Leadership & Fiscal Responsibility The first two chapters of Financial and Accounting Guide for Not-For-Profit Organizations, authored by Gross et al., explicitly relates to the financial practices that pertain to not-for-profit entities. Although many of the basic fundamental principles of these organizations are the same as those which are for profit, these chapters emphasize several facets of accounting that specifically pertain to the former. As such, it is interesting to note the way that these two chapters are structured and related to one another. The first chapter, "Responsibilities for Fiscal Management," denotes an overview of the practices that the financial manager (which is referred to within the text as a "treasurer") (Gross et al., 2008, p. 6) should undertake to keep a non-profit financially healthy. The second chapter flushes out this basic outline with many salient details that are pivotal to operations.

The basic responsibilities that a financial manager is...

All of these processes are intrinsically related with one another; it is advisable, for instance, to base one's budget on one's financial statements (Gross et al., 2008, p. 3 mine) and to implement measures such as financial controls to ensure quality assurance. Of particular interest in effecting financial controls is the proper management of donations to the non-profit. The first chapter concludes with information almost exclusively germane to non-profits, including properly reporting fundraising monies, categories of funds attained by endowments, and reasons for which it is necessary to aggregate reporting with external entities (Gross et al., 2008, p. 12-13) to ensure clarity.
Whereas…