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

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 3/22/2020 5:27 PM, Edward Bainton wrote:
> Thank you all for these responses: very helpful indeed. It does indeed 
> sound like GnuCash will do the job, with some gentle 'hacks' for our 
> particular needs.
>
> I guess my only remaining question is how long it takes to learn it. 
> I'm a bit of a geek (who on opensource freeware isn't?) and will 
> happily commit many hours to it. But in the name of continuity to the 
> next treasurer, I ought to consider whether the more familiar Excel 
> would be better.
>
> Any thoughts on pros and cons there?
>
An experienced pen and ink on paper bookkeeper could easily use a 
spreadsheet app (Excel, LibreOffice Calc, etc.) to keep books. Simply 
set columns to match the ones used to on accounting paper for journal 
and ledger pages.

But WHY? You would have the same likelihood of transcription errors 
during posting, etc.

An application like gnucash immediately indicates that you have entered 
a transaction out of balance. There is no posting from the journal into 
the ledger, it can do all of the standard reports, the ledger accounts 
show running balance at all times, etc.

If the person has ever done "cashbook accounting" << where cash and a 
few of the most affected accounts are handled differently, without 
journal entries; only the rarer transactions that affect other accounts 
are first entered into a journal and then posted >> there is a very 
small learning curve because that's what gnucash does for ALL accounts.

Michael D Novack