[GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Michael Hendry]

> On 24 Aug 2019, at 15:41, Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> On 8/23/2019 10:59 AM, Wm via gnucash-user wrote:
>> 
>>> For example, the price of the meals at meetings is rounded up to the nearest pound, and the remainder is earmarked for “Charity Choice”. Not all members attend every meeting, and some members skip the meal and make a token payment to Charity Choice. There are several such income headings to deal with.
>> 
>> Sounds like crap to me.
>> 
>> Think about this: I went to dinner with my mates, said it cost more than it did and said the difference was for charity.  Would you believe me?
>> 
>>> The difficulty is that it must be possible to document each individual member’s contributions over the year in order to make a Gift Aid claim to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which tops up the members’ contributions by 25%.
>> 
>> OK, it sounds to me like you're being asked to cheat HMRC.  Are you prepared to do that? 
> 
> You know all that much, both about the charitable components (tax deductible, need to be reported separately) of organizations that while non-profit (tax exempt) are not "deductible" << for example, a "fraternal" society -- what this is >> and specifically what is required in the UK?
> 
> What was asked for here seemed perfectly above board to me. Besides being treasurer of 501(c)3's I also belong to organizations that are not deductible BUT do sometimes make charitable donations. In some cases, that is a lot of what these organizations do beyond their social functions << Lions, Shriners, etc. >>  I do not know how they report even here in the US let alone in the UK.

Thanks, Mike.

The club itself keeps its own financial records for running expenses etc. Any income arising from charitable activities is passed to a trust which is registered as a charity with OSCR (the relevant regulatory authority in Scotland). Any donation to this charity from a member (or indeed from any member of the public) is eligible for Gift Aid. The treasurer for the last five years is a retired banker, and his accounts were all certified by a chartered account before being passed on to OSCR so I think the principles have been established. What I am trying to do is find the best way of using GC to record and report the necessary information.

My predecessor has passed on unpopulated spreadsheets for this club year, and I plan to run both methods until I can decide which is better.

Regards,

Michael