If your organization is audited or reviewed, your 990 may be able to provide additional detail beyond what is listed in the audit or review, especially in the expense section. However, please note that the audit totals should be used to fill out the Financial Totals section of your Cultural Data Profile (CDP), and the totals from each detail section must match those in the Financial Totals section.
As you review your 990, keep in mind that certain line items will not have an exact equivalent on the Data Profile. For example, the CDP breaks out government contributions by city, county, state and federal governments. However, the 990 records government contributions as one lump sum.
If your total end-of-year revenue is identical on your 990 and in your audit, and your audit contains very little line item detail, the 990 may be helpful as you fill out the Revenue sections of your CDP. However, the 990 has no information about revenue restrictions. Please be sure to follow the Statement of Activities in your audit and its restriction columns or sections when filling out your revenue details in the CDP.
While you may use your 990 to gather details for the Contributed Revenue section of the CDP, remember that the 990 contains no information about government grants by specific source (i.e. city, state, federal, or tribal), unrealized gains on investments, and in-kind contributions. If your organization has any of these items, and your audit or review has insufficient detail, you will need to refer to your internal financial statements for the required information.
If your audit does not contain a Statement of Functional Expenses, or a listing of expenses by the functional areas of Program, Fundraising, and General & Administrative, it should still contain totals for each of those categories on your Statement of Activities. If those totals are the same as the matching columns on the 990, you may use your 990 to help you fill out the Personnel Expenses and Non-Personnel Expenses sections of the CDP.
Be sure to read the supplementary schedules of the 990 which may contain additional information and the details about “other” lines, such as Other Expenses, Other Assets, etc. These schedules might be particularly useful:
- Schedule B - Schedule of Contributors
- Schedule D - Supplemental Financial Statements
- Schedule G - Supplemental Information Regarding Fundraising or Gaming Activities
- Schedule M - Noncash Contributions
- Schedule O - Supplemental Information to Form 990 or 990-EZ
- Schedule R - Related Organizations and Unrelated Partnerships
