audit recommendation - dump gnucash??

[GWB]

Sorry to hear about that, and yes, it does happen.  Different auditors
have different ideas about what constitutes "valid" accounting
software.  I would echo most of the ideas so far, especially the idea
to avoid doing anything that would unnecessarily annoy your main
donor.  You might talk to the donor first, explain the situation, and
mention that a "licenced accounting system" sounds expensive,
especially for a small struggling organisation, and this might require
returning to book keeping in excel.

This kind of question has come up before.  Someone from Sweden (I
think?) wrote to the list about gnucash not meeting some requirement
of their government.  The auditors may be reacting to some
governmental or international regulation (like GAAP); who knows.

What would be helpful is a list of organisations that do use gnucash.
Does such a thing exist?  So far I can find the following:

http://www.mnbar.org/docs/default-source/practicelaw/pm-200-keeping-client-trust-accounts-with-gnucash-2-2-4.pdf

The Minnesota State Bar Association's "Keeping Client Trust Accounts
with GnuCash".  You might download that and get in touch with their
Director of Technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCash

Look under the "Users" section.  You can find gnucash recommended by
"Slaw" (a legal webzine).  Also search through the gnucash user list
for "501(c)3" which are US non-profit organisations.  They range from
very small to quite large, but all 501 organisations must report to
and meet specific guidelines issued by the US Department of Treasury
(Internal Revenue Service).

And of course several million downloads of gnucash, and that's just
the ones from the gnucash web site.

We're all fans of gnucash here, but these other organisations (and
Wikipedia) might be all you need.  It would be better if others on the
list can come up with gnucash users outside of the US, preferably
non-profits like your own in the EU, UK, etc.

Gordon

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 6:52 PM, Rufus <rlaggren at gmail.com> wrote:
> Novack and Liz ("history") hit the nail. This is a business matter
> affecting your organization in a big way. You must treat it as such
> especially because it goes right to the top.
>
> "Business matter" does not mean smart, reasonable, logical, legal,
> moral, patriotic or anything else like that. Though you should bring all
> that stuff to bear in ways that help you get what you have decided you
> want. "Business" means the ongoing agenda to gain advantage to reap
> profits and arrange that others pay all your costs. The accounting firm
> which made the report has taken the win/win opportunity to gain more
> control and maybe make life easier for itself while at the same time
> setting up a golden justification that any future problems have nothing
> to do them and "they told you...". This is normal business behavior.
>
> The _actual_ merits of GC matter only peripherally here because the
> "business" decisions involve PERCEIVED profit and loss (in $$$,
> prestige, career prospects, personal power, etc) to the decision makers.
> Prestige, hope, fear, and CYA generally rule (especially the latter) so
> address the decision makers always with those concerns in mind. Speak to
> _them_ in their language as much as possible. They care about _their_
> issues, not yours.
>
> If  you "believe in" GC, you have some ammunition you can bring to bear.
>
> - your growth and successful use of GC
> - the absence of any "fix guarantee" in most vendor contracts
>
> You can generate more:
>
> - successful and ongoing use of GC by entities which your donor
> respects; you dig, looking for things like what _other_ accountants does
> the donor use successfully and what do _they_ think of GC; what other
> entities or areas business is your donor familiar with or has heard of
> which use GC
>
> - problems with standard accounting packages; cost being one of the big
> ones, but there are doubtless others
>
> - the use of community based software by almost all the financial
> institutions in the world (ie. the innuendo against community software
> that the accounting firm is deploying is a false representation)
>
> This type of game is based almost purely on whose name you can bring to
> bear rather than "what you know". Point to people, institutions and
> facts (in that order, probably) which your donor is familiar with and
> respects that support your choice and commitment to GC.
>
> Rufus
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.