Geoff,
As I eluded in my prior post to Chris, a department (or division), in
corporate speak, is typically it's own profit or cost centre:
Departments such as legal or marketing which generate no revenue for
the Corporation are "cost" centres while the 'consulting division'
which has the potential (or at least the expectation) to generate
revenue would be a "profit" centre.
In the instance of our running club, the {spring} marathon and autumn
10K road race were setup as separate departments/divisions because
each is its own 'profit' centre and functions with its own bank
accounts independent of the Club's general operating account. In our
case we could have setup both the marathon and autumn road race as
separate 'companies', but chose to have them as departments.
Separate bank accounts are necessary for departments, it just happens
to be the way things are for us.
In addition to these two annual "major" events, the club also
presents, or assists with, several smaller events during the year,
these ones we handle out of the Club's general operations.
Conceivable we could put our clinics in a separate department and run
them as a profit centre. If the participation levels continue to
grow, we just may do that in the future.
In your case, it sounds like all your races could be put under one
"Racing/Events" department; likewise for your clinics/schools as it
is reasonable to treat these as separate "profit" centres (which may
operate with their own independent coffers or which may use the
general operating account).
The other areas/director titles sound like they are applicable to the
general operations of the club and could be handled without separate
departments ... projects could be used for significant club events
(such as the AGM or X-mas party) is you want a way to track the
finances of a particular event.
Our club organisation is pretty classic. The BoD/Executive is
comprised of four officers: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and
Treasurer (who doubles as the Registrar), and four Directors at large
who hold a variety of portfolios (two of which are currently Marathon
Race Director and Newsletter Editor).
Now to approach your list of questions:
> 1. How big is your club?
Approximately 200 members.
> 2. Do you have online registration for membership? for the races?
Yes, we conduct online registration through a local Race Timing Company.
> 3. Any employees?
No, not at this time. And not ever to my knowledge.
> 4. Do you have any equipment? or buildings?
We have a moderate amount of capital equipment which belongs to both
the club proper and the marathon. This includes a race clock, aide
station equipment, course signs and markers, a large bell tent, etc.
> 5. Do you have any loans? or mortgages?
No
> 6. Do members of your club go out and buy things, and then need to be
> reimbursed? (Our club operates like this. For example, say an
> instructor for one of the classes needs some pylons for his class, he
> will just go out and buy them and then submit an expense to the club.)
Yes, our club functions like this as well. This is just like
handling employee expenses in a corporation (only our employees are
volunteers). Since it's always the same core cadre involved in
organising everything, the biggest hassle we have here is getting
them to report their expenses against the appropriate department
(it's not a big hassle - though, as treasurer, it is sometimes left
to my interpretation).
My cycles available towards working on a "case study" will be
sporadic over the coming weeks/months (I'm one of that cadre involved
in "too much" {as my wife would say}).
Run gently,
Roy
On 17-Mar-2007, at 18:28, Geoff Wright wrote:
> Hi Roy,
>
> No worries about the name, I think that G throws people off ... you
> are not the first, and probably not the last!
>
> It sounds like your setup is similar to ours ... thanks for sharing.
> I am curious about your comment that each of the races was set up as
> separate departments. I was wondering what to do here... we
> generally hold 5 races each year. At the Board level, all races are
> overseen by one director, the "Competitive Events" Director (although
> there are many volunteers that help out at each race). So, I was
> thinking of having one department for all "Competitive Events".
>
> In fact, (and again I am just getting my feet wet here so bare with
> me), my initial thought was that I would set up a separate
> "department" for each core group of activities that the club is
> involved in. For example, falling out of the structure of the Board
> of Directors, we have:
>
> 1. "Racing Program" Director
> 2. "Learn to Ski Program" Director
> 3. "Competitive Events" Director
> 4. "Facilities" Director
> 5. "Safety" Director
> 6. "Social Events" Director
>
> Then, there is a president, secretary and treasurer.
>
> So, coming back to my question, what makes sense here? I can see the
> appeal of having each race as a separate department ... but it would
> also seem to make sense that there is a tie-in back to board from an
> accountability perspective. Roy, what does the structure of your
> club look like? Is there a board? How are the responsibilities
> split up?
>
> I think that putting the case-study together would make a lot of
> sense and would answer a lot of questions for those just starting to
> learn. I also think that this could be a real coup for ledgerSMB
> from the perspective of bringing all sorts of non-profits onboard.
> There is a definite need for an inexpensive, cross-platform, multi-
> user accounting application for non-profits.
>
> Roy - a few other questions about your club.
>
> 1. How big is your club?
> 2. Do you have online registration for membership? for the races?
> 3. Any employees?
> 4. Do you have any equipment? or buildings?
> 5. Do you have any loans? or mortgages?
> 6. Do members of your club go out and buy things, and then need to be
> reimbursed? (Our club operates like this. For example, say an
> instructor for one of the classes needs some pylons for his class, he
> will just go out and buy them and then submit an expense to the club.)
>
> Anyways, it is good to meet you and I think that we should sit down
> and start talking about how we want to structure the case study. I
> don't know how well you know anyone here but they seem like a nice
> bunch, so let's get some direction from the core developers about how
> they would like to see the documentation. (I would like to write this
> up so that I can eventually get someone to take this job over from me
> with little or no interruption...)
>
> By the way, do people mind if we have this discussion here -- or
> should Roy and I do this bilaterally?
>
> Geoff
>
>
>
>
>
> On 17-Mar-07, at 4:33 PM, Roy Nicholl wrote:
>
>> Greg,
>> I have been using SQL-Ledger (transitioning to LedgerSMB) to look
>> after the books of a local running club + it's two major races (set
>> up as separate departments), over the past several years.
>>
>> Similar to your programme of ski lessons, we offer an annual slate
>> of running clinics. We also have three classes of general membership
>> (plus we allow folks to purchase multi-year memberships). For our
>> family memberships, we only register one customer - the parent who
>> purchased the membership. If any of the family members signup for a
>> clinic (or purchase club gear), then they will become a customer at
>> that time.
>>
>> We have setup out memberships and clinics as "services" - though this
>> year our marathon clinic has been set-up as an assembly which
>> includes a club membership (service) and a technical running
>> 'T' {itself an assembly of the shirt + the vendor service of
>> screening a logo upon it}.
>>
>> Likewise, Race entry fees have been "services" in the past, but this
>> year I am planning on using an "assembly" which will include the race
>> schwag (a shirt) and the pre-race pasta dinner.
>>
>> If I can be of more help, let me know ... I would also be interested
>> in assisting with your 'case-study' so that the documentation would
>> contain a non-profit example.
>>
>> Roy
>>
>>
>> On 17-Mar-2007, at 16:31, Geoff Wright wrote:
>>> A typical transaction for the club:
>>>
>>> There is a family of four (Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter). The family
>>> purchases a "Family" membership ($100). The family also purchases
>>> "Bunnyrabbit" classes for Son ($30) and "Jackrabbit" classes for
>>> Daughter ($40). Mom joins the "Masters" program ($50).
>>>
>>> What is the correct way of setting this transaction up?
>>>
>>> 1. Add customer - should I add each member of the family separately
>>> or should I enter it as one single family unit? We tend to think
>>> about a family as one unit because the parents often pay for their
>>> children. There can also be multiple transactions over the course of
>>> the year as a child could be involved in other activities from time
>>> to time.
>>>
>>> 3. What are our products? The memberships and classes are our
>>> "products". Should I set these up as "Services" in ledgerSMB?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance. Would there be interest if I wrote this up as a
>>> "Case Study" to be included in the documentation? Perhaps as a
>>> complement to the example, "Retail with Light Manufacturing".
>>>
>>> (I realize that this request is going above and beyond the call and
>>> would be interested in hiring a consultant to help us set up our
>>> accounts and processes correctly ... if the price is not too high
>>> = ~
>>> $200. Please contact me if you have the time to help us out.)
>>>
>>> Cheers. And I just want to say that you have all done an amazing job
>>> on this program (as have the folks over at sql-ledger prior to the
>>> port)! I trully respect the job that you have done so far!
>>>
>>> Geoff
>>>
>>>
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