Re: [GNC] Non-profit accounts - reporting of restricted funds and of future commitments
> On 20 Jul 2019, at 14:07, Christopher Lam wrote: > > > On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 at 12:28, Michael Hendry wrote: > Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Current > Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Savings > > I’d like to be able to report on both accounts as if they were a single > account (the spreadsheet simply treated these as a single account and ignored > the transfers between the accounts) but a request for a report on the parent > (Assets/Current Assets/Charity) in a Balance Sheet report gives a zero result. > > Are you using the default Balance Sheet? You'll need to choose, from Display > / Parent account balances or Parent balance subtotals, a suitable choice. > Hint: don't choose subtotals in both. Thanks, Christopher. I’ve been experimenting with various combinations and learned a lot! > > B. Some charitable receipts are earmarked as they are received - e.g. > > Income/Earmarked Funds/Polio Plus > Income/Earmarked Funds/Water Account > > and I’d like a similar composite report on the children of Income/Earmarked > Funds, preferably on the same report as in A. above, to guide members on what > is actually available for them to spend. > > Is this the best way of recording earmarked funds? I'd imagine recording from > the donor, wish #polioplus in description, would be more suitable? Anyway, > Transaction Report, originating from Earmarked Funds account, select children. These funds sometimes arise as single large donations, but we also collect money in small sums at our weekly meetings e.g. by charging members a rounded-up price for meals. > > C. Sometimes a decision is made to commit funds already collected but in a > situation where the money won’t be spent immediately - e.g. a building > project. > > This is obviously similar to the Earmarked Funds in B., but I’m not sure how > best to handle it. > > I could create a transaction between the Charity Current Account with today’s > date and Expenses/Charity/Committed Funds as the destination account. > > This is similar to budgeting? If this internal allocation of funds isn't to > be used anywhere else, would an asset account were created as a child of > Asset/CurrentAssets/Charity called 'Restricted Funds', and transferred to > Asset/EarmarkedFunds/Projects be better, and check the parent-account balance > to determine 'unallocated funds' ? I don't know. What *could* be implemented, > is the concept of 'virtual transactions' whereby the balances are counted > separately from the real-life transactions I’ve tried creating child accounts of "Assets/Charity/Charity Current/" called …/Polio Plus, …/Water Account etc. When income comes into Petty Cash intended for "Polio Plus” I post into Petty Cash as income from …/Polio Plus, and pay the cash into the Charity Current Account. This has allowed me to prepare a selective balance sheet for this account like this: Balance Sheet 30/06/2019 Assets Charity £6,608.72 Charity BB Inst Online £20,046.26 Charity Current -£13,437.54 Charity Choice -£24.50 Foundation -£3.00 KidsOut -£25.00 Polio Plus -£32.00 Water Account -£8,374.28 The figures are not realistic - I’ve only entered a small subset of transactions, but this one report has all the information I’d be presenting to a council meeting: The total in the (parent) Charity Account is £6,608.72, but there are various commitments recorded as negative figures in the children of “Charity Current” which need to be added to that total to indicate what the club has available to spend. The Water Account is money intended for water and sewerage projects in the Third World, so will often have to accumulate until it’s sufficient for a project. The smaller amounts will generally be spent within the financial year. Thanks for your interest, Michael ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.
Re: [GNC] Non-profit accounts - reporting of restricted funds and of future commitments
First of all, in theory appropriate spreadsheets obviously COULD be used. Remember,in the old days there was just pen and ink on paper. Still legal, and so would be spreadsheets with columns just like the old style accounting paper had. I do NOT recommend this because: 1) You would need to be experienced with old fashioned pen and ink on paper bookkeeping. I could do it, because I learned back when that was all that there was. 2) It was error prone, especially in the posting process (transcription errors). Not easy to find/correct unless you know all the tricks. A modern system like gnucash is essentially "autoposting" (post directly into the ledger, the journal is virtual) and the computer will not make arithmetic mistakes. Also, it can easily produce the usual reports. I am a retired senior systems and business analyst and treasurer of some 501(c)3's << US tax exempt non-profits). You have permission to email me directly and we would exchange questions back and forth till it is clear how your books should be set up. To start: 1) What is your jurisdiction? Do you know the line items needed for the reports to gov't etc.? 2) You have choices how to handle restricted funds. For example, something long term like a "building fund" you would probably want to handle as a liability. Short term restricted donations << likely/certain able to use for intended purpose within the accounting period maybe less formally. Frequency of transactions going OUT from the restriction many also play a roll. IN ANY CASE --- you will almost certainly be entering two transactions for each << one for the actual money; one to reflect removal of restriction << could be done with a single two way split transaction but leave that till experienced. 3) Do you have fixed assets? I was thinking not until I saw "building".If so, your organizations needs to decide on a de minimis amount << even though for something long lasting, too minor to treat as a fixed asset) and the time period over which fixed assets are depreciated. Michael D Novack On 7/20/2019 9:07 AM, Christopher Lam wrote: On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 at 12:28, Michael Hendry wrote: Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Current Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Savings I’d like to be able to report on both accounts as if they were a single account (the spreadsheet simply treated these as a single account and ignored the transfers between the accounts) but a request for a report on the parent (Assets/Current Assets/Charity) in a Balance Sheet report gives a zero result. Are you using the default Balance Sheet? You'll need to choose, from Display / Parent account balances or Parent balance subtotals, a suitable choice. Hint: don't choose subtotals in both. B. Some charitable receipts are earmarked as they are received - e.g. Income/Earmarked Funds/Polio Plus Income/Earmarked Funds/Water Account and I’d like a similar composite report on the children of Income/Earmarked Funds, preferably on the same report as in A. above, to guide members on what is actually available for them to spend. Is this the best way of recording earmarked funds? I'd imagine recording from the donor, wish #polioplus in description, would be more suitable? Anyway, Transaction Report, originating from Earmarked Funds account, select children. C. Sometimes a decision is made to commit funds already collected but in a situation where the money won’t be spent immediately - e.g. a building project. This is obviously similar to the Earmarked Funds in B., but I’m not sure how best to handle it. I could create a transaction between the Charity Current Account with today’s date and Expenses/Charity/Committed Funds as the destination account. This is similar to budgeting? If this internal allocation of funds isn't to be used anywhere else, would an asset account were created as a child of Asset/CurrentAssets/Charity called 'Restricted Funds', and transferred to Asset/EarmarkedFunds/Projects be better, and check the parent-account balance to determine 'unallocated funds' ? I don't know. What *could* be implemented, is the concept of 'virtual transactions' whereby the balances are counted separately from the real-life transactions ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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. -- There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnuca
Re: [GNC] Non-profit accounts - reporting of restricted funds and of future commitments
On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 at 12:28, Michael Hendry wrote: > Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Current > Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Savings > > I’d like to be able to report on both accounts as if they were a single > account (the spreadsheet simply treated these as a single account and > ignored the transfers between the accounts) but a request for a report on > the parent (Assets/Current Assets/Charity) in a Balance Sheet report gives > a zero result. > Are you using the default Balance Sheet? You'll need to choose, from Display / Parent account balances or Parent balance subtotals, a suitable choice. Hint: don't choose subtotals in both. > B. Some charitable receipts are earmarked as they are received - e.g. > > Income/Earmarked Funds/Polio Plus > Income/Earmarked Funds/Water Account > > and I’d like a similar composite report on the children of > Income/Earmarked Funds, preferably on the same report as in A. above, to > guide members on what is actually available for them to spend. > Is this the best way of recording earmarked funds? I'd imagine recording from the donor, wish #polioplus in description, would be more suitable? Anyway, Transaction Report, originating from Earmarked Funds account, select children. > C. Sometimes a decision is made to commit funds already collected but in a > situation where the money won’t be spent immediately - e.g. a building > project. > > This is obviously similar to the Earmarked Funds in B., but I’m not sure > how best to handle it. > > I could create a transaction between the Charity Current Account with > today’s date and Expenses/Charity/Committed Funds as the destination > account. > This is similar to budgeting? If this internal allocation of funds isn't to be used anywhere else, would an asset account were created as a child of Asset/CurrentAssets/Charity called 'Restricted Funds', and transferred to Asset/EarmarkedFunds/Projects be better, and check the parent-account balance to determine 'unallocated funds' ? I don't know. What *could* be implemented, is the concept of 'virtual transactions' whereby the balances are counted separately from the real-life transactions ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.
[GNC] Non-profit accounts - reporting of restricted funds and of future commitments
I’ve just taken over as Treasurer of our local Rotary Club, which involves two sets of accounts: 1. The Club’s own business accounts - membership fees, stationery, travel, etc 2. The accounts of the Charity set up by members of the club, which receives income from the Club’s fund-raising activities and disburses the income on the advice of the Club, but ultimately at the discretion of the Charity’s Trustees. I am expected to provide reports to five Club Council meetings during the year relating to both sets of accounts, and respond to ad-hoc enquiries at other times. My predecessor (a retired bank manager) developed a set of spreadsheets over his five years as Treasurer, which I have now inherited. I can obviously simply follow his method and present reports in the same manner as he did, but… 1. I think there was too much detail for the average member to be bothered with, 2. I’m not comfortable with the use of spreadsheets for the production of the legally-necessary reports to the Charity authorities - there are too many ways to shoot yourself in the foot!, particularly if modification of the spreadsheets becomes necessary in future. I’ve therefore started parallel recording of the financial activities of the club in GnuCash and in the spreadsheets, and I’d welcome advice from users on the following. A. The Charity’s Bank Account has an associated online-only savings account, with funds transferred between the two to keep a working surplus in the Current account; interest is periodically credited to the Savings Account. I’ve set up two accounts: Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Current Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Savings I’d like to be able to report on both accounts as if they were a single account (the spreadsheet simply treated these as a single account and ignored the transfers between the accounts) but a request for a report on the parent (Assets/Current Assets/Charity) in a Balance Sheet report gives a zero result. B. Some charitable receipts are earmarked as they are received - e.g. Income/Earmarked Funds/Polio Plus Income/Earmarked Funds/Water Account and I’d like a similar composite report on the children of Income/Earmarked Funds, preferably on the same report as in A. above, to guide members on what is actually available for them to spend. C. Sometimes a decision is made to commit funds already collected but in a situation where the money won’t be spent immediately - e.g. a building project. This is obviously similar to the Earmarked Funds in B., but I’m not sure how best to handle it. I could create a transaction between the Charity Current Account with today’s date and Expenses/Charity/Committed Funds as the destination account. Before I start to climb the Learning Curve of Scheme, are there existing reports that could be adjusted for my purposes? Or would I be better just to extract the necessary figures before Council Meetings and prepare a report in a Word Processor? Yours, sincerely hoping to avoid too much travel down blind alleys, Michael ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.