Unified Chart of Accounts

What is UCOA, and Why Should I Care?
What People Say About the UCOA
Install and Start Using the UCOA Today!
Need Help with UCOA?

What is UCOA, and Why Should I Care?

Nonprofits frequently have difficulty providing the level of financial accounting and reporting that is often demanded of them. So in partnership with the National Center for Charitable Statistics and leaders from the California Society of CPAs, CAN has developed the Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA), a chart of accounts and reporting method designed specifically for nonprofits.

The UCOA (pronounced yoo-KOH-uh) is an activity-based accounting system that incorporates the reporting requirements of many institutional funders and can be tailored to each nonprofit’s changing needs and existing system. The UCOA is designed to allow nonprofits to add as many reporting requirements as necessary – while still allowing you to use just one system for accounting and reporting. The UCOA unifies the reporting requirements for:

IRS Form 990
Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
Statements of Financial Accounting Standards Nos. 116 & 117
AICPA’s Audit & Accounting Guide for Not-for-Profit Organizations
OMB Circular A-122 for nonprofit grant recipients
United Way of America’s accounting and budgeting guides
Standards of Accounting and Financial Reporting for Voluntary Health and Welfare Organizations
Other nonprofit accounting standards and guides

The UCOA has been extensively field-tested and adopted by the California Society of Certified Public Accountants and the California Association of Nonprofits. It is downloaded from CAN’s website every day by nonprofits across the country.

Benefits of using the UCOA in your organization include:

Reduce reporting time and costs – by as much as 50 percent!
Redirect scarce resources from administration to mission.
Increase public trust and the potential for more financial support.
Contribute to improving macro-level data so government, funders, and nonprofits can identify the real impacts of nonprofit work.
Join a movement to make reporting terminology increasingly uniform – easing the reporting burden, increasing data quality, and helping all nonprofits redirect more resources toward mission.

What People Say About the UCOA

“When challenged to convert to the UCOA, I thought, ‘Here we go again, learning a new system.’ To my surprise, the conversion was relatively painless and the rewards fruitful. The accounts were structured in a more logical order and encompassed the entire spectrum of uses with the 100-plus grants and contracts we monitored. The system also cut our Form 990 preparation time in half. I would encourage all nonprofits to explore the enhancements the UCOA has to offer.”

– Clinton W. Lininger, Certified Public Accountant and Former Nonprofit Chief Financial Officer

“Integrating UCOA into our accounting processes has eliminated wasted time by administrative staff, and presents a clearer picture for budgeting and management of funds throughout the year.”

– Sonya Hayes, Manager of Finance and Administration, National Council of Nonprofit Associations

Install and Start Using the UCOA Today!

You can install and start using the UCOA today – cutting the time you spend accounting for funds, allocating costs, and producing financial reports. Click one of the links below to download a free copy of the UCOA now.

Files for free CAN downloads are hosted by FileDen. Click here to get Adobe Acrobat Reader if you don’t already have it, then click to get:

The Unified Chart of Accounts (UCOA) is Copyright © 2002 California Association of Nonprofits (CAN) and National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS). Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the CAN/NCCS Public License Version 1.0 or any later version published by CAN/NCCS (included in the UCOA download above).

Need Help with UCOA?

Click for more information on CAN Financial Services, a project dedicated to helping you streamline and improve your financial systems. CAN Financial Services can help you install and start using the UCOA in your organization, streamline your financial systems, train your staff and board in financial literacy, and more. Find out more now.