AI is showing up everywhere in the nonprofit world, but in finance, the reality is messier.
Tools like ChatGPT, Spotlight, and Jirav promise faster reports, instant variance summaries, and scenario-based forecasts. But here’s the problem: those tools are only useful if your financial operations are already clean, consistent, and under control.
At Enkel, we work with over 100 Canadian nonprofits. We’ve seen what happens when finance teams try to automate too early, and what it takes to actually make AI work.
This post gives you five back-office issues that are guaranteed to derail your AI adoption unless you fix them first. It's a preview of what we’ll be unpacking in our upcoming webinar: Leveraging AI for Canadian NPOs.
FREE WEBINAR: Leveraging AI for Canadian NPOs
Thu 8 May. 10am PT / 1pm ET
1. You’re Behind on Your Books
If your books are 30–60 days behind, you are feeding broken data into a tool designed to amplify patterns. AI doesn’t know the difference between “final” and “still waiting on receipts.” We’ve seen NPOs use AI to write reports that looked great, but were based on unreconciled numbers that hadn’t been updated since last quarter.
How to fix it
Move to a monthly close schedule. Assign ownership for reconciliation. Standardize your data entry so AI has consistent categories to work from. If you need to catch up, outsource your cleanup. This is a one-time investment that pays off every month going forward.
2. You Don’t Have a Consistent Monthly Reporting Process
We’ve worked with organizations where every board package is a one-off. The formatting changes. The numbers shift. The variance explanations are rewritten every cycle by a different person. In that context, AI has nothing to build from. No template, no pattern, no baseline.
How to fix it
Standardize your board reporting package. Create a template with fixed sections like budget-to-actuals, forecast, cash runway, program-level detail, and stick to it. Over time, this becomes your dataset. That’s what makes automation possible later.
3. No One Owns the Financial Narrative
AI can help you write narrative summaries, but only if someone on your team understands the context. We’ve seen nonprofit finance teams where the numbers get pushed up to the ED without analysis—and that person is left scrambling to write commentary the night before a board meeting.
How to fix it
Assign narrative ownership. This doesn’t mean the ED writes every summary, but someone needs to consistently explain what changed, why it matters, and what decisions need to be made. Over time, AI can draft the first pass, but only if it knows what “good” looks like.
4. Your Forecast Is a Copy-Paste Job
Most nonprofits still build forecasts by copying last year’s budget and adding a 3–5% buffer. That might get you through a planning cycle, but it doesn’t give AI anything to enhance. Tools like Jirav or Spotlight can’t model growth or risk if they’re pulling from flat, static assumptions.
How to fix it
Start with historical actuals. Use them to build a 12-month rolling forecast. Map out three versions: best case, base case, worst case. AI tools can then help you generate new versions faster—but you need real logic as your foundation.
5. Your Chart of Accounts Is a Mess
We’ve worked with nonprofits that have duplicate GL codes, inconsistently named accounts, and line items that change mid-year. When AI pulls from that data, it won’t know what’s program vs admin, or which version of “Outreach Expenses” is correct. You’ll get confident, polished summaries that are wrong—and that’s worse than no summary at all.
How to fix it
Audit your chart of accounts. Consolidate duplicates. Apply naming conventions. Lock it down for the fiscal year. This is unsexy work, but it’s what makes automation safe. Think of it as structuring your raw material. Without it, your reporting will always be fragile.
Want to Know If You’re AI-Ready? Use This Checklist.
Before jumping into automation, take 60 seconds to check your foundation.
If you’re considering using AI in your finance workflows, this is the baseline you need:
- Our books are reconciled monthly
- We produce board-ready financial reports every month
- Our chart of accounts is standardized and consistent
- Someone owns the narrative in our variance commentary
- Our forecasts are built on real historical data
- Our systems are connected (or at least export cleanly)
- We follow a monthly reporting process—not quarterly catch-up
- There is oversight for reviewing AI-generated outputs
If you can’t check at least 5 of these, it’s not time for AI yet—it’s time to strengthen your finance function. We’ll walk through this full checklist during the May 8 webinar.
Join Our Free Webinar to Go Deeper
Webinar: Leveraging AI for Canadian NPOs
Date: May 8, 2025 | Time: 1PM ET / 10AM PT
Free to attend. Register now.
Who is this webinar for?
If you want to understand how to safely and strategically adopt AI in your finance team—without breaking your back office—this session is for you.
We’ll cover:
- Real-world examples of AI in nonprofit finance
- Where AI adds value and where it introduces risk
- The systems and workflows that support AI success
- How to assess your current readiness
Final Word
AI isn’t a shortcut, it’s a multiplier.
If your nonprofit finance systems are sound, AI can help you scale your output without scaling your team.
If they’re fragile, AI will just make your problems look prettier.
Save your seat for the webinar and let’s get your finance function future-ready.
