California Charter School Back Office Services That Protect Funding
Accounting and board reporting, payroll with CalSTRS and CalPERS filings, audit preparation, CALPADS and attendance reconciliation, and multi-year budget planning — one California team, one point of contact, and numbers your auditor can count on.
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Schools we support
Everything to serve a California charter school's back office
ImpactOS: A Better Way to Operate
See your school’s cash position, enrollment and compliance status as they change — instead of finding out at the next board meeting what happened last month.
Built from 15+ years of back-office work for 200+ charter schools, around the numbers our CFOs already track for every client.
Accounting & Financial Management
Monthly financials your board can read and your authorizer can count on, closed on the same schedule every month, with a charter-finance CFO to walk you through through what it means for your school.
Your books are closed by experts in charter school finance.
Planning a new campus or a renewal?
Adding a campus, growing enrollment, or heading into renewal? We model the scenarios — enrollment, staffing and funding changes — analyze facilities and program costs, advise your board, and build a fiscal narrative to support the changes your school is navigating.
Back Office Operations
Payroll continues, retirement filings proceed, and month-end tasks stay on track—no matter how your staffing levels fluctuate.
160+ finance, payroll and student data professionals, so no single function rests on one person.
Switching payroll mid-year?
We take over from your current provider during the school year, reconcile what has already been filed, and correct CalSTRS and CalPERS reporting before it compounds.
Compliance & Reporting
Audit preparation is a year-round workflow for every client, not a project that starts when the auditor calls.
Student Data, Enrollment & Attendance
We validate attendance data every month, because an error caught in October is still correctable and the same error found in June is not.
Your financial position, without waiting for month-end
ImpactOS pulls the financial, operational and compliance data our team already maintains for your school into one live view. Cash position, enrollment against budget, LCFF revenue modeled on current attendance, and where each reporting requirement stands — updated as the underlying numbers change rather than assembled at reporting windows. It exists because the questions boards ask are rarely about last month. They are about whether the current year still works, and that answer should not require a request and a wait.
Connect with the ImpactOS team
Two fields, and no sales call attached. We’ll contact you directly about early access.
How the transition works
Step 1
Identify & Align
We review your current setup, your authorizer’s requirements, and where the gaps are before anything moves.
Step 2
Discovery & Kickoff
We meet your team, agree on scope and reporting timelines, and name who owns what on both sides.
Step 3
Import & Implement
We move your general ledger, payroll history and student data into our systems, then reconcile against what was already filed.
Step 4
Go Live & Thrive
We run your first close, first payroll and first reporting cycle with your team watching, then take it from there.
Mid-year onboarding is available — you do not have to wait for July 1 to change providers.
FAQs
What does a charter school back office service actually do?
It runs the financial and operational work a school would otherwise hire and manage in-house. For Charter Impact, that means accounts payable and receivable, bank reconciliation and general ledger, payroll and retirement filings, monthly financial reporting and board packages, budgeting and forecasting, audit preparation, authorizer reporting, and student data submissions. Your team keeps the decisions and the relationships; we keep the ledgers, the filings and the deadlines.
How much do charter school back office services cost?
Pricing is customizable, structured either as a percentage of revenue or as a fixed annual fee. Which one fits depends on your size, how many of the five service areas you need, and the condition of what we are taking over — a clean handoff costs less than a year of reconstruction. We will quote a number after a short conversation about your school, not before.
Can you take over our back office in the middle of the school year?
Yes. Mid-year onboarding is available. The transition involves importing your general ledger, payroll history and student data, reconciling against what has already been filed with your authorizer and the state, and correcting anything that needs it before the next reporting deadline — not waiting for July 1 to start clean.
Do you handle CALPADS, LCFF and LCAP reporting?
Yes. We prepare and submit CALPADS (the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System) reporting, including Fall 1, Fall 2 and end-of-year submissions. We model revenue under LCFF (the Local Control Funding Formula) using current attendance rather than prior-year assumptions, and we align budgets and expenditure reporting to your LCAP (Local Control and Accountability Plan) so the two documents tell the same story.
How do you help with our annual audit?
We prepare the audit workpapers, act as the auditor’s primary contact, and answer the requests that would otherwise land on your business manager during the busiest weeks of the year. Because the reconciliation and reporting work happens monthly, the audit examines records that are already closed and supported. If prior-year findings exist, we address them in the current year rather than explaining them again.
Do you work with our existing SIS and payroll systems?
Yes. We work in PowerSchool, Aeries, Infinite Campus and School Pathways for student data, across classroom-based, flex and independent study models. For payroll we use Inova Payroll, or we integrate with the platform your school already runs. You do not have to change systems to change back office providers.
What is included in the monthly board financial package?
A balance sheet and statement of activities, budget-to-actual by resource and object code, cash position and forecast, enrollment and attendance against budgeted ADA, and a narrative summary of what changed and what needs a decision. It is built on Sage Intacct under GAAP, and formatted so the same package satisfies your board and your authorizer without a second version.
What is ImpactOS and when is it available?
Impact.os is a dashboard that shows your school’s financial, operational and compliance position as it changes, built on the data the Charter Impact team already maintains for you — cash, enrollment against budget, LCFF revenue modeling and reporting status in one view.
Are we too small, or too large, for Charter Impact?
Charter Impact works with single-site schools, multi-campus networks, schools still in authorization, and mission-driven nonprofits — 200+ organizations and 150,000+ students across 9 states. Small schools tend to assume they will not be a priority; networks tend to assume the firm is built for small schools. The scope is set to your size rather than sold as a fixed package.
Talk to a charter school finance specialist
Tell us what you need help with. We will come back with what an engagement would cover for a school your size, what it costs, and who you’d work with.
Or call us at 888 474 0322
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Our Office
8500 Balboa Blvd., Suite 140
Northridge, CA 91325
Reach Out
info@charterimpact.com
888 474 0322
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