[GNC] Non-cash charity contributions

[Kevin Reid]

On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 10:14 AM Art Chimes <artsonline at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have an expense account called "charity:non-cash contributions" where I
> record these (potentally tax-deductible) donations, but I don't know how
> best to record the other side of the transaction.
>
…

Note:  I do not want to be tracking the purchase cost of every item I
> donate, and don't want to muck about in the pond of depreciation either.
> But I can't imagine I'm the only person who has wondered about this.


Since you are not tracking the items as assets, their value must be counted
as income or expense, as part of the donation transaction.

You could record them as income, because you are bringing something into
your accounting that wasn't already there. Or, you could record them as
negative expenses — if you donate, say, food, record them against your
expense account for food. This second option seems reasonable to me because
the sum of your expense account will then more closely track the amount of
food you purchased for your own use, excluding the donated food.

You should make your own choice based on what seems useful to you — which
balances you want to be able to see easily. Either will work and either is
an improvement on leaving things in the Orphan account.