Help: Research group accounting

[Mark Phillips]

I would suggest a three step approach to this problem.

1. I agree that modeling/describing in detail the most common transactions
with pen and paper would be helpful to clarify what is actually needed. How
do the minutes and dollars flow through your accounting system and what
type of reports do you want to have to summarize/authenticate all the
transactions you will have.

2. I would then translate the nouns and verbs from these written
transactions into gnucash business accounting terms. The people on this
list can provide some help here. You are stretching the normal use of the
software into a new area. I believe it can be done, but will require a
solid understanding of what you need with what gnc provides to make it work
correctly.

3. Get a copy of GnuCash 2.4 Small Business Accounting (
http://www.amazon.com/Gnucash-2-4-Small-Business-Accounting/dp/1849513864).
It will help a lot with setting up of business accounts and how to use them
correctly and easily. It is a little more verbose than the online help,
which is also very good. With these two aids, you will be able to learn how
to input your transactions correctly and run meaningful reports.

If that seems too daunting or too much of a learning curve, then I suggest
you use a couple of spreadsheets until you gain a good understanding of
what you are tracking and how you want to report it. This idea may even be
a better first step before number 1 above.

Mark

On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Mike or Penny Novack <mpnovack at mtdata.com>
wrote:

> On 7/6/2015 11:41 AM, Jędrzej Pełka wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> There is a small research group, which runs various experiments on human
>> subjects. The subjects are paid for the amount of time they spent
>> participating. I wonder if it would be reasonable to use GnuCash to track
>> what the research group owes/pays/gets from the subjects.
>>
>> Detailed description of the "business logic" of the research group:
>>
>> .........
>>
>> I'm a beginner and this case of business is rather unusual compared to
>> most GnuCash tutorials. May somebody suggest a proper scheme for accounting
>> this?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> JP
>>
> My suggestion is that ANYBODY with this sort of unusual accounting need
> first step back and think about the question of how they would be doing it
> in the pre-computer accounting days of pen and ink on paper. That will
> clarify your questions about how to do it using gnucash, which after all,
> is simply a way of automating parts of the accounting process.
>
> But yes, I think you could in fact think of "time" as an imaginary
> "foreign currency". I don't see any obvious reason why this wouldn't work.
>
> Michael
>
>
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