What is form 990 preparation?
The nonprofit’s public return — functional expense allocation done right, because the 990 is read by donors, not just the IRS.
Form 990 is the annual information return every federally tax-exempt organization files with the IRS, and it is one of the few US tax documents that is a public record by design. Once filed, it lands on the IRS's own exempt-organization database and gets re-published by sites like Candid and Charity Navigator, where a donor, a grant committee, or a journalist can pull it up and read exactly what the organization raised, what it spent, and what it paid its officers. A 990 that is technically compliant but sloppy in presentation — expenses lumped together, program descriptions thin, compensation figures that don't tie to the rest of the return — reads as a red flag to exactly the audience it's written for, even when nothing on it is wrong.
Which variant applies is decided by size, not by choice. An organization with gross receipts normally at or under $50,000 files Form 990-N, an eight-question electronic notice with no financial detail. An organization under $200,000 in gross receipts and under $500,000 in total assets files Form 990-EZ, a shorter form with summarized financials. Everyone else files the full Form 990, with its twelve parts and a stack of schedules — Schedule A to establish public charity status, Schedule B to list contributors, Schedule O for the narrative explanations the form's checkboxes can't hold, and others depending on the organization's activities. Crossing a threshold mid-year doesn't grandfather a smaller form; the return due that year is whichever variant the organization's actual numbers require.
Who does what
Prepared with partner CPA firms who review, sign and file.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Form 990 preparation, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your CPA or enrolled agent | Everything that carries a licence in United States — rendered exactly as written: issue compilation, review or audit reports — those are restricted to licensed cpa firms. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Form 990 preparation in United States
The form you file is set by gross receipts and total assets, not by preference
990-N applies when gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less — it's an eight-question electronic notice with no financial statements attached. 990-EZ applies when gross receipts are under $200,000 and total assets are under $500,000. Every organization above those thresholds files the full Form 990. We work out which variant a given year's numbers require and prepare that version; an organization that grew past 990-N or 990-EZ range mid-year files the bigger form for that year, not the one it used previously.
The functional expense statement is where a compliant 990 can still mislead a reader
Part IX of the full Form 990 requires every expense to be split across program services, management and general, and fundraising. Shared costs — a role that spans program delivery and fundraising, a facility used for both mission work and administration — need a documented allocation basis, not an eyeballed split. We build that allocation from the organization's own time and space records and keep the basis on file, because a rating agency or a grant reviewer reading the functional expense statement is judging the organization's efficiency off exactly that split.
The 990 is public — Schedule B contributor names have a specific disclosure carve-out
Unlike most US tax returns, a filed Form 990 (and 990-EZ) is published, both by the IRS and by third-party nonprofit databases. Schedule B, which lists contributors above a reporting threshold, is filed with the IRS but is not required to be made public by most organizations (the donor-name and address portion is generally withheld from the public copy for organizations other than private foundations and section 527 groups). We prepare the return with that distinction built in, so the version that goes public doesn't carry contributor detail it isn't required to disclose.
Three consecutive missed years triggers automatic revocation — with no appeal on the missed-year facts
An organization that fails to file a required 990-series return for three consecutive years loses its tax-exempt status automatically, by law, on the filing due date of the third year — there is no separate IRS notice-and-cure step before it happens. We flag any client heading into a second consecutive missed year as urgent, because the fix at that point (streamlined or full reinstatement) is a materially bigger job than filing on time would have been.
What your CPA or enrolled agent receives from us
- A determination of which form applies for the fiscal year — 990-N, 990-EZ, or full 990 — based on the organization's actual gross receipts and total assets, not the prior year's form.
- A complete draft of the applicable form, populated from the organization's financial statements and board/governance records.
- The Part IX functional expense statement (full 990) with program services, management and general, and fundraising columns allocated on a documented basis, plus the allocation workpaper behind it.
- Schedule A (public charity status) drafted and checked against the organization's actual public-support test position.
- Schedule B (contributor schedule) prepared per the applicable reporting threshold, with the public-disclosure carve-out correctly applied to what gets published.
- Schedule O narrative responses drafted for every checkbox item the form requires an explanation for.
