Liquidity & Availability

The Liquidity & Availability report answers a plain question that keeps a lot of treasurers up at night: of all the money we're holding, how much can we actually spend on general operations in the coming year? It starts with your financial assets at a point in time — cash, receivables, and investments — and then subtracts the amounts that are spoken for: gifts a donor restricted, an endowment you can't touch, and reserves your board has set aside. What's left is the money that's genuinely free to meet day-to-day needs.

This is the quantitative liquidity disclosure that ASU 2016-14 asks every nonprofit to include with its financial statements (ASC 958-210-45-1).

A big bank balance can be misleading. A nonprofit can look flush on paper while most of that cash is a restricted grant that has to go to one specific program, or an endowment whose principal can never be spent. When a board member asks "can we cover three more months of payroll?", the total in the bank isn't the honest answer — the available number is. This report draws that line for you, so you can walk into a board meeting or an audit knowing exactly how much cushion you really have.

• Posted transactions through the date you want to report as of
• Funds set up with the right type (restricted, board-designated) and, for endowments, a restriction purpose — that's what tells the report which money to carve out

Running the report

1. Go to Reports > Liquidity & Availability (in the sidebar).
2. Set the "As of" date — this is a point-in-time snapshot, like the Statement of Financial Position, so you pick one date rather than a range.
3. Click "Apply."

This is an organization-wide disclosure, so there's no fund or program filter — it always looks at the whole entity.

Reading the report

Financial assets at period end — Your cash, receivables, and investments as of the date you chose. Property and equipment, prepaid expenses, and non-cash accounts are left out on purpose: a building can't be spent to make payroll next month.

Less: amounts unavailable within one year — The money that's already committed, broken into up to three lines:

• Restricted by donors for a specific purpose or time — gifts a donor said must go to a particular program or can't be used until later.
• Donor-restricted endowment funds — money held as endowment, where the principal is meant to stay invested.
• Board-designated funds — reserves your own board has set aside. (These are still technically available — the board can un-designate them — but they're shown here because they're not part of general operating money unless the board frees them up.)
• Financial assets not available within one year (long-dated) — appears only if you've marked an account "Not available within one year" (see What to Check below): a receivable you won't collect for over a year, or investments held in an annuity trust.

Financial assets available for general expenditure within one year — the bottom line: financial assets minus everything unavailable. This is the number to quote when someone asks how much you can actually spend.

Below that, an Assets excluded from financial assets section lists the property, prepaid items, and non-cash accounts that were left out, so you can see the report's work rather than take it on faith.

Exporting the report

1. Click "CSV" for a spreadsheet version.
2. Click "PDF" for a formatted document suitable for board packets and audit binders.

• Your fund types and restriction purposes are set correctly. The report can only carve out restricted, endowment, and board-designated money if your funds are tagged that way. If the "unavailable" lines look too small, a restricted fund is probably set up as a general fund.
• The available figure feels right. If it comes out negative or surprisingly low, read the assumption notes at the bottom — this V1 version treats all restricted and board-designated money as unavailable, which is deliberately cautious.
• Long-dated receivables and annuity-trust investments. If you're owed a pledge that won't be collected for a couple of years, or you hold investments in a charitable annuity trust, that money isn't really available within a year. Mark the account "Not available within one year" (its liquidity horizon, on the account's edit page) and the report carves it out for you. Conversely, a donor-restricted pledge you will collect within the year can be marked "Available within one year" so it stays in the available figure. One caution: don't mark your endowment or board-designated investment accounts long-dated — that money is already carved out by the endowment and board-designated lines, so marking it again would subtract it twice.

• Reading "available" as "everything we could ever spend." It's specifically the money free for general operations within one year. Restricted gifts are still yours to spend — just on what the donor said, not on general operations.
• Expecting board-designated money to be treated like a hard restriction. It isn't a donor restriction — your board can release it. The report shows it as unavailable because it's set aside, but that's a decision you control.
• Confusing this with the Statement of Cash Flows. Cash Flows shows how cash moved over a period. This report shows how much of your money is free to spend at a moment in time. Different questions.

Accountant note: This is the quantitative liquidity and availability disclosure required by ASC 958-210-45-1 and 958-210-50-1 through -50-6 (added by ASU 2016-14). It presents financial assets available to meet cash needs for general expenditures within one year of the balance-sheet date, reduced by amounts unavailable because of donor restrictions, donor-restricted endowment corpus, and board designations. NP Ledger measures the donor-restriction and board-designation reductions from net-asset balances and subtracts them from the financial-asset total — the common presentation, though it can over-reduce when restricted amounts are held in non-financial form (e.g., a donor-restricted building). A per-account liquidity horizon signal handles the time dimension the ASU illustration carves separately (ASC 958-205-55-21, Note G): a financial asset marked "Not available within one year" (a receivable collectible beyond a year, investments held in an annuity trust) is carved out, and a donor-restricted receivable marked "Available within one year" is kept available (added back to the donor reduction). Long-term investments are not a horizon line — they are already removed through the endowment / board-designated net-asset reductions, so their backing accounts must not be horizon-marked (that would double-count). This remains a pre-CPA V1: the horizon signal is coarse (per account, so an org splits e.g. current vs noncurrent receivables into separate accounts), and unmarked receivables/investments are still counted at full balance. Review the availability figure against your facts before relying on it for the audited disclosure.