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

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/26/2019 6:49 AM, Greg Feneis wrote:
> Michael, I use GnuCash for my cash business and don't have any trouble with
> it.  I think the only trouble you may have is with report generation.
>
> Kind regards, Greg Feneis
> (Pixel 3)
>
Well yes, it is precisely that, adjustments necessary to convert 
"accrual" to "cash" for reports. Not THAT hard to do for those 
experienced in bookkeeping (the old way) and if doesn't need to be done 
all that often. If quarterly of annually only, I might do it that way.

But a business is different than a club/church/charity  and it is only 
for the latter sort of org that I am willing to help in this way. The 
reason I am suggesting "a second set of books" JUST to send invoices 
(member statements) is that in my experience possibly the majority of 
collections will be "not as billed".

Take a church/synagogue as am example. The "membership dues" might be 
set as X, and perhaps half the congregation sends in that amount. The 
other half, people contact the treasurer (or an abatement committee) and 
say "sorry,we just can't afford that much" and they get an "abatement" 
<< an arrangement to pay what they can >> In other words, the total of 
"receivables" is NEVER going to be close to what comes in.

Would you, as a business, be so casual about "not had to adjust: is HALF 
of you invoices involved adjustment to "bad debt"? << in the 
organizational case, "abated" >>

The point is, the second set of books I am talking about is JUST for 
sending out "statements". You don't necessarily have to record there 
when payments come in unless you want to be able to send out follow-up 
statements. There is an argument for NOT doing it. If "abated amount" is 
put in and statement sent out again (for the lesser amount) that is ALL 
you would get. And of course might not even get that. But if the person 
is told by the treasurer or abatement committee ,"look, pay half you 
can" you MIGHT end up getting more. Usually the board wants to know how 
many (what percentage of our congregation is abated) and how much 
collected from all who are abated (for predicting total membership dues 
for budgeting) but NOT "who is abated and by how much" << that is 
private, confidential >> Note that is you are recording these incoming 
payments into the (real/main) books on cash basis and that is the 
information needed just have to have "membership dues" and under it two 
child accounts "full membership dues" and "abated membership dues".

Michael D Novack