How BTQ Helped EHTP Scale a Charter Network and Cut Monthly Close to 10–15 Days
East Harlem Tutorial Program (EHTP) began in 1958 as a volunteer-run reading group in a community leader’s living room. Today it stands as one of the most recognized educational nonprofits in its region, and together with its sister organization, East Harlem Scholar Academies, it serves more than 1,600 students from Pre-K through college.
By 2019, that growth had reached an inflection point. A widening charter school network, two owned buildings, a new market tax credit, bond financing, and a major construction project were all pressing on an internal, largely paper-based finance team. The organizations needed nonprofit and charter-school finance expertise, modern systems, and a mission-aligned partner who could scale with them.
They brought on BTQ Financial. Six years later, the finance function looks fundamentally different. Here is what the partnership has delivered.
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Read the full case study (PDF)Partnership highlights
Six years into the engagement, the results speak for themselves.
| Outcome | What changed |
|---|---|
| Disconnected QuickBooks entities consolidated | Onto a single financial technology platform |
| Consistent month-end close by business day 10–15 | Down from a process that previously stretched far longer |
| A fully digital finance operation | Credit card system, general ledger, AP, AR, and grant management all integrated |
| Automated intercompany transactions and expense allocations | Work that previously took hours by hand |
| One-click quarterly reporting for the charter schools | Replacing manual exports and remapping each cycle |
| A seamless audit process | Reconciliations between development and finance no longer require hours of cleanup |
| Trusted continuity | The same BTQ lead supporting the organizations from implementation through today |
About East Harlem Tutorial Program
EHTP and East Harlem Scholar Academies share a CEO, a CFO, and a senior management team. Each organization carries its own revenue mix, its own audit, and its own reporting requirements, which makes the combined finance operation one that demands deep specialization.
Organization Profile
East Harlem Tutorial Program & East Harlem Scholar Academies
Community-Based Organization (CBO)
East Harlem Tutorial Program
Runs the after-school, summer, College Scholars, and teaching-residency programs. Funded by donations, foundation grants, and corporate contributions.
Charter Management Organization (CMO)
East Harlem Scholar Academies
Oversees two charters that operate five public charter schools. Funded by per-pupil revenue (general, SPED, lease assistance, and Pre-K).
- Founded
- 1958, in East Harlem, New York City
- Students served
- More than 1,600, Pre-K through college
- Programs
- After-school, summer, the College Scholars program, and the East Harlem Teaching Residency
- Shared leadership
- One CEO, one CFO, and a senior management team across both organizations
A finance function stretched by growth
By 2019, the organizations’ ambitions had outpaced what an internal finance team could realistically support. EHTP and the Scholar Academies were preparing to acquire and build out what is now their new high school, a demolition-and-construction project, while navigating a new market tax credit, bond financing, and the expansion of the charter footprint all at once.
- Disconnected QuickBooks entities. EHTP, the Scholar Academies, and related entities ran as separate QuickBooks files, each with its own chart of accounts. Every consolidation and cross-entity question meant switching between companies and remapping accounts by hand.
- Paper-based operations. The team was cutting checks by hand and working from paper records.
- Painful audit prep. Reconciling donor records between the development and accounting teams took hours of manual work, and auditors arrived on-site to comb through binders of paperwork.
- A harder fundraiser close. The annual Build Love fundraiser brought coding discrepancies between development and finance, which meant late cleanup before the audit.
- Manual quarterly reporting. As a New York charter network, the Scholar Academies report to the State University of New York (SUNY) every quarter. Six separate charts of accounts meant manual exports and remapping each cycle.
Why charter-network finance breaks ordinary accounting setups
A combined CBO and charter network is one of the more demanding structures in nonprofit finance, and it is worth understanding why an off-the-shelf bookkeeping approach tends to buckle under it. Several pressures stack on top of one another:
- Fund accounting at the core. Restricted grants, unrestricted contributions, and program-specific dollars each have to be tracked, allocated, and reported against their own rules, with a clean audit trail behind every dollar.
- Several distinct charter revenue streams. Per-pupil funding alone arrives as general per-pupil, special-education (SPED), lease assistance, and Pre-K dollars, each with its own logic.
- Recurring agency reporting. Quarterly SUNY reporting runs on a fixed cadence, so the books and the chart of accounts have to be ready to produce it without a scramble.
- Capital complexity. New market tax credits and bond financing introduce covenants, compliance schedules, and analysis that most internal teams rarely encounter.
- Multi-entity consolidation with separate audits. The entities have to roll up into a consolidated view while staying distinct enough to support their own audits, reporting, and compliance.
Charter organizations like the Scholar Academies carry finance requirements that most accounting firms are not equipped for. BTQ built its practice specifically for the nuances of charter-school and nonprofit finance, which is what allowed it to take this complexity on directly.
What BTQ provides EHTP
The engagement pairs a proven technology platform with a dedicated team of nonprofit finance experts. For EHTP, that translates into a set of capabilities working together.
Every consolidation, every audit, every report meant switching companies and reconciling by hand. We built one platform that holds all of them, with a standardized chart of accounts and automated intercompany. That’s what makes the monthly close, the audit, and the complex agency reporting work the way they do today.
Heidi Zhang, BTQ Financial — EHTP’s lead accountant since 2019
Before and after the BTQ partnership
| Function | Before BTQ | With BTQ |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting system | Disparate financial tracking systems | Single financial technology platform |
| Chart of accounts | Different in every entity | Standardized across all entities, with company codes and cost centers |
| Intercompany transactions | Manual and time-consuming | Created automatically by the system |
| Thought partnership | Internal team only | CPA-level advisement on GAAP, strategy, and complex transactions |
| Specialized expertise | Stretched in-house bandwidth on complex transactions | Bench strength in new market tax credits, bonds, and per-pupil funding |
| Monthly close | Lengthy and slow to leadership | 10–15 business days |
| Annual audit | On-site, binder-driven, hours of reconciliation | Audit-ready year-round, with trust built with auditors |
| Donor & grant reporting | Manual reconciliation between development and finance | One-click reports tagged to each grant |
| Operating continuity | Vulnerable to staff turnover | The same BTQ lead since 2019 |
| Fundraising | Coding discrepancies and late cleanup | Accurate tracking from intake to audit |
| Bond compliance | Limited internal capacity | Co-managed with BTQ analysis and reporting |
Results: a modern, strategic finance operation
The partnership began with BTQ transitioning EHTP’s disparate entities onto a unified platform, with each entity distinct enough to support its own audit, reporting, and compliance. That transition finished by the end of 2019, months before the pandemic forced the entire organization remote, and the timing turned out to be critical. A digital, mission-oriented finance operation gave EHTP the footing to navigate the uncertainty that followed.
A faster, more accurate close
The monthly close now lands consistently within 10 to 15 business days, fast enough to align cleanly with the finance committee’s cadence and give leadership timely insight into the numbers.
A transformed audit
Donor records and accounting records reconcile in real time, because every dollar is tagged to the appropriate grant or funding source as it arrives. The annual audit has shifted from a binder-driven scramble to a year-round state of readiness.
Heidi has a great relationship with our auditors. This is an advantage for us that makes audits less stressful and something we don’t worry too much about — a huge weight off our shoulders.
Nyasha Manigault, Chief Financial Officer, East Harlem Tutorial Program
Reporting on demand and time back for strategy
When foundations and corporate funders ask how their dollars were spent, what used to require manual reconciliation is now a quick export to PDF or Excel. Quarterly reporting runs as a single report, thanks to the standardized chart of accounts BTQ built across the entities. Freed from day-to-day back-office transactions, the CFO now spends her time on budgeting, scenario planning, strategic work, and the entity consolidation underway for the coming fiscal year.
How EHTP’s progress compares across the sector
EHTP’s gains track with a broader shift among nonprofit finance teams. In the 2026 Nonprofit Leaders Report, 88% of nonprofits had settled into an 11-to-20-day month-end close, so EHTP’s consistent 10-to-15-day window puts it at the leading edge of that curve. The same research found that the share of nonprofits working with a finance and accounting partner climbed to 81%, up from roughly 30% a year earlier, and that partner support for audit preparation jumped from 42% to 95% of engagements as compliance demands intensified. EHTP’s story is one early, well-developed example of where the sector is heading.
Is your nonprofit ready for a finance partner?
EHTP’s turning point came when its structure grew faster than its systems. If any of these signals sound familiar, it may be time to weigh the same move.
- You manage several entities or funding streams that have to consolidate and still stand up to separate audits.
- Grants, restricted funds, and funder reporting are tracked by hand, with real risk of misallocation.
- Your finance knowledge sits mostly with one person, leaving the organization exposed if they leave.
- Month-end close runs long enough that leadership sees the numbers too late to act on them.
- Audit season means a scramble of manual cleanup rather than a year-round state of readiness.
- Your team spends more time on back-office transactions than on the mission you exist to serve.
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How EHTP scaled a charter network with BTQ
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Read the full case study (PDF)This is what you’ve got to do. They know what they’re doing. They’re consistent. They’re accurate. And they will free up a lot of your time to do more strategic work.
Nyasha Manigault, Chief Financial Officer, East Harlem Tutorial Program
Your mission is to create a better world. Ours is to help.
BTQ Financial partners with charter management organizations, community-based nonprofits, foundations, and human-services agencies across the country to deliver outsourced accounting, audit-ready reporting, and strategic finance support, backed by a team that learns your organization inside and out.
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