how to account for application of donations ?

[David T.]

Anita,

If I were you, I’d ask a local accountant for this advice; I imagine that getting this wrong could cause you problems later on. Personally, not being an accountant, I’d opt to treat them as separate transactions; it just feels right-er.

David

> On Jan 5, 2017, at 6:57 PM, Anita Graves <anitagraves at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> I have a question which is also related to donations and how to record them.  
> 
> I am the treasurer of a religious organization.  I receive contributions of amounts which are actually given in lieu of reimbursements for expenses (like cleaning the meeting venue, etc.)  These are exactly the same as cash transactions:  For instance, the custodian of the building asks for cash to reimburse her for paying  the cleaning lady, but instead decides to make that her contribution to the local fund.  I think this could be a single one-line transaction:  
> 
> Income : (Contributions) in lieu of reimbursement for cleaning expense  >  Expense : Cleaning the Center 
> 
> wherein I pretend I give her cash to reimburse her for the cleaning, and she hands it back to me as her contribution to the local fund.
> 
> Am I wrong in this very simple way to handle these kinds of contributions?
> 
> Thank you for your help,
> Anita
> 
>> On 30 Dec 2016, at 8:40 PM, Matthew Pounsett <matt at conundrum.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 28 December 2016 at 06:45, __ <tereque at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Can anyone advise how to set this up? I do not have to report in
>>> detail or each individual donation, but need to see the entire sum of
>>> funds that have been donated and what bills they have been used for
>>> 
>>> There are probably other solutions, but one idea that comes to mind is
>> judicious use of sub-accounts.
>> 
>> I use sub-accounts to track money set aside for specific purposes.  For
>> example, I have an asset account that maps to my real bank account, but in
>> gnucash I have created subaccounts which I transfer funds into from the
>> parent account in order to set money aside for a specific purposes like a
>> vacation fund, and home repair fund.  You could do something like that in
>> order to track incoming donations, and then when you pay bills using
>> donated funds, make the transfer from that sub-account.  Do not set the
>> parent as a placeholder, and in your Accounts view you might want to add
>> the Balance column so you can see the difference between what's in the
>> parent account, and what is summed up from its child accounts.
>> 
>> If your donations all come in to your bank account, but you sometimes pay
>> bills using cash, then account for that with a transfer from your donations
>> sub-account to your cash.
>> 
>> If you also sometimes get donations in cash, then have a donations
>> subaccount for your cash asset as well.  Or, you might do that anyway just
>> to have a specific way to track donated funds that pass through your cash
>> asset.
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