Accounting Services for Independent Schools
We know the curriculum.
Let YPTC fill your finance department gaps so your school can make confident decisions and focus on building the next generation.
Accounting support built to meet your school’s specific needs.
Many schools want to keep finance leadership close to campus but still need specialized assistance or outside accounting support at key points in the year. Staffing gaps, enrollment shifts, endowment activity, capital projects, and audit deadlines can strain even experienced business offices.
Through flexible, customized services, YPTC can offer interim CFO or controller support, prepare audit schedules and documentation, improve monthly reporting, build dashboards, create budgets and forecasts, and strengthen accounting procedures so your team has reliable information when leadership and trustees need it.
How We Can Help Your Independent School
Financial Strategy Evaluation
Independent schools are consistently balancing rising operating costs, enrollment uncertainty, and facilities demands with tuition affordability and financial aid commitments. YPTC can help your finance team and trustees review your school’s financial model, assess its health, and identify gaps you can fill with additional funding sources.
Audit Preparation
Summer brings several finance priorities at once: year-end close, audit preparation, facilities projects, staffing transitions, and planning for the next academic year. YPTC can provide dedicated, hands-on support to close out the academic year, helping to prepare reconciliations, schedules, supporting documentation, and financial reports before the auditors arrive.
Restricted Gift and Endowment Tracking
Philanthropic support helps bridge the gap between tuition revenue and the true cost of education, but tracking these funds accurately requires meticulous attention to detail. YPTC helps schools classify, track, and report restricted gifts, donor-funded scholarships, and endowment activity in a way that supports GAAP reporting, compliance with donor restrictions, and clear communication with leadership, trustees, and auditors.
Complex Accounting and Revenue Management
The academic calendar creates unique accounting issues that are easy to miss when staff are stretched. With deep expertise in school accounting, YPTC helps schools with nuances like accounting for deferred tuition revenue over the school year, recording payroll accruals for 10-month employees paid over 12 months, and tracking financial aid and staff tuition remission in the right accounts for reporting and analysis.
Our Nonprofit Accounting Services
We bring deep nonprofit accounting expertise to every client we serve, with specialized knowledge of independent schools. YPTC can provide the following services as your ongoing outsourced finance department leader, to supplement your existing finance office, or provide interim coverage during a transition:
• CFO-level thought partnership
• Accounting, bookkeeping & month-end close
• Financial reporting & analysis
• Board meeting attendance & training
• Budgeting & forecasting
• Scenario planning & cash flow management
• Policies & procedures
• Grant proposals, management & reporting
• Audit preparation
• Customized dashboards
• System conversions
• Interim solutions
Proudly Serving Independent School Clients
For 30 years, we’ve been partnering with independent schools to help them strengthen their finances so they can help students learn and grow.
Check out a few testimonials from our independent school clients:
“Everyone we’ve worked with from YPTC has been knowledgeable, kind, and respectful. We were assigned a team with expertise specific to our needs, which helped move our goals forward quickly.”
- Aimee Donnel, Director of Finance, St. Pius X High School
“We have been extremely pleased with YPTC’s results and how they provided materials that helped us make a seamless transition to the new auditing firm. They’ve been very professional and have done additional work to address problems immediately when they came up.”
- Caro U. Rock, Chairman Emeritus, Chairman of the Board, The Rock School for Dance Education
“I recommend YPTC because of its people. They are seasoned, knowledgeable professionals who were able to come in and work through some gritty projects and get to the conclusions and outcomes that really prepared us for the future.”
- Nathan Mortimer, Chief Financial Officer, Manhattan School of Music
“They have what it takes. You give them a job and you know that they’ve got it. I don’t have to follow up with them because I know it’s done right the first time. Their quality control was a huge help to me.”
- Les Gallagher, Chief Financial Officer, The Pathway School
Case Studies
These case studies show how YPTC has helped nonprofit finance teams manage staff transitions, strengthen accounting processes, integrate systems, and resolve legacy accounting issues. If your school is facing similar pressure, they can help you see what outside accounting support may look like in practice.
• MANAGING A CRITICAL STAFF TRANSITION WHILE BUILDING SUSTAINABLE FINANCIAL PROCESSES
• INTEGRATING CORE ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS AND PREPARING FOR A SUCCESSFUL CONTROLLER TRANSITION
• BUILDING STAFF CAPACITY AND RESOLVING LEGACY ACCOUNTING GAPS
Meet Our Team
Sherri Melamut, Associate & Leader of Independent Schools Specialization
Sherri Melamut has over 20 years of leadership experience in independent schools. She received a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Business Leadership in Independent Schools from Johns Hopkins University and received the Will Hancock Unsung Hero Award, awarded by the National Business Officers Association. At YPTC, she helps independent school financial leaders build strong and efficient finance departments that support their educational missions.
