gnucash Setup multiple programs

[Mike or Penny Novack]

davezub wrote:

>I'm currently evaluating SMB accounting programs for our recreation council.
>Gnucash looks very impressive, but i'm somewhat accounting challenged........................................... Each program
>requires a specific budget report for its own program. We have only one
>checking account where all the funds reside. Just struggling with how to set
>this up.
>
Two issues here, the reporting and the fact that you will not have 
separate bank accounts. These are closely related because if you were 
using separate bank accounts the neatest way would be to have subsidiary 
BOOKS for each activity (and then a set of master books for the entire 
organization).

a) The bank account ---- especially if you are not using "on line 
banking features" but are manually entering check transactions you could 
partition the bank account having child accounts for each activity into 
which you transfer the budgeted amount from the parent. You just would 
need to be careful when entering checks written to put these 
transactions into the correct child.

b) Not specific to gnucash, but a chart of accounts allows just one 
heiracrchical structure. But that will not prevent you from preparing 
reports for each of the activities. You will have to choose whether you 
will prefer to do this from within gnucash (have separate reports 
selecting just the pertinent accounts for each) or do as most 
accountants would, a single report from gnucash, exported, and then you 
create each report using your favorite editor. That's what I do.

Michael D Novack, FLMI