Documentation
Everything you need to run your nonprofit's books.
Step-by-step guides for setup, recording money, reports, Form 990, and connecting NP Ledger to the tools you already use.
Start here
- Get set up The seven-step path from a new account to your first report.
- Learn fund accounting The core idea behind tracking every dollar by its purpose.
- Move from QuickBooks Turn your old QuickBooks classes into NP Ledger funds.
- File Form 990 What the IRS annual return is and how NP Ledger helps.
- Run books with AI Connect your AI assistant to do the bookkeeping with you.
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Set up your organization and record your first transactions, step by step.
- Adding Your Bank Accounts Set up the checking, savings, and payment accounts that every transaction in NP Ledger posts against.
- Setting Up Your First Fiscal Year Pick the right 12-month reporting period, and bring your opening balances over cleanly if you're switching systems.
- Setting Up Your Organization Set your nonprofit's name, EIN, and fiscal year so your reports and filings line up.
- Setup Checklist The seven-step path from a brand-new account to your first reconciled, reportable set of books.
- Understanding the Dashboard Your financial home base: cash, fund balances, and what needs attention at a glance.
- Walking Through the Setup Wizard A guided walk through setup — chart of accounts, funds, bank accounts, and opening balances in about ten minutes.
- Welcome to NP Ledger What NP Ledger does for nonprofits, and how to get your books started.
The fund-accounting concepts behind the numbers — explained plainly.
Enter money in and out — and bring your history along when you switch.
- Adjusting Entries Post the accountant's journal entries -- depreciation, accruals, reclasses -- directly, with both sides of every entry in your hands.
- Bill Detail Page Everything about a single bill in one place -- what's owed, what's been paid, and every linked payment.
- Converting from QuickBooks Online The QuickBooks reports to export so your books come across complete and correct — plus the export path for each and why it matters.
- Downloading Transactions from Your Bank Get a transaction file out of your bank's website when a direct feed isn't an option.
- GL Import Duplicate Detection Re-uploading a QuickBooks General Ledger export? NP Ledger flags what it's already seen before anything posts twice.
- Importing a Donation Platform Batch Turn one platform payout export into a per-donor receipt for every gift — fees broken out and ready to reconcile against the deposit.
- Importing Bank Statements Bring transactions in from a statement file when you'd rather not connect a live bank feed.
- Importing from Spreadsheets Bring months or years of history into NP Ledger in one validated batch instead of typing it in row by row.
- Importing Payroll Get payroll onto the books accurately, without re-keying every line from your payroll provider.
- Managing Bills & Accounts Payable Track what you owe and pay it on time -- record vendor bills now, settle them later, and always know what's due.
- Mapping Historical Account Codes Bringing years of history along? Map your old account codes onto NP Ledger's chart of accounts in one pass.
- Mapping QuickBooks Classes to Funds Coming from QuickBooks? Turn your old classes into NP Ledger funds so your history lands in the right place.
- Migrating from Manager.io Bring your bank and cash transaction history from Manager.io without starting over.
- Pending Entries Not sure where something goes yet? Park it as a placeholder and clean it up once you have the details.
- Quick Entry The fastest way to record money in and out — pick what happened in plain language, and the accounting takes care of itself.
- Recurring Transaction Detection NP Ledger spots the payments that repeat -- rent, dues, subscriptions -- and offers to set them on autopilot.
- Scanning Receipts Snap a photo and let AI read the vendor, amount, and date straight into a transaction, receipt image attached.
- Transaction List Find, filter, and review every transaction your organization has recorded, all in one searchable place.
- Transaction Templates and Recurring Transactions Set up the entries you make every month once, and let NP Ledger post them on schedule.
- Understanding Transaction Types What the colored kind labels on each transaction mean, and how the Money Trail panel traces where the money went.
- Voice Entry Record a donation or expense by speaking a single sentence. NP Ledger transcribes it and fills in the form.
Record gifts, automate online donations, and send year-end statements.
- DAF Grants & Soft-Credit Acknowledgments Record a donor-advised fund grant to the right legal donor, then credit the human advisor behind it so you remember to thank them.
- Donation Notification Log Check whether donation receipt emails were sent, see why one failed, and resend it.
- Donor Giving Statements Generate the year-end tax receipts your donors need, automatically, from the gifts you've already recorded.
- Fund Allocation Rules Send each incoming donation to the right fund automatically, so you never reclassify gifts by hand.
- How Automatic Donation Recording Works How donations from Stripe, PayPal, and other platforms land in your books automatically.
- How Donor Giving Works, End to End The map that ties it all together — how every gift, from any source, becomes a donor record, a thank-you, a reconciled deposit, and a year-end statement.
- In-Kind Contributions (Non-Cash Donations) Record non-cash gifts (donated goods, services, and volunteer time) at fair value, and capture the full scope of support your nonprofit receives.
- Pass-Through and Agency Contributions When you collect donations to forward to another organization, here's how to record them as a liability, not revenue.
- Pledges and Promises to Give Record a donor's promise to give, track what's still outstanding, and let NP Ledger measure multi-year pledges at present value for you.
- Recording GoFundMe Donations GoFundMe doesn't connect to NP Ledger directly — here's how the money actually reaches you, and how to get every gift into your books without double-counting the deposit.
- Setting Up a Donation Connection Connect Stripe, PayPal, Givebutter, or Donorbox so every online gift records itself, fees and all, within seconds.
Day-to-day upkeep — accounts, funds, budgets, reconciliation, and feeds.
- Bank Account Details Everything about one bank or cash account: its balance, its feed, and the transactions flowing through it.
- Bank and Cash See every bank and cash account at a glance, and keep each one tied to the right place in your books.
- Bank Feeds Connect Mercury or your bank through Plaid so new transactions flow in on their own — no file downloads.
- Bank Reconciliation Match your books to your bank statement every month: the single most important check that your numbers are right.
- Chart of Accounts The filing system that classifies every dollar flowing through your nonprofit.
- Closing an Accounting Period Lock a finished month or year so the numbers stay put, so no one can backdate an entry into closed books.
- Creating and Managing Budgets Plan the year's income and spending, then track your actual numbers against the plan as the year unfolds.
- Creating a New Account Add a new account to your chart of accounts and put it to work in a couple of minutes.
- Funds and Programs Organize your money by where it can be spent and which part of your mission it supports.
- Managing Supporters and Vendors Keep your supporters and vendors in tidy lists that feed donations, bills, and your 1099s.
- Merging Duplicate Accounts Two accounts for the same thing? Merge them into one and bring every transaction, bill, and budget along.
- Settling Payouts and Clearing Balances Match the lump-sum deposit from Stripe, PayPal, or Givebutter back to the donations behind it, fees and all.
- Transaction Tags Tag transactions with the labels that matter to you -- events, campaigns, grants -- and slice your reports by them.
- Viewing an Account Register The checkbook-style view of every posted transaction in an account, with a running balance you can filter and trace.
- Budget vs. Actual Report Compare planned spending to reality and catch variances before they become problems.
- CPA and Accountant Tools A dashboard built for your accountant and a one-click export package that matches the standard audit request list.
- Foundation vs. Government Grants Different funders, different rules — how to treat each kind of grant.
- Fund Transactions Report Prove to a grantor exactly how their restricted gift was spent.
- General Ledger Trace every posted entry behind an account balance, the way your auditor will.
- Grant Budget Enforcement & Amendments Stop grant overspending at the moment of entry, and change an approved budget the right way — with an approval trail.
- Grant Dashboard Track every grant's budget, spending, and remaining balance in one view.
- Grant Revenue Recognition When grant money becomes revenue — and why it sometimes waits.
- Liquidity & Availability See how much of your money is actually free to spend on general operations in the next year.
- Processing Fees Report See exactly what payment processors took out, so your donation revenue and the fees both land on the books.
- Program Report See revenue and expenses side by side for each program you run.
- Running Reports Generate the financial statements your board, auditor, and funders expect.
- Statement of Activities See revenue and expenses by net asset class, the report your board reviews most.
- Statement of Cash Flows Follow the cash moving in and out of your organization, separate from accrual income.
- Statement of Financial Position A clear snapshot of what your organization owns, owes, and holds in net assets.
- Statement of Functional Expenses Show how much of your budget goes to programs versus management and fundraising.
- Subaward Monitoring Checking in on a subrecipient during the award — what to look at and how often.
- Subawards and Subrecipients When you pass federal grant money to a partner organization — what to track and why.
- Subrecipient Risk Assessment The pre-award checklist that sets how closely you'll watch a subrecipient.
- Supporter Transactions Report Review a donor's full giving history before a meeting or a year-end statement.
- Trial Balance Confirm your books are mathematically balanced before you trust any other report.
Stay IRS-ready — Form 990, 1099s, and pre-flight compliance checks.
- 1099 Contractor Tracking Flag contractors year-round and see who crosses the 1099 filing threshold, so January never catches you off guard.
- Form 990 Overview What the IRS annual return is, which version you file, and how NP Ledger prepares it.
- IRS Compliance Checks Automated pre-flight checks that surface the gaps and red flags an auditor would look for, before you file your 990.
- Using the 990 Wizard Prepare your annual IRS filing data step by step, ready for your tax preparer.
Connect NP Ledger to your AI assistant, donation platforms, and bank feeds.
Configure your account — billing, users, access, and the audit log.
- Audit Log A permanent, searchable record of who changed what and when, the page you open when something looks off.
- Authorizing and Managing Support Access Give our support team time-limited, read-only access only when you want it, and revoke it the moment you're done.
- Billing and Plans Compare Starter, Standard, and Professional, change your plan, and manage payment details, all through Stripe.
- Exporting Your Data Your books are yours. Download every transaction, contact, and fund as CSV whenever you want a backup or a migration.
- Inviting and Managing Team Members Give your bookkeeper, treasurer, or CPA their own login with exactly the access they need.
- Managing Officers and Directors Keep your board roster current, so it feeds straight into Form 990 Part VII and the gap checker.
- Organization Settings Set your nonprofit's name, EIN, fiscal year, officers, and receipts: the details that flow into your reports and 990.
- Setting Compliance Deadlines Keep tax filings, grant reports, and board dates on your dashboard so nothing slips past.
- Switching Between Organizations Manage more than one nonprofit? Move between them in a single click, no logging out.
- User Roles and Permissions Owner, admin, accountant, member, or viewer: see exactly what each role can do so you grant the right access.
- Your Account and Security Lock down your login with a strong password, two-factor authentication, and session controls.
Fixes for the snags that come up, and how to get a hand when you're stuck.
- A Donation Came In But Wasn't Recorded If an online gift didn't land in your books, here's how to find the missed connection and record it. Your money's safe.
- Common Error Messages Plain-language explanations for the messages you might run into, and the quickest way to clear each one.
- Getting Help Three built-in ways to get unstuck without leaving NP Ledger: an AI assistant, a searchable guide, and a setup walkthrough.
- Payout Does Not Match Bank Deposit When a platform payout and your bank deposit don't match, here's how to find the difference and settle it cleanly.
Ready to try NP Ledger?
Native fund accounting, Form 990 support, and smarter bookkeeping for nonprofits.