> On 27 Aug 2019, at 03:36, doncram <[email protected]> wrote: > > In your case, Michael Hendry, are there other persons who need or work with > some of the information?
No, I’m playing in a one-man-band - which is (mostly) a good thing! > Surely then there are communication / information > sharing needs, which cannot be addressed easily with your single-access > semi-complicated GnuCash system. > > I, too, am new treasurer of a nonprofit, a botanical garden society which > is set up as a charitable nonprofit, and I have puzzled over similar issues > for tracking, but also for sharing info. A big issue is that select other > board members or volunteers work with some of the same information. The > treasurer job is too big already, and others are better about handling some > tasks like tracking membership renewals (i.e. contributions at "pledge" > amount) and sending out reminders, and following up with thank you notes in > writing for larger donations, and email notes for smaller ones. One > volunteer, call her the membership director, has a big spreadsheet of most > of the members/contributors and dollar amounts and so on. The board > secretary is really good at writing nice thank you notes for the bigger > donations. I hate the fact that I, as treasurer, if I follow the past > practice, am essentially duplicating a whole lot of info, when I enter each > donation or membership payment, putting member name into a description/note > field. "We" already have that information! Couldn't it be shared? And > what about cross-checking the spreadsheet information vs. my accounting > entries.... I know there are at least a few discrepancies, which need to be > identified and followed up upon, else a donor gets no acknowledgment or > gets "billed" twice or whatever. > > So, I have started use of a combined-access spreadsheet, by uploading the > membership director's spreadsheet to a Google Docs spreadsheet, and I > talked her through using it online. Happily it is perfectly easy for her > to do her job in the now-shared spreadsheet. And I will add columns as > necessary to record deposit dates and whatnot. I am hoping to do my data > entry about specific individuals there, i.e. by just recording treasurer > stuff in "my" columns, adding to already-existing rows for all members. I > am hoping to stop my very detailed accounting, and making occasional > accounting entries that are summary, tying out to the info in my columns. > E.g. I can record the donation/membership check amounts in a column for > income from August 2019, say, and make just one summary entry into the > accounting system. I think you’re very brave, allowing read-write access to your spreadsheet(s). But of course, you wouldn’t be reaping the benefits of data-sharing if you didn’t allow others to write to them. > > I cannot imagine myself producing all the necessary reports to serve others > and all purposes if I was handling all the info myself. And I can't > imagine collaborating with others in any way other than a shared > spreadsheet. Any comments/suggestions? > > Thank you Michael Hendry for the question and thank all the participants so > far! > > sincerely, Donald Cram > My questions arise from my own ignorance, and I depend for answers on the ready support of this forum. Regards, Michael _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
