[GNC] Club membership fees and charitable contributions - Business Features or Assets?

[Michael Hendry]

> On 3 Aug 2019, at 01:28, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> Michael 
> 
> 4 sets of books is possibly overkill and likely confusing. At worst you
> would need two, one for the club operations and one for charity.

I agree, and have set up the two sets you describe.

I have created an "Income:Intended for Charity Account" in the former and "Income:Intended for Club Account” in the latter, which allows me to post pay-ins that have gone into the wrong account without the immediate need to make a Club <—> Charity bank transfer.

Obviously, these accounts need to be “emptied” regularly. The errors usually involve members making BACS payments into the wrong account, but it has been known for a treasurer to make the odd mistake!

> Depending
> on the legislation of charities/non-profits in your jurisdiction if the
> charity is an operation of the club you may be able to get away with one set
> of books, just clearly separating the income, expense, assets, liabilities
> and equity of each operation under sub accounts of each top level account.
> It would require care in not mixing the club and charity operations that may
> be simpler The legal requirements however take precedence over convenience

The charity is not an operation of the club, but is a registered charity which receives funds arising from the activities of the club, and occasionally from a unconnected benefactors.

Funds can only go in one direction, Club —> Charity, except when correcting errors. We may not, to take a recent example, deal with a cash flow problem in the Club account by lending from the Charity.

> 
> Whether your members issue you with a single check for their membership fees
> and charitable donations or provide you with separate checks for the fees
> and charitable donations is another factor. If you have to transfer funds
> from your club bank account to the charity bank account it will be a simpler
> operation to record in a single set of books.  Alternatively, in the former
> case with separate books for the charity and club you could have a clearing
> account in your club records to record the component of checks which was
> donations to the charity on banking of the cheques and then the withdrawal
> from the club account and deposit to the charity account. If you need to
> track who donated what then using their name in the description field will
> allow you to run a transaction report on your income: fees  account to
> produce a statement.

Agreed. The annual subscription is the only routine payment members make to the Club Account. Otherwise the flow from members is to the Charity Account.

Many thanks for your clear presentation of the options, which has been most helpful.

Regards,

Michael