Bookkeeping for Postsecondary Schools
Accurate records are essential for every postsecondary school. Proprietary institutions, NC-SARA participants, and nonprofits that operate like for-profits all face the same reality: Title IV compliance, composite score reporting, and the annual audit cycle must be clean and compliant. Access to accurate records in a timely manner is crucial to evaluating performance, assessing needs and determining strategic direction.
How We Support You: A Comprehensive Finance Team Solution
We create additional bandwidth in your team, where you need it most. Many schools that want the immediate value of McClintock’s higher-education expertise bring us in as Virtual Controller. Virtual Accountant exists for institutions that need basic bookkeeping and nothing more. Virtual CFO can be a strategic overlay for leadership that wants forecasting and scenario modeling on top of the Controller foundation.
Virtual Accountant: Basic Bookkeeping
The Virtual Accountant tier covers the mechanics: recording monthly transactions and making sure credit card purchases, checks written, and deposits in the bank are all correctly reflected in the financial statements. While any qualified accounting firm could deliver bookkeeping services, we offer it primarily for schools that want a single firm covering the basics today and the option to step up later.
What Virtual Accountant covers:
- Monthly recording of transactions across revenue and expenses
- Monthly bank and credit card reconciliations
- Balance sheet and YTD P&L at each close
- Basic documentation that reduces audit prep time
Virtual Controller: Where Higher Education Expertise Matters
Virtual Controller is where McClintock & Associates earns its keep. We bring higher-education accounting expertise into the engagement, reducing issues that a generic bookkeeper may not catch or understand. Books at this level are accurate enough to project the composite score, support the compliance audit, and answer questions your leadership team actually needs answered.
What Virtual Controller adds on top of Virtual Accountant:
- Accounts receivable and unearned tuition updates, sourced from your student information system schedules
- Fixed asset tracking
- Recording non-cash expenses such as depreciation and lease accounting
- Audit-ready balance sheet schedules built to current standards
- Monthly or quarterly close cadence (your choice)
Optional add-on: Audit prep and auditor liaison
A lot of schools simply don’t enjoy audit prep, and the work to assemble schedules and field the auditor’s questions is one of the things we do best from the Controller side. This add-on includes:
- Preparing the full schedules package for your independent auditor, including an audit-ready balance sheet schedule built to current standards
- Annual 90/10 calculation (Title IV institutions)
- Fielding the auditor’s technical accounting questions and providing supporting documentation
- Coordinating the audit timeline with your team
Virtual CFO — Strategic Overlay for Your Department
Virtual CFO is applied on top of Virtual Controller. Once the books are accurate at the Controller level (with or without the audit prep add-on), Virtual CFO takes that data and adds the strategic interpretation leadership and boards need.
What Virtual CFO adds:
- Quarterly call with leadership to walk through results, surface what we’re seeing, and answer questions
- Composite score projections delivered periodically through the year (not just at audit time)
- Scenario modeling for strategic questions like what happens to the financials if you sign a lease, buy fixed assets, or restructure debt
- A written report on what we’re seeing in the numbers and where we think the institution should focus
- Board-ready reporting and advisory on financial posture
Schools that need strategic CFO support but aren’t yet audit-ready usually engage CFO plus Controller together.
Pricing
Pricing begins at $750 per month based on tier, transaction volume, and add-on services. We can scope a tailored monthly retainer after a Financial Health and Compliance Strategy Session.
We Understand Your Compliance Challenges
Every client we work with faces real regulatory pressure, and the stakes are too high to navigate compliance alone. We built our practice entirely around higher education because this industry demands a specialist, and because you deserve that peace of mind.
Bookkeeping FAQs
No. Any postsecondary school that needs accurate records can engage us, including proprietary institutions, NC-SARA participants, and nonprofits that operate like for-profits. Title IV compliance and composite score reporting don’t distinguish by tax status, and our engagement is built around the accounting work each school actually needs.
Most postsecondary schools that hire McClintock & Associates land at Virtual Controller. That’s where higher-education accounting expertise enters the engagement: accounts receivable from your SIS, unearned tuition treatment, fixed assets, leases, and the documentation that supports compliance audit. Virtual Accountant covers basic transaction recording; if that’s all you need, we’re happy to deliver. Virtual CFO is a strategic overlay that you may engage when leadership needs forecasting and scenario modeling on top of accurate books.
Yes. Audit prep is an add-on under Virtual Controller. We prepare the schedules your independent auditor needs, run the annual 90/10 calculation, field the auditor’s technical questions, and coordinate the timeline. We do not perform both bookkeeping and the financial statement audit for the same institution — independence rules require those engagements be separate firms.
Virtual Controller produces accurate books and audit-ready schedules, aka: the data layer. Virtual CFO interprets that data into action through quarterly call with leadership, composite score projections through the year, scenario modeling for leases and capex, and advisory on financial posture. Many schools start with Controller and add CFO as growth or board reporting requirements expand.
Most engagements begin with a Financial Health and Compliance Strategy Session. This is a 60 to 90 minute executive briefing covering composite score, 90/10, and key Title IV risk areas. You will leave with a one-page risk-and-opportunity snapshot and a recommended engagement scoped to your situation.
Let’s Talk About Your Compliance Needs
Connect with our team to discuss how we can support your institution’s compliance and financial health.
Higher Ed Compliance Insights
