--- title: "Rationara — bookkeeping & accounting for nonprofits and associations" description: "Done-for-you nonprofit bookkeeping: we categorize every transaction, track restricted funds and grants, reconcile accounts, and close your books monthly. Board-ready reports, flat pricing from $100/month." url: "https://rationara.com" source: "https://rationara.com/index.md" route: "/" site: "Rationara" updated: "2026-08-25" --- # Your outsourced accounting department. Without the overhead. *Bookkeeping & accounting for nonprofits and associations* Our mission is simple: save your organization time and money while helping you stay financially organized and compliant. Rationara combines nonprofit accounting experts with purpose-built technology to handle your bookkeeping, fund accounting, reconciliations, monthly close, financial reporting, and more — so you can spend less time managing your books and more time advancing your mission. - Fund accounting - Monthly close - Board-ready reports - Audit trail on every entry ## You may need Rationara if… - Your Executive Director is doing bookkeeping. - Your treasurer is maintaining spreadsheets. - You're paying an outside bookkeeper, and the cost is too high for your organization. - Your books are several months behind. - Restricted funds are tracked separately in Excel. - Preparing for your board meeting is stressful. - Your accountant has to clean everything up at year-end. - You can't justify hiring a full-time accountant. - You worry that important financial details are falling through the cracks. If any of this sounds familiar, that’s exactly what Rationara was built to solve. ## Three ways to run your books Hiring in-house means salary, training, and turnover. Traditional outsourcing means hourly bills and variable quality. Rationara was built to be the third option. | Hiring in-house | Traditional outsourced accounting | Rationara | | --- | --- | --- | | Salary + benefits | Hourly billing | One predictable monthly fee | | Recruiting and turnover | Variable costs | No employee to hire or manage | | General accounting knowledge | Expertise varies by provider | U.S.-based nonprofit accounting experts | | Training and supervision | May use offshore teams | 100% U.S.-based accounting team | | Accounting software costs | Disconnected systems | Purpose-built technology included | | Limited backup coverage | Staff availability varies | Dedicated accounting team | | Month-end close depends on staff | Close process varies | Monthly close included | | Reporting requires staff time | Limited visibility | Board-ready financial reporting | | Higher fixed overhead | Costs grow with hours | Built for efficiency and affordability | ## Built around how nonprofit money actually works Generic bookkeeping treats your organization like a small business. But nonprofit money comes with strings: a donor restricts a gift to one program, a grant must be spent by a deadline, and your Form 990 needs expenses split across program, management, and fundraising. When those distinctions live in a spreadsheet on the side, they drift — and untangling them at audit time is expensive. Rationara tracks restrictions on the ledger itself. Every transaction can carry a fund, a grant, and a program class, so your statement of activities, functional expenses, and fund balances fall out of the books automatically — not from a year-end reconstruction. ## What working with us looks like Three things happen every month, and only one of them involves you. ### We do the books Transactions flow in daily from your bank and credit card feeds. Our bookkeepers categorize each one, match receipts you forward by email, and apply the rules we’ve learned about your organization. Nothing posts to the ledger until a person has reviewed it. ### You answer questions, not spreadsheets When something needs your judgment — “Is this $1,200 payment to Hillside Print for the gala or general outreach?” — we send a short question to your portal. You answer in a sentence, from any device. That’s your entire monthly workload. ### Your board sees clean reports Once your month is reconciled and closed, we publish a report package to your portal: statement of activities, balance sheet, budget vs. actual, and fund balances. Board members and your treasurer see the same numbers you do — as of a locked, reconciled period. Read the full monthly workflow on [How it works](https://rationara.com/how-it-works). ## What you get, every single month Bookkeeping services are easy to promise and hard to pin down. So here is the concrete list — the deliverables a month of Rationara produces, on a date you can put in your board calendar. Reports are ready by the 10th business day on the Core plan, the 20th on Essential. If we’re ever going to miss that, you hear from us before the date — not after. - **Every transaction categorized** — Reviewed by a person, with fund, grant, and program class where they apply. - **Every account reconciled** — Bank and credit card accounts tied to their statements, line by line, then locked. - **A formal month-end close** — Checklist-verified and approved by an accountant; the period locks afterward. - **The published report package** — Statement of activities, balance sheet, budget vs. actual, and fund balances. - **Receipts filed where they belong** — Matched to their transactions and attached to the entry — over $250, required. - **Your questions, answered** — A reply from your bookkeeper within one business day, all month long. ## Everything a nonprofit ledger has to carry These aren’t add-ons — they’re built into the platform your books live on. The full detail is on [What we handle](https://rationara.com/what-we-handle). - **Fund accounting** — Unrestricted, temporarily restricted, and permanently restricted funds, with release conditions tracked by time, use, or event. - **Grant tracking** — Each grant tied to its fund and spending, so you always know what's left and what's been released. - **Donors & pledges** — Pledge schedules and donor giving history, connected to the actual deposits on your ledger. - **Receipt inbox** — Forward receipts by email; we read them, match them to bank transactions, and attach them to the entry. - **Bank feeds** — Secure read-only connections to your bank and credit card accounts, so nothing gets typed in by hand. - **Monthly close** — A formal checklist-driven close that locks each period once it's reconciled, reviewed, and approved. - **20+ built-in reports** — From statement of activities and functional expenses to fund P&L, budget vs. actual, and trial balance. - **Audit log** — Who changed what, and when — every ledger-relevant action recorded, ready for your auditor. ## We built the technology too Not another accounting firm using the same old tools Rationara’s accounting platform was designed around the work our accountants actually perform — transaction review, restricted funds, grants, receipts, reconciliation, monthly close, and reporting. That means fewer spreadsheets, fewer emails, fewer handoffs, and less manual work. Better technology makes our accountants more productive — and that makes professional accounting affordable for smaller organizations. ## A portal your whole leadership can use You and your board don’t log into accounting software. You log into a plain-language portal: current cash position, this month’s questions from your bookkeeper, and every published report package — nothing to configure, nothing to break. Invite your treasurer, program directors, or office manager with their own logins. Everyone reads from the same closed books, so the “which version of the spreadsheet is right?” conversation disappears. [See the full portal walkthrough](https://rationara.com/portal) ## Simple, published pricing Two plans, priced flat by your annual revenue — no hourly billing, no surprise invoices, no long-term contract. **Essential** covers straightforward, mostly unrestricted books; **Core** adds custom funds, grants, and program classes, accrual accounting, and a faster monthly close. The full fee table by revenue band is on the [pricing page](https://rationara.com/pricing) — most organizations can find their exact number before ever talking to us. - **Essential — From $100 /month** — Cash-basis books, standard nonprofit chart of accounts, reports by the 20th business day. - **Core — From $150 /month** — Funds, grants & program classes, cash or accrual, reports by the 10th business day. ## Talk to us about your books A 30-minute call with an accountant — not a salesperson. Bring your current setup, however messy. We'll tell you honestly what moving to Rationara would involve, including whether you're better served staying where you are.