Initial setup questions for a small non-profit membership startup (UK)

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Cylindric <mark at hanfordonline.co.uk> writes:

> Hi folks. I'm sort of starting out with this sort of company, which is a
> non-profit membership organisation.
>
> I'm going to need to record basic stuff like bank, rent and bills and stuff,
> which is fine and I've done before, but I'm not sure how to handle the
> members and their subscriptions. From time to time we may also sell products
> to our members.
>
> I was going to use Customers, but I can't see how to create
> monthly-repeating transactions for Customers, so should I set them up as
> Accounts Receivable accounts, and use normal recurring transactions?

You are correct that you cannot create "repeating" invoices.  But you
can duplicate invoices manually.

If you decide not to use Invoices because you want to use Scheduled
Transactions, then definitely DO NOT use accounts of type A/Receivable!!
Those are ONLY for transactions created by the business invoicing
features, and you *will* shoot yourself in the foot one day.

> I'm also getting a bit confused with the number of transactions I'm
> creating, as I currently have, for example:
>
> £25 invoice in *Assets:AR:PersonName* to *Income:MembershipFees*
> £25 payment from *Assets:AR:PersonName* to *Assets:Current:Bank*
>
> A person might pay for 6 months up front, but I'll only want to "take out"
> their fee monthly.
>
> How does that sound? I realise it's probably all a bit wonky :)

Nope.  You can perform the Process Payment ahead of time..  And it can
be for more than you've invoiced..  As you create invoices for that
customer over time it will depleat the "pre-payment".  GnuCash handles
that just fine.

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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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