[GNC] BotanyBayGardens nonprofit example, and why GnuCash does not suffice

[jean laroche]

Thanks for the very detailed analysis of Gnucash's shortcomings for 
nonprofits (and other businesses).
I'm not an accountant either, barely a computer scientist.
If I were to summarize the areas where GC falls short, it seems to me GC 
is missing:
- Support for Job Costing
- Cash Flow reporting isn't what it should be.

Could the original poster (Don) confirm that these two features, if 
fixed/implemented would go a long way toward making GC more suited for 
nonprofits?

Perhaps the developers (including me, in a  modest manner) could then 
discuss whether these would be easy to add/fix. Perhaps these features 
have been discussed in the past? Job costing, in particular, may not be 
that hard to implement? The Cash Flow reporting might also not be too 
hard to fix, once the OP specifies exactly how it should be done, ideally.

Jean


On 7/24/2020 10:03 PM, will at theprescotts.com wrote:
> I have a few comments on this long post. I will preface it by admitting that I am neither a tax attorney nor an accountant. I have kept my personal accounts in GnuCash for many years. I am the treasurer for two non-profits, or more accurately, two subsidiaries of one non-profit. But neither of them are legal entities nor in the US. Legally, they are probably more akin to informal associations.
>
> The suggestions for falsifying the dates of transactions for convenience in accounting strike me as very bad advice. Is it even legal for an organization that has to abide by US tax laws.
>
> Similarly, I don't understand the advice to just treat Paypal transactions as if they were directly on checking. This would make accounting for Paypal fees strange. For organizations outside the US, Paypal no longer holds funds; they transfer them immediately, so the Paypal balance is always zero except for immediately after a deposit to Paypal. Even so, it is much easier to track activity treating Paypal as a bank account.
>
> Finally, I don't understand the suggestions about not having a cash account and immediately depositing all cash to checking. Perhaps it is partly because I live in a country where many transactions are still done with cash, where no one uses checks, just bank transfers. But I often accept donations in cash, and often pay bills in cash. Not accounting for those transactions directly would be neither accurate nor convenient.
>
> Will
>
> On 2020 Jul 24, at 07-24 22:13:26, doncram <doncram at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here is an example set of accounts set up as best possible for a real
> nonprofit, "Botany Bay Gardens".  This might be enough guidance for a few
> nonprofits.  But I explain why/how GnuCash usually fails for nonprofits,
> how it usually cannot serve them well enough, so a Treasurer coming here
> should probably decide to use Quickbooks (in its Pro version, or in a
> version packaged for Nonprofits) instead.  Unfortunately the visiting
> Treasurer's time is usually wasted, even more so if they proceed with
> trying to implement GnuCash, because they can't tell in advance how it will
> not work. I wish GnuCash would make a few changes, so nonprofits could be
> served.
>
> Recently Fiona and Joshua (and last year BigAl) asked questions about
> how/whether GnuCash accounts could be set up to handle a nonprofit.  Here's
> how: see the attached Chart of Accounts, Balance Sheet, and Income
> Statement, for a real nonprofit, "Botany Bay Gardens" (not its real name),
> and the following notes:
>
> 1. Setting this up in GnuCash just now did not take me terribly long, but I
> already knew well what are the accounts that are needed and how I want them
> organized.  This is in the United States. I previously reviewed some
> similar but bigger nonprofits reporting in their publicly available U.S.
> Internal Revenue Service Form 990 financial statements filings.  And I
> worked with the board and determined how their previous reporting system
> did not work for them, as well as how it would not work well for their IRS
> 990 reporting which they are soon required to start, because the nonprofit
> is growing over the reporting requirement threshold.  Take some time and
> design out your own chart of accounts in a spreadsheet, and revise as
> necessary with others' input.
>
> 2. You have to use account numbers (which are optional in GnuCash and in
> Quickbooks, but if you use them, they set the order) to make your reports
> presentable, with ordering that makes sense for your organization.
> Otherwise the default alphabetical order is maddening.
>
> 3. I prefer to set up one "Placeholder"-type account titled "Cash", which
> in this case contains two items:  the organization's checking account and
> its investment account with a local foundation (which charges fees but
> handles investment of spare funds and assists in fundraising in various
> ways).  These are both convertible easily to real cash.  I don't use a
> "Petty Cash" account, because any cash collected in this nonprofit, say at
> a fundraising event, should be promptly deposited into the checking
> account.  You don't want to record each tiny separate addition to the petty
> cash you have in hand (and indicating each as Fundraiser ticket sales
> revenue or whatever);  you just want to record one big deposit of all of it
> into the checking account (with just one entry recording the ticket sales
> in total).
>
> 4. Note the way "Cash" is defined is consistent with U.S. and all other
> countries' accounting standards:  it is what is really liquid.  It would be
> nice if GnuCash provided a Statement of Cash Flows, one of the 3 basic
> accounting reports, but it does not.  The SCF would provide a
> reconciliation of income (from the bottom line of Income Statement) to the
> actual change of cash from beginning to end of period.  Showing how changes
> in Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable and Inventory and other current
> assets and liabilities have used up or generated cash, and so on.  SCF
> reporting is maybe not crucial for a nonprofit, but GnuCash's lack is a
> factor in why Quickbooks is used instead for this nonprofit.
>
> (Long, side comment or rant, please feel free to skip:  GnuCash does have a
> feature labelled that way, but it is a report invented by computer
> programmers with no concept of what cash flow reporting actually is.  It
> has no resemblance to the very well-defined SCF as taught in accounting
> classes for all business students and as used in real life for businesses
> and nonprofits.  No offense at all is intended; I have the greatest respect
> for the GnuCash programmers, current and past, who have achieved so much.
> And I even admire how GnuCash's alternative is kind of clever, although in
> an odd way not actually useful to anyone.  Note the omission renders
> GnuCash less feasible for using in an intro accounting course, for
> example.  (You can, with unnecessary work in a spreadsheet, compose a SCF
> for your organization though.  There is a structured exercise often
> provided in intro accounting textbooks, where students do that, working
> from the Income Statement for the period plus beginning and end Balance
> Sheets, plus additional information.  It is just a mathematical, easily
> programmable thing, but it is very hard to get right when doing on your
> own. Accounting rules in all countries, at least for publicly traded
> companies, have required their financial statements to include the SCF,
> during at least the last several decades.  In the U.S. since 1989 or so.
> End rant.)
>
> 5. The nonprofit actually does accounting mostly on a cash basis:  pledges
> of future donations are not recognized and recorded as Accounts Receivable,
> bills due but not yet paid are not recorded as Accounts Payable.  It is
> simpler just to recognize those when you receive or send out payment.  And,
> at the end of the year, some expenses actually paid on January 2nd, say,
> but relating to a December 28th event, are recorded as having been paid on
> December 31.  This is simpler than recognizing the expense on December 28
> and setting up an Accounts Payable, and has the same effect in achieving
> matching of revenues and expenses in the past year period.  (So the Chart
> of Accounts should probably not have AR and AP, but I left them in, in this
> example.)
>
> 5. There is no Credit Card account as I don't see why a nonprofit would
> have a credit card.  It should have a debit card or two usable by the
> Treasurer and the President, say.  For a purchase, say, you just make one
> entry, of the reduction of checking account balance by the debit, and which
> expense category applies.
>
> 6. There is no Paypal account in this nonprofit's reporting, although this
> nonprofit does sell tickets and receive dues there, so in fact sometimes
> there are significant balances there.  But before closing any period, the
> accountant can just transfer the balance at Paypal to the checking
> account.  Perhaps dating the transfer on December 31, say, even though it
> actually is implemented on January 15.  Each Paypal transaction can be
> recorded just once, on date Paypal received the funds, as an increase in
> checking balance and recognition of ticket sales revenue.  Or maybe it
> would be better to show a Paypal account, as part of Cash.
>
> 7. This nonprofit is simple in having no direct employees, so no payroll
> expenses and no accounts to handle Social Security contributions or to
> handle required Workmen's Compensation expense, etc.  Instead the one
> hourly paid gardener person (say they get $15 per hour) is actually set up
> by a local temp agency as an employee of theirs.  The temp agency issues
> paychecks and pays the necessary taxes, etc., for charge of something like
> $18 per hour.  The gardener's expense, for the nonprofit, is in "Operations
> Contract Services".  The nonprofit also has website and social media work
> done by an independent contractor.  At the end of the year, the nonprofit
> does issue 1099 statements for this contractor and for any companies whose
> payments during the year were
>
> 8. Where GnuCash really fails for this nonprofit, though, is that it does
> not support Job Costing.  Job Costing is not apparent in an organization's
> overall, total reporting.  It provides for internally useful reporting.
> This nonprofit has multiple separate gardens which constitute different
> programs, some of them individually funded by a separate grant, for which
> tracking of expenses is required.  It has several fundraiser events each
> year, and the organization needs reporting that shows how it does in each
> one.  Job Costing, as can be done in Quickbooks, provides that.  For a
> construction firm, say, it would allow tracking of each separate job (e.g.
> each renovation or new house construction) so the revenues and the expenses
> for each one is reported.  An Income Statement by Job is a standard report,
> providing a column for each separately defined job and in total for the
> organization.  And management can try to figure out which types of jobs are
> more profitable, and why.  For a nonprofit, the Job Costing feature allows
> you to show a restricted grant that is received as revenue in a given job,
> and for you to document the usage of those monies by expenses charged to
> that job.  This is essential.  By the way, you can also budget by job, and
> have reports on Budget vs. Actuals by Job.
>
> (Another rant, sorry:  When new users come to GnuCash and ask about job
> costing, unfortunately they get a lot of misdirection, or at least that is
> what I have seen a few times a few years ago.  They may be directed to
> expand their Chart of Accounts to add a new separate revenue line for each
> job, and a new line for each type of expense incurred in each job.
> Consider a catering firm with 100 or 200 similar jobs each year.  The Chart
> of Accounts would rapidly become unworkable, and even though the
> information is separately recorded, standard reports don't work, either.
> If Job Costing is supported, the Income Statement by Job report, run for a
> specified period, would nicely show columns for just the jobs that were
> active in that period, lined up nicely side-by-side.  Some advice I have
> seen given out seems crazy.  And I think it would be fairly easy,
> programming-wise, for GnuCash to allow definition of job codes.  In each
> entry in a register or journal entry, the user would be allowed to select
> which job is relevant, if any, in an available job code field.  End this
> rant.)
>
> I'll stop here.  The last numbered note above is why GnuCash can't be used
> for the Botany Bay Gardens nonprofit, while an oldish copy of Quickbooks,
> the Quickbooks Pro 2017 version, does suffice.  Like many, I personally
> dislike most commercial accounting software (for how they drop features I
> need, how they add junk i do not want, and how they try to charge more and
> more, among other reasons) and I do like freeware in general and GnuCash in
> particular, as far as it goes.  But I cannot be at all professional and
> impose usage of software that does not provide the internal reporting that
> this nonprofit organization needs, when Quickbooks can do it (at least in
> the Pro version, at one-time expense of $300 or so, although the software
> tries to make you upgrade after 3 years by cutting off some functionality).
>
> I hope this helps someone.  Please do comment!
> --Don
>
> P.S. While writing this, I realize the Chart of Accounts that I share omits
> a few things that the real nonprofit has, and that I discuss above:  for
> example it does actually need and use a grant revenue account line to
> record the grants received into its various jobs.  Feedback about these
> PDFs as teaching examples would also be appreciated.
> <BBG_ChartOfAccounts.pdf><BBG_BalanceSheet><BBG_IncomeStatement>_______________________________________________
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