[GNC] How to set up a pledge payment

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 1/13/2020 3:13 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> You can create it as a liability account but just know that it isn’t a legal one. You’ll also want to make sure in any official reports you create, that you do not include it since it is just a pledge.
>
May depend on your jurisdiction, but just as pledges are "receivables" 
for the charity they are "liabilities" for the donor << those two going 
together >>

The reason not so obvious is that it is rare for a charity, etc. to take 
action to collect on an unfulfilled pledge. Rare exceptions would be 
very large amounts and the estate of the donor << example, the donor 
pledged 10 million to his or her uni but died before fulfilling the 
pledge and the executor of the estate not doing so in spite of will 
clauses about "just debts, unfulfilled pledges, etc."

The complications would  be when the pledge is over some long period of 
time. Thus a pledge "1000/year for the next five years" does not make 
$5000 immediately receivable for the organization nor $5000 immediately 
owed by the donor. But within a year probably best considered immediate.

It's not just for donors that pledge accounting is deficient -- software 
for non-profits tends to also lack necessary features.

Michael D Novack