gnucash-user Digest, Vol 95, Issue 5

Jason Dunham jwdunham at gmail.com
Thu Feb 3 11:17:38 EST 2011


From: Phil Frost <indigo at bitglue.com>

>
> On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 08:20:50AM -0700, Mark Phillips wrote:
> > I am running a US not for profit 501c3 club softball team. We have an
> > outside batting coach come once a week to give batting lessons. Each
> player
> > pays $15 to the club, which is considered by the IRS to be a donation and
> I
> > have to keep track of how much each person donates per year to the club.
> The
> > club pays $150 to the batting coach for each lesson. there are 2 teams,
> 12U
> > and 14U.
> >
> > I have 2 sub accounts under checking - 12U Batting and 14U Batting, An
> > income account for each club member, and and 2 expense accounts: 12U
> Batting
> > and 14U Batting.
> >
> > 1. take $15 from a 12U player
> > Debit 12U Batting checking account, credit Income account for that person
> >
> > 2. Pay a check for 12U batting
> > Debit 12U Batting expense and credit 12U batting checking account
> >
> > 3. How do I account for a parent who does not pay that night and pays
> later?
> > I looked at the personal loan example in the help file, but I am missing
> > something
> > Debit the asset account - money owed from a person, but I can't credit
> the
> > income account for that person because they have not paid yet. Where does
> > the offsetting entry go?
> >
> > What if I need to collect $ for a tournament fee. I pay the fee, and one
> > parent is late in paying. I would debit the tournament expense and credit
> > the checking account, but I need to keep track of the fact that a person
> > owes me for their portion of the tournament fee.
>
> Sounds like you want "Accounts Receivable". There is a feature in
> gnucash by this name, and it is also a generic accounting concept. Using
> the A/R system in gnucash gets you a database of vendors and customers.
> Depending on your needs, it may be simpler to simply create asset
> accounts for each person that may owe you money.
>
>
>
Right.  To clarify what Phil says, money owed to the entity keeping the
books is an asset and it's usually called Accounts Receivable.

If you're not printing invoices, I would keep your own simple asset account
called Accounts Receivable rather than using the Gnucash A/R customer
invoicing system.  You can have sub-accounts under your AR asset for each
family if you like, so that that you know each one's balance due (which is
the current value of that asset).  When they pay, you credit this AR account
and debit the bank account.  When they use the service (which is now a
different event than payment) you debit the AR account and credit the Income
account. The big question is whether you want to do this for all families or
just for the ones that pay late.  The latter may be less work, but the
former will make everything more consistent and less confusing.

P.S.  This is the difference between cash basis and accrual basis.

Jason Dunham


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list