-oriented reports like the Trial Balance and General Ledger.

Online Banking Integration

MonkeyPod allows you to connect your bank accounts and credit card accounts through online banking. Once connected, MonkeyPod downloads new transactions automatically behind the scenes, around the clock. 

Transactions downloaded from online banking are not automatically recorded in MonkeyPod. Instead, you'll have the option to (1) match them to transactions you've already recorded (this will make reconciliations easier and faster), (2) add them "on the fly" based on the information received from the bank, or (3) ignore them altogether.

Many users do most of their bookkeeping through the online banking interface. While this is certainly possible, in general we think it's a bad habit to get into. Recording transactions directly through the normal interface allows for more detailed information and context to be captured, which is useful in myriad ways. It's a little bit slower, but you'll end up with better, richer data over time.