Sheikh Osher & Scott CPAs & Advisors

To the finance teams at nonprofits and community health centers reading this on Labor Day.

Labor Day is a day for the work that keeps organizations running. A lot of that work is loud. Manufacturing. Construction. Healthcare delivery.

Some of it is not.

The work your finance function carried through August was not visible. It rarely is. Form 990 filings that closed cleanly. Grant reimbursement cycles that stayed on track. Board packets that answered the questions the board actually had.

None of it made the news.

That does not mean it did not matter.

The nonprofit and community health center sector runs on the quiet discipline of finance functions that hold the line month after month. The scaffolding that keeps programs delivering, staff getting paid, and boards making informed decisions is built by finance teams whose work is only noticed when it fails.

Today, rest. Fall audit season starts tomorrow. The next one has already been set up by the quiet work you did this summer.

Happy Labor Day.

September is the most underused month in the nonprofit and community health center finance calendar.

For the organizations you compete with for funding, staff, and board attention, this is the month they are quietly planning. Board packets for October are being drafted. Annual budgets are being roughed out. Salary studies are being scoped. Fall audit prep is being finalized.

For the organizations that treat September as the quiet month between summer and Q4, October arrives with a scramble that never quite ends.

The nonprofits and community health centers that navigate the fall with clarity are not the ones with more resources. They are the ones who used September for what it actually is: the planning window.

If your finance function has not scheduled strategic work this month, that gap becomes the shape of Q4.

Sheikh, Osher & Scott CPAs works with nonprofits and community health centers on the audit, tax, and outsourced CFO support that turns September planning into October ex*****on.

The 990 filing window just closed for March 31 fiscal year-end nonprofits.

If it was painful, that is worth paying attention to.

Filing season is diagnostic. It reveals what your finance function looks like under pressure. The systems that hold up. The processes that break. The information that is easy to find versus the information you had to reconstruct.

If any of these applied to your organization this year, they will apply again next year unless something changes:

Your team reconstructed transactions instead of retrieving them.

Program descriptions were written from scratch instead of updated.

Compensation data required multiple back-and-forth clarifications.

Governance policies were reviewed for the first time in over a year.

The audit and 990 were treated as separate exercises instead of connected ones.

Filing season is not just about compliance. It is a stress test of your finance function. The nonprofits that treat the post-filing window as a chance to improve are the ones that make next year's cycle easier.

At Sheikh, Osher & Scott CPAs, we work with nonprofits and community health centers on the audit and tax support that makes next year's filing season easier than this one.

Form 990 deadline today for March 31 fiscal year-end nonprofits and September 30 fiscal year-end organizations that filed a Form 8868 extension in February.

Three scenarios today:

If your organization filed on time, well done. Confirm the IRS acceptance notice is captured and filed. The return is not done until that acceptance is in hand.

If you are filing today, take the time you need. A rushed return with errors creates more work than a submission at 11 pm. Focus on Part VII, Schedule O narratives, and Schedule B if applicable.

If your organization missed the deadline, address it now. Every day past the deadline adds penalty exposure at 25 dollars per day for smaller organizations (gross receipts under 1.3 million dollars) and 130 dollars per day for larger ones. Three consecutive years of non-filing triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status. Do not let that clock start.

To the nonprofit finance teams closing out this filing today, the work you did to get here mattered. Filing a 990 on time is quiet work, and quiet work rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

5 days until the Form 990 deadline for nonprofits with a March 31 fiscal year-end.

Also relevant if your organization operates on a September 30 fiscal year-end and filed a Form 8868 extension by the original February 16 deadline. Your extended deadline is Monday, August 17.

If your finance team is closing the return this week, three final checks worth running:

Verify compensation data in Part VII against W-2s and board-approved compensation for every listed officer and key employee. Discrepancies here are the most common trigger for IRS follow-up.

Reconcile total revenue on the 990 against your audited financial statements. Any variance without a written explanation raises questions.

Confirm Schedule O narratives are complete for every question that requires one. Blank Schedule O responses are a red flag reviewers notice.

Extensions are standard practice. But once the extended deadline passes, penalties begin at 25 dollars per day for smaller organizations (gross receipts under 1.3 million dollars) and 130 dollars per day for larger ones.

If you need a same-week second set of eyes on your 990, our nonprofit team is available this week.