Setting up GNUcash for an association

[effe iets anders]

Hi Michael,

thanks for your input, Michael and Robert! Michael, what you say makes sense
indeed. Having a manual input and new accounts for every new donation
(recurring donations won't be the general I expect), I'd like to somehow
import it from a .940 . Entering new accounts doesn't really scale I'm
afraid.

Do you think that GNUcash would actually be the best OS software for this at
all (donor book keeping)? Could you perhaps recommand a better system for
this part?
We're not an association under US law btw, but that should not really matter
a huge lot for having a good system running :)

Best regards, Lodewijk

2008/10/27 Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com>

> Robert Smits wrote:
>
> >On October 24, 2008 03:08:15 pm effe iets anders wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >>I set up GNUcash recently on my computer, and I am getting through it bit
> >>by bit. I am setting it up for an association that will recieve mainly
> >>income through activities, donations and contributions. The donations
> will
> >>come from many different donors. We would like to keep track of recurring
> >>donations and contributions, and that way easily find back payments and
> >>donations made by a person.
> >>
> >>How can I set up GNUcash in such a way that I can add some kind of Donor
> ID
> >>to identify the donor?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I do that by creating accounts for each contributor in
> income,contributions,
> >name.
> >
> >This way I can see just what each contributor has given us either through
> a
> >cash flow report or by looking at the accounts.
> >
> >Bob.
> >
> >
> Going to put my two cents in here. I'm the treasurer for more than one
> 501c3.
>
> Traditional double entry bookkeeping allows you to group accounts in
> only one way --- by which I mean you can't at the same time have them
> grouped one way and then another. At the same time, the whole purpose of
> bookkeeping records is to be able to readily supply the necessary
> information.
>
> Here there is more than one way "donations" must be grouped. You need to
> be able to keep separate different kinds of donations (membership,
> unrestricted donations, restricted donations possibly of several sorts,
> etc.). At the same time you must be able to produce donor totals, etc.
> for at least the annual acknowledgment letter (different if over $250)
> and you may need to be able to distinguish and provide totals for
> "unqualified" vs "general public" donors.
>
> I would not try to do this in one set of books. GnuCash (the
> application) can certainly be used for the various purposes, but I
> suggest that the "donor accounting" be a set of "donor books" separate
> from the main organizational books. The latter can have the accounts
> organized (grouped) to serve one set of purposes and the donor books
> another. Yes looks like more work, but not necessarily even being done
> by the same person.
>
> Michael
>
>
> --
> There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the
> equality of the grave.
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>