GnuCash for Non-profits

[Farrukh Najmi]

Hi Guys,


I am new to GnuCash and books for non-profit organization. I have 
experience doing books for a for-profit business using QuickBooks.

I have the following questions...

  * How to capture a transaction representing a donation by a specific
    donor to a specific program (e.g. cause) offered by our non-profit.
    For example,
    Jane Doe makes a donation of $100 via EFT to Checking Account and
    designates it to the Scholarship Fund.

    Here is how I am thinking of doing it... Does that seem right?

      o Define Chart of Accounts as follows:
          + Assets
              # Current Assets
                  * Paypal Account
                  * Checking Account
          + Income
              # Donations Received
                  * Scholarship Fund
                  * Disaster Relief

      o When we import the transactions from the Checking Account the
        transaction looks as follows:
          + Memo says: Jane Doe
          + Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account is increased by $100
          + Income:Donations Received:Scholarship Fund is decreased by $100

  * How to represent a regular donor in a non-profit organization's
    books. Should they be represented as a Customer?
    If so, how does that tie in to the registers since instead of
    Estimate => Purchase Order => Invoice process we need a Donation
    Received => Send Receipt type of process

  * How to report donation by donors

  * We hold periodic events which are funded by event-specific dues
    (like a ticket). Costs such as venue, food, AV equipment etc. need
    to be tracked. Need to produce reports where income and expenses
    from individual reports are available. What should our Chart of
    Accounts look like to handle this.

Thank you for any experience you can share and apologies if these 
questions are not clear.

-- 
Regards,
Farrukh Najmi