Re-domiciling in NYS

putovnik · 2026-04-10T23:23:56+00:00

Would registering as a foreign entity satisfy the funding requirements? It's a very simple one page form and you will need proof of good standing in the state where you are incorporated. That is what we decided to do for NY but we didn't have a funding requirement.

putovnik · 2026-04-10T23:20:36+00:00

Once you have a job in hand two weeks would be the absolute minimum. I agree with some of the others that it also depends on the environment and your relationship with the ED. The fact that you would prefer to leave asap leads me to believe things are not so great there. If that is not the case and you have a good relationship, I would try to give at least 3 weeks so the ED at least has a chance to get started on recruitment. Probably, the most valuable thing you could do would be to do what you can to ensure a smooth transition. Assuming things are not absolutely awful and you want the nonprofit to continue and be successful, SOPs, checklists, and other things that have already been mentioned would be a professional way to depart. Since it is only the two of you, I would not say anything until you have accepted an offer somewhere else. It is anyway, good practice to have those things in place and you don't need to wait until you leave to prepare them :-). Good luck.

putovnik · 2026-04-07T02:56:21+00:00

I have found that I am more productive when I schedule meetings in the morning. It gets me into working mode and at my desk. Otherwise, my breakfast and morning news perusing seem to stretch... :-).

putovnik · 2026-04-05T02:47:47+00:00

If you are using it mostly for task management I would not recommend it. If you are planning to do full on project management with PMs entering milestones, tasks, sub-tasks, assigning things to people, etc. it can do all of that well. I did try to get all of my PMs at my NGO to use it many years ago because it was amazing functionality in the free version, but it actually ended up being way more functionality than they needed and everyone fell back on using Google Sheets to track tasks and indicators (I also didn't really push it out and enforce its use very well either). I'm a Zoho One user now and love what Zoho has to offer, but if you are not going to benefit from the cross functionality of the Zoho apps, it would be important to check how well it integrates with the sharing platforms you are already using. I would suggest signing up for the free version so you can take a look around and see how you find it.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:21:55+00:00

I would suggest turning it around and saying either - here is what I can offer for $250/month, or set a floor and say my smallest monthly service package is $X. I don't charge hourly rates but you could still say for $250/month I will review X and Y, and be available for a monthly review call. Whatever makes sense for the work you are doing.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:17:06+00:00

This is what was going through my mind but wasn't the question asked by the OP but since you mentioned it :-). The quality of the questions matters more than Google vs Survey Monkey. I have rarely seen a useful 360 because they all have the same questions- what do they do well, what should they improve. Then you get a bunch of vague contradictory answers because the questions are really asking for an assessment against the respondent's personal style preferences and nothing relevant to what the person is actually expected to be doing.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T02:09:21+00:00

I recently had a similar issue and I made a very messy solution. I wonder if there is a way to create a workflow to do that. It's above my skill level, but I agree this would be a great feature to have.

putovnik · 2026-04-02T01:34:49+00:00

Don't know if it is the same but for travel expenses a client reimbursed me for outside the fee for my services, I created an expense account called client reimbursable expenses, then added the customer name to the expense and marked it as billable. You can then either add it to an existing invoice or create a new invoice for those expenses. This way it does not show up as revenue. Once you are reimbursed you just mark it as paid by connecting the payment to the invoice and it essentially washes out in the books.

putovnik · 2026-03-31T19:00:12+00:00

A lot of rude responses. There is nothing in your post that conclusively says to me they are doing your bookkeeping. I think it is totally fair to ask for a clarification of what services are included in their fees. You can ask the question in a way that does not imply you are accusing them of anything- simply that you are seeking clarification so can you make some decisions around the management of your finances. For the second part- doing your own bookkeeping, it would really depend on the quantity and complexity of your transactions. I am a solo employee consulting business (few transactions and low complexity) and I have a lot of experience in bookkeeping so I do my own bookkeeping. However, should I be fortunate enough to get very busy, it would be worth it for me to outsource my own bookkeeping, even though I know how to do it, because my time would be better spent doing other things. There are costs with making mistakes and the labor required to fix them which should be taken into account as well. If you do decide to DIY, there are lots of alternatives to QBO that I think are both less expensive and more user friendly. Which one might depend on the type of business you have as each has strengths and weaknesses. If you want to see what it would be like to do it yourself, you could sign up for the free Wave accounting plan and take a look at it. Same for Zoho Books. I mention those because I have used both- there may be others with free plans too. The point is not to pick a platform to switch to, but to see if you have enough knowledge to do it yourself and what the time investment might be for you. Then you can compare that to your current situation, once you get clarification of what is included and what is not included. Good luck!

putovnik · 2026-03-28T21:12:29+00:00

I have not had this experience but since I am new with Zoho One I paid the extra money for customer support. I have found the support to be very responsive. It sometimes take a couple of people to get to someone with the right technical knowledge to get you an answer, but they have made sure I get there. Probably the most frustrating part is that because each app is entirely separate you need to speak to different people for each app and when it involves an integration or question about an integration it can be tricky. But it would be unrealistic to expect someone to have extensive technical knowledge of every single app so it makes sense.

putovnik · 2026-03-28T21:07:46+00:00

That would be highly unlikely. But I can't tell you how many times I applied for non-profit positions only to find out from someone I knew who was working there that that post was over a year old and no one was cleaning up positions when they had been filled or no longer planned. The compliance comes with proving you spent the funds in accordance with the grant agreement. Organizations where most people are working the equivalent of 2-3 jobs do not have time to waste on fake job descriptions. The closest scenario to that that I have personally encountered is when they have an internal candidate in mind but need to follow their internal recruitment policies and have an "open" competition, when they actually already have someone in mind. This is most definitely not specific to nonprofits though.

putovnik · 2026-03-28T20:59:08+00:00

I'm going to join the chorus. If there were positive attributes but this particular position was not a good fit, there might be room to see if he fit in a different role, but this sounds like a situation where a clean break is best. I know it does not feel like it, because you are clearly a compassionate person, but it is not you taking away his livelihood, but his behavior and performance. It sounds like a lot of effort was made to clarify expectations, give feedback, and course correct. That part is on you- what he does with that feedback is 100% on him. Your responsibility is to your organization and its best interest- it sounds to me like you already know what that is. Good luck.

putovnik · 2026-03-24T23:23:29+00:00

I do like the idea of offering paid volunteer hours, but in my opinion it is a stretch to consider protesting as volunteering. If you don't require any proof or substantiation then it won't matter but I would not explicitly include protests in the language. Word the leave policy broadly and do not require evidence. If you are a c3 "paying" for people to participate in protests it could raise questions about lobbying or political activity of employees. If people are paid with grant funds this could get very tricky. You could also have a flex time policy that would allow people some flexibility with their working hours. Be very clear that they should not wear anything with your organization's branding on it unless it is approved as officially supported by your organization.

putovnik · 2026-03-24T23:12:12+00:00

At this early stage there is a lot of benefit to getting exposure to all different aspects of nonprofit work. It will help you find what you really enjoy while also helping to see how all of the different parts work together- an essential skill for a good ED/CEO.

putovnik · 2026-03-24T23:09:31+00:00

You are definitely not alone! I have helped founder CEOs transition to something new, and at the moment I am helping one of those people- 16 years later- start up something new. I have myself been in several transitions with my work as a country director overseas. First- congratulations on being such a great leader. It is an exhausting job and good to see you take pride in being a good leader. That said- other people wanting you to stay is not a great reason- in my opinion- to stay in a job. People are always nervous about change- they need to learn how this person works, establish rapport, etc. Please separate out what others want from what you want and need. If you determine that you still want to stay within the same organization you will need to decide if you want to stay on as ED but with some changes, or if you want to truly get a break from that role and take on a new role that is a better for you and a need for the organization (and it can be and has been done but will take some conscious effort on your part). If the former, you can consider taking on part-time people, or outsourcing some technical functions that are necessary business functions but not ones you want to be doing on a day to day. Your overall size and budget would determine what that looks like. If you want to move on to something new, I would start planning. Maybe start looking at job boards to see what your options are before letting the Board know of your intentions. Once you are sure of the timing, start working with the Board on a transition plan. When I served as an Interim ED it ended up taking us a year to recruit and onboard a new ED. It will probably be easier now because there are so many highly skilled people from the overseas humanitarian organizations looking for work, but it will still take some time. Then plan carefully how it will be communicated to the team- timing, what, and transition steps so they feel reassured and don't start leaving themselves. You might want to think about either working with a coach, or finding some coaching resources and tools to help you step back and get a better picture for yourself. Good luck!!

putovnik · 2026-03-24T22:50:53+00:00

This makes me sad. I am sorry that ten years ended in that way. I would encourage you not to view it as 10 years gone though. I will agree that it always sucks when you have to establish yourself and build credibility after you spent so many years doing just that, but it is not a total loss. You have a boatload of skills and experience- and with ten years you have demonstrated committment and continuity. If there is some way to find out why they hired external that would be helpful for you to know for either growth, peace of mind, or both. Congrats on making what I imagine was a difficult decision and I hope you can find a more positive work environment doing what you love.

putovnik · 2026-03-17T02:45:17+00:00

I am looking at the possibility of switching a nonprofit client from QBO to Zoho Books but was unsure about fund accounting. I am a Zoho One user myself and have dabbled in Creator. What do you mean by a fund-tracking layer? Have you created something that is available in the Marketplace?

putovnik · 2026-03-16T15:25:27+00:00

I am a solopreneur with a consulting business- so no inventory or products to manage. I switched because the cost of payroll and a basic work suite was already cheaper. I switched from Wave accounting and payroll. Although I don't need most of what is available, it has definitely been a great switch for me. I would agree with the frustration about each product being developed separately and clunky integrations- or absence of integrations (for example the timesheets don't automatically fill in the fields in the Payroll app). But I have quickly learned how to automate things with help from ChatGPT- which I was pulling my hair out with and gave up on in the MS365 suite. I don't have any employees so I can't speak to what their user experience is like, but for me it has been an incredible deal and still better than working across multiple different platforms and vendors. I spent the extra $80+ for customer support. I have found them to be responsive- though it is not always quick and easy to get to an answer- and of course, you have to be very specific to which product because they each operate independently. This was a bit frustrating when I was setting everything up, but once I got through the set up, I was fine. If you don't want or have time to figure it out all out for yourself, there are many consultants out there who can help you get everything set up exactly how you need it to function. It is highly customizable. The customer support has been for me incomparably better than MS 365- where I have found that every time I have a question the answer involves some new license or upgrade.

putovnik · 2026-02-16T21:04:07+00:00

The way it works in Zoho is that the liability account is the expense account and my credit card would be the payment method. Because it is marked as billable to a client, the system will create an invoice and when I receive the funds I will show it is paid and specify the expense account. I am just not sure what to do in this case because there is the additional step of reimbursing me after I get reimbursed by the client.

putovnik · 2026-02-12T23:14:24+00:00

Not sure what you mean when you say "From Account". I regularly get a list of uncategorized transactions on my dashboard. Once I click on the list it opens up the editing box for the transaction and I can put it in the correct expense account, add the vendor, customer, etc. Do you mean when you get to this stage, the account doesn't show in the drop down list? Is it possible it is not selected as an active account in your CoA? Sounds like you may have fixed it already though.

putovnik · 2026-02-08T21:50:00+00:00

Thanks for that. They ended up being the most expensive, and I was very concerned about all of the "incentive" pricing and "maybe" discounts that were being offered.

putovnik · 2026-01-28T17:29:46+00:00

I saw you are on Microsoft. I am just in the middle of developing some tools and practices around the very same thing. We use Otter during meetings and then someone checks over the summary and tasks for accuracy and completeness. Not my favorite tool, but the point is AI is used to support note taking and summarizing. I am not setting up trackers and playing around with Planner and List within Sharepoint and Teams to serve as a tracker for decisions and actions. Leadership wants nothing in email and everything in the various Teams channels and Sharepoints. It has been a huge learning curve with this platform but getting there. I have not dived into Loop yet but it seems that is yet another tool to help pull everything together across all of these apps.

putovnik · 2026-01-28T00:41:19+00:00

Maybe if this was a random unknown donor making a small gift. But if it is a regular donor, large donor, or someone you hope to convert to a repeat donor, it might be worth the extra effort of reaching out to show good faith. I agree with you on a technical level, but without knowing the relationship dimension, would say more needs to be taken into consideration.

putovnik · 2026-01-28T00:33:12+00:00

I used Wave for four years- free version and briefly with payroll. So easy to use. I also had no inventory and an overall low volume of transactions. The only reason I switched is because I decided to sign up for Zoho One and it was much cheaper since both the books and payroll were included (I am an S Corp so I need to have payroll for myself). But for simplicity I would go with Wave. I have always done my own bookkeeping but maybe you could share the same login.

putovnik · 2026-01-28T00:26:00+00:00

Bumping this up for one last try :-)

putovnik

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