[GNC] Using GnuCash for cash-basis charity/fund accounting?

[David Cousens]

Edward,

GnuCash is certainly capable of doing most of what you wish to do however
there is not necessarily a do it out of the box capability for specific
purposes. There are often different ways in which you can achieve the same
functionality in GnuCash

Most of the points you raise are handled by the manner in which you setup
the accounts heirarchy.

Cash basis accounting: This predominantly gets down to the date at which you
record a particular transaction. If you record it at the date you receive
the money and the date you pay the moeny then your accounting is on a cash
basis. Accrual account is based on recording events when you earn the money
not when you are actually paid. Similarly with expenses where these are
associated with earning income. Some aspects of the business features are
essentially accrual in nature.

Donors: This could be handled explicitly by Income sub-accounts for each
major donor which relies on the receipt being allocated to the correct
account at entry. An alternative would be to use the ability to filter
transactions. This would require tagging each transaction in the Description
or Memo fields with consistent searchable tags. You could then have a
transaction report for an Income account for all transactions tagged with a
donors name - here you have to be consistent with the tagging or you risk
missing entries.

Payments:  If you set up expense subaccounts for the various categories
which can be nested as deeply as you need. For the charitable aims again
tagging in the Description or Memo fields will allow you to use filters on
reports to select expenses which meet a particular aim if these cannot be
handled by a subaccount structure.

Funds:  how you handle this will depend whether you have separate bank
accounts associated with a particular class of funds. If this is the case
then you use an asset:currentassets:bank  subaccount for each bank account.
If you only have a single bank account this becomes a little more difficult.
It has been addressed a number of times in the archives, particularly the
treatment of funds which are strictly restricted to a specific purpose. An
account associated with a single  bank account can for example have a number
of subaccounts which each deal with specifically designated funds and all
sum into the main account. Reconciling such structures is possibly more
difficult but the GnuCash reconciliation process has the ability to include
any sub-accounts in a reconciliation of the main parent account.


GnuCash is fairly flexible. Your account heirarchy can be adjusted and
edited as your needs change. The new file setup wizard has a number of
preset account heirarchies but not really a setup for not for profits.
The "Common Accounts" is possibly a good starting point to edit the
heirarchy to your specific needs. You can add accounts as required and
delete them if necessary (transactions already into an account being deleted
can be assigned to another account either manually before deletion or during
the deletion process.

There is an extensive report system in addition to the standard balance
sheet /income statement reports. These can be customised to your specific
needs with selectable options re dates, accounts included etc. to view a
reports options you have to display the report first and then Edit->Report
options from the menu.

The Tutorial and Concepts Guide
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/index.html is a good place
to start with the help manual
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/help.html for help more on
the interface functionality.

David Cousens



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David Cousens
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