Deposits Report

[Mike or Penny Novack]

TanyaMc wrote:

>I use GnuCash for my role as church treasurer. I came to GC from QuickBooks,
>so the lack of reports and need to create my own is daunting to me, as that
>is not my forte'. 
>
>I need to provide a report to the person that second party's the info on my
>reports. I need to account for each dollar that is deposited and into which
>'fund' it went. I have been able to adapt GC to work using sub accounts of
>checking account and sub accounts for income and expenses.
>
>  
>
.........

Gnucash is a wonderful tool that by automating the posting process 
prevents the most common errors of traditional pen and ink on paper 
bookkeeping. But to use it you have to have a reasonable grasp of how 
double entry bookkeeping works.

Let's see if I understand what you church is doing (not necessarily HOW 
you are currently trying to enter in gnucash)

1) You have one bank account (checking). "In" and "out" will refer to 
THIS account.
2) You have SOME money coming in that is income for your church.
3) You have SOME money coming in that is restricted to OTHER things.
4) You have SOME money going out that is expenses for your church.
5) You have SOME money going out for these OTHER things.

You want/need to be able to report on income/expenses for your church.
You want/need to account for the OTHER funds passing through your church 
account.

Is that a correct description of your situation?

Michael D Novack

PS: Hint --- the fundamental equation of bookkeeping is assets = 
liabilities + equity.  In other words, a negative asset account and a 
liability account are the same. In the bank statements you get from your 
bank, debits and credits are reversed from your own books because the 
money in your bank account is an asset to you but a liability to the 
bank (they owe you this money). The SAME way funds held by your church 
for some OTHER (say the "mission fund") while an asset to the mission 
are a liability to your church.

Consider these transactions.
1) A congregant donates $100 for mission work which is deposited in the 
checking account.
         db checking
         cr  mission fund (an account of type liability)
2) A check is written to the "XYZ Mission"
         db mission fund
         cr  checking

Notice that to produce a report for the "mission fund" is simply 
reporting all activity in just this account.