Assessing Nonprofit Accounting Systems

Abby Farber, Founder & Executive Consultant, FarberWorks

Abby Farber has forty years of experience in the government and nonprofit sectors – including finance, accounting, internal treasury management, government and private grants management. She is a Certified Nonprofit Accounting Specialist (CNAP). Abby has worked in the front lines of many organizations including nonprofits and government.

Her government experience includes positions in finance for the New York City Human Resources Administration and Department of Homeless Services. Her responsibilities included oversight of grants, capital and bond funds, as well as oversight of City and State Tax levy and other sources of funds. She’s highly experienced with Federal OMB and various state financial requirements.

In six years with the high-performing and rapidly expanding charter school network, Achievement First, Abby created the central finance office which originally consisted of two staff members and grew to six, providing oversight to eight growing K-12 schools in New York and Connecticut. She was the project leader in upgrading accounting systems, moving from separate records at each school to a merged system that could be easily accessed by both school and network-based staff. She created and delivered training and coached school staff on budget management –enabling school operations managers who primarily had no finance background to make best use of funds. For several years Abby also managed the network’s human resources functions and created an onboarding process for new staff that resulted in employees understanding the organization’s culture, available benefits, and ensured that office systems were ready for them upon their arrival.

Abby is familiar with the nonprofit sector in Portland, having delivered training on accounting for the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and consulted with the United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, Bridges to Change, and Neighborhood House on upgrading accounting systems and processes.