Dave, > It would probably help. The real problem is I just don't understand how an > umbrella org operates, whereas I understand a small nonprofit like my > animal rights group quite intimately, as I'm a board member, the >
The main difference with umbrella orgs is that each donation and expense has a separate, orthagonal-to-the-chart-of-accounts, heirarchical project designation. All expenses of the donation need to be deducted from that donation *on receipt* and usually there's a "commission" for the umbrella organization itself. Many donations will be split between multiple projects. Further complicating this is that we also usually want to give the projects "credit" for their donations on receipt rather than waiting until they hit the bank account ... even though we're on cash accounting. So for a sample donation: Joyce Person gives $80 as $60 attendance donation for DebConf9 and $20 to go to PostgreSQL, which she sends on 4/11/09, arrives on 4/20/09 and is deposited on 4/25/09. Joyce sees in her receipt: 4/11/09 $60.00 Debian Project DebConf9 4/11/09 $20.00 PostgreSQL Project General Fund The Debian project admin sees: 4/20/09 Debian Project DebConf9 Joyce Person [EMAIL PROTECTED] $20 - ($2.40 CC fee) - ($3.00 SPI commission) = $54.60 The PostgreSQL project admin sees: 4/20/09 PostgresQL Project Joyce Person [EMAIL PROTECTED] $20 - ($0.80 CC fee) - ($1.00 SPI commission) = $18.20 The accountant sees: 4/25/09 $60.00 Revenue: Events, deductible donations 4/25/09 $ 3.20 Expense: Credit card fees 4/20/09 $54.60 Liability: Debian Earmark 4/20/09 $18.20 Liability: PostgresQL Earmark This is what I mean by complexity. Further, it strongly affects users and permissions, because we would like each project admin to be able to log into the system, and see their donations, donors, and summary reports, but not anyone else's. See why existing software doesn't work for us? --Josh _______________________________________________ software mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.flossfoundations.org/mailman/listinfo/foundations-software
