Certainty Report
We look at your books, grants, cash, and deadlines, then give you a plain-English report on what’s working, what’s at risk, and what to fix first.
$3,500 · fixed fee · about 2 weeks
The Three Certainties Quiz
Would your books survive a grant audit tomorrow?
Ten questions on cash, funder, and audit certainty. In three minutes, you’ll see your biggest gap and what to fix first.
01
The problem nobody names
Every grant you win makes your books harder to keep.
Each funder brings its own billing rules, paperwork, deadlines, and costs it won’t cover. Before long, your team is rebuilding the same report five different ways, invoicing late, and preparing for audits from memory.
Growth is what breaks the spreadsheet. We build the finance operation that lets your mission grow — without taking over your nights.
A founder’s perspective
“When Josh came on board, the finance side of the organization completely changed. He brought a level of organization, clarity, and financial oversight that allowed us to strengthen the foundation we were already building and ultimately helped change the trajectory of our organization.”
02
How it works
We find what’s at risk, build the system to fix it, and run it with your team until it holds.
Each stage has a clear scope and a clear end. You always know what you’re getting, what it costs, and what comes next.
Build
We create the budgets, grant Rulebooks, allocation rules, and monthly routines your team will run on.
Scoped after the Certainty Report · about 30 days
Operate
We run the new system alongside your bookkeeper until your team can handle the monthly work on its own.
Scoped after the Certainty Report · typically 60–90 days
03
What we build
We leave you with tools your whole team can use.
Your budgets, Rulebooks, and monthly reports live in your own accounts and belong to your organization. Your staff can work with them, your board can understand them, and an auditor can follow them.
Organizational budgetOne plan for the whole organization
Salary matrixHow every position is funded
Grant RulebooksWhat each grant allows, in plain language
Monthly finance pictureThe same clear view of your finances every month
04
See the standard
One page per grant.
Written in plain language, with every rule tied back to the grant agreement.
05
Experience behind the work
Fifteen years inside nonprofit finance.
I’m Joshua Gonzales. I’ve worked alongside nonprofit leaders through restricted grants, reimbursement contracts, shared staff, board reporting, and audit preparation.
This system comes from solving those problems in the field. Modern tools speed up the reading and the repetition, but the financial judgment comes from experience.
I work inside the tools you already use, including QuickBooks, Google Drive, Excel, Airtable, and Notion.
15 yearsinside nonprofit finance
Experience across
Arts and culture · Economic development · Community development
06
In their words
What the people I’ve worked with say.
Josh has integrity, and he is responsive and efficient, exactly what you want in someone managing finances that will be scrutinized in 990s and audits. He understands the importance of nonprofit work and can build the frameworks that help a startup get off the ground and grow with confidence.
Josh helped create the tracking for all our grants across multiple sites, built a system that allowed our program tracking and QuickBooks to work together, and helped us resolve invoicing issues. He approached the work openly and holistically, considering how all the components needed to work together rather than focusing only on the numbers.
07
Fit
Built for growing nonprofits with complex funding.
This is for you if
- You’re a nonprofit with a budget of roughly $250K–$1M
- You have three or more funding streams, and you’re still growing
- Your finances are handled by the ED after hours, a part-time bookkeeper, or a board treasurer
- You’re not sure staff time is split across grants the best way
- You don’t know whether any grant is at risk of an audit finding today
Not for
- Organizations with a full-time finance director they’re happy with
- Organizations that are shrinking or winding down
- Organizations applying for their first grant — start with the free Rulebook
08
How we work together
The Certainty Report is a $3,500 fixed-fee engagement that ends with specific recommendations and a clear plan of action. That plan becomes the Build, and in Operate we run it with your team until the monthly work is consistent and needs little upkeep. Each stage has a clear end date, and everything stays in your accounts.
09
Start here
Know where the pressure is. Fix the right thing first.
Take the Three Certainties Quiz for an instant score, or send me a line or two about your organization and its funders. I reply personally within two business days.