Need HTML to doc help; Printing; non-profit in kind donations

[Michael McKay]

I agree with considering the food you have in stock as an asset.  The
industrial equivalent would be inventory.  Items in inventory have value and
show up on the balance sheet as a non-current asset.  They get there when
you purchase or receive the goods.  In your case, if you buy the food you
would create a transaction that looks something like this:

	Purchased food			Cash			$1000
(decreases cash)
	Inventory of food			Inventory	$1000
(increases inventory)

When you "sell" the food, you'd do something like this:

	Cash received from food sale	Cash		$1200
(increases cash)
	Income from food sale		Income		$1200	(increases
income)
 	Reduction in inventory		Inventory		$1000
(decreases inventory)
      Cost of sales			COS		$1000
(increases cost of sales)

After these transactions you should be left with $200 in the bank and no
inventory.

If you are making a donation, there may be no cash or income so the donation
may reduce inventory and create a "cost of donation" expense instead.  The
second transaction would look like this:

	Reduction in inventory		Inventory		$1000
(decrease inventory)
      Cost of donation			COD		$1000
(increase cost of donations)

Again,  Cash and Inventory are assets.  Income, COS or COD are income and
expense accounts.

Yours,

Michael McKay
MJM Consulting
613.724.8169


-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org
[mailto:gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Cam Ellison
Sent: January-27-09 4:55 PM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Need HTML to doc help; Printing; non-profit in kind donations

Food Pantry Helper wrote:
> 3)  I understand the concept of double entry.  I'm trying to capture our
> Food Pantry's non-monetary donations (usually food from food drives, ect),
> and offset them with an expense.  Tried doing it under an income category
> for the donations, but they end up in red and in parenthesee's (ie,
(120.00)
> but in red).  And, then, the matching expense category I've set up (Food
to
> Clients) also is showing a number in red, in parenthesees.  Hmmmm.  Goal
is
> to be able to assign/track these non-money donations, which are a huge
part
> of our input, and put a value to them, as to Food to Clients.  In that
> category, I get a - I think it's a Charge, then a Rebate- IEEEE, what's up
> with that.  I don't mind re-entering last years stuff if I can find a way
to
> make it clear out as an in/out, yet still be able to show the total
non-food
> donations number.  I ended up using the reverse transaction option, and
> assigning it to the Food to Clients Category.  I'm missing something
> critical here, and if anyone understands what I'm referring to, please
help. 
>   
I'm not sure what you're doing with this donated food; that is, what is 
the business/organization?  Is this a co-op or a food bank or what?  Is 
any of the donated product sold?

On the assumption that you need to put a valuation on it, I suggest that 
it should be put on the income side, and treated as an asset.  Just as 
you must have some fixed assets (furniture, phone, computer,...), you 
could treat the donated food as a tangible asset with a particular 
value, and put it in its own account under Assets.  Any transaction 
recording the receipt of donated food items should be between 
Income->Food Donations and Assets->Donated Food.  Any transaction 
involving selling or distributing these items should debit the 
Assets->Donated Food account and credit either Assets->Current 
Assets->Cash (or Chequing or whatever) or Expenses->Charity->Donations 
for the predetermined value.

Warning here - IANAA - but this is what makes sense to me.

HTH

Cam



-- 
Cam Ellison  Ph.D.  R.Psych. #01417

Cam Ellison & Associates Ltd.
Management Psychology

3446 Beach Avenue
Roberts Creek  BC  V0N 2W2

Phone: 604.885.4806
Fax:   604.885.4809
Cell:  604.989.0635


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