Getting Started: Setting Up Your Organization

Your first hour in GoodBooks is a short guided path: sign up, answer a few questions about your organization, and let GoodBooks build your starter books. Here's what to expect and what's worth doing in the first week.

Signing up

Pick a plan, then three quick steps: About You (your name and email), Organization Details, and One last thing (organization type and accounting basis). A few of these answers matter more than they look:

• Your GoodBooks URL — the web address your whole team will use (yourorg.goodbooks.app). You can search the IRS nonprofit database to pre-fill your details; churches and brand-new orgs may not appear, which is fine.
• Fiscal Year Ends — default December 31. Get this right up front: changing it later requires contacting support.
• Organization type — public charity, church, 501(c)(4), chamber, or membership organization. This shapes your starter chart of accounts (churches get "Tithes & Offerings" and "Ministry Expenses"; membership orgs get "Membership Dues"; and so on).
• Accounting Basis — Cash (record money when it moves — most small nonprofits) or Accrual (record when earned/owed — Core and Pro plans).

You'll get an email to set your password, then land in the setup wizard.

The setup wizard

Five short steps, and your books are usable at the end:

1. Organization profile — legal name, EIN, address. This is what prints on donor receipts and statements, so use the legal name.
2. Funds — your money's buckets. Everyone starts with a General Fund; add others only if money must be tracked separately (Building Fund, Scholarship Fund). Not sure? Start with just General — funds take seconds to add later. (New to fund accounting? Read What is fund accounting? first.)
3. Bank account — name your checking account, and GoodBooks creates your starter chart of accounts around it: contribution and income accounts, everyday expense categories, and net asset accounts — all tailored to your organization type, all renameable later.
4. Beginning balances — pick your Accounting Start Date (usually the first day of your fiscal year, or today) and enter what each account held on that day, by fund. Tip: the bank statement ending just before your start date has the numbers you need.
5. Invite a second administrator — GoodBooks asks every organization to have at least two administrators (Policy 5.2) so the books never depend on one person's inbox. Skippable, but do it — see Users and Permissions.

Your first week

A tour of Settings (left menu) worth taking early:

Then start living in the checkbook register — enter this week's checks and deposits, record gifts through Donations, and when the first bank statement arrives, do your first reconciliation.

Good to know

• Everything the wizard creates is editable — rename accounts, add funds, and adjust defaults from the Chart of Accounts and Settings at any time.
• The subdomain and fiscal year are the two things that need a support request to change; everything else is self-service.
• Your trial runs 7 days (30 with a referral code); billing starts only when you subscribe.