ubuntu-ngo team mailing list archive

[Alan Bell <alan.bell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting application, looks handy for really small businesses where
the accounts are done perhaps in a spreadsheet or on paper and this
gives a computerised accounts receivable system, but it doesn't appear
to be (or claim to be) a full accountancy package and I am not sure if
it has any NGO specific features.

Alan.

Martin Božič wrote:
> Maybe this app would do the trick (it supports multiple users), runs
> on LAMP, translated into many languages, supports extensions:
>
> http://simpleinvoices.org
> DEMO: http://simpleinvoices.org/demo
>
> Martin
>
> Dne 02.10.2009 (pet) ob 09:13 +0100 je Alan Bell zapisal(a):
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> There was a bit of a discussion on the IRC channel yesterday about
>> accountancy software for NGOs/charitable organisations sparked off from
>> Laura Czajkowski's NGO interview where Quickbooks was listed as a piece
>> of proprietary software tying them to a proprietary platform. Here is
>> the edited (snipped irrelevance, moved to a more readable order) IRC
>> transcript:
>>
>> 19:05 < AlanBell> hi jimcooncat
>> 19:05 < AlanBell> there are nice Free accounting tools out there
>> 19:06 < AlanBell> for my small business GNUcash is perfect
>> 19:06 < AlanBell> for a big enterprise there are a collection of good
>> ERP systems
>> 19:06 < AlanBell> openERP
>> 19:06 < AlanBell> Compierer, OpenBravo, Adampiere and probably others
>> 19:06 < czajkowski> AlanBell: yup payroll flagged again this evening as
>> an issue
>> 19:06 < jimcooncat> it is for a new business. transitioning over from
>> another package is tough though
>> 19:07 < AlanBell> yes transitioning is hard
>> 19:07 < AlanBell> do it at a year end, close the books in one system and
>> open the next year in the new one
>> 19:07 < jimcooncat> AlanBell: I know the procedure well.
>> 19:08 < AlanBell> but that doesn't help with stock, customer data, bill
>> of materials etc so there is plenty to do for a transition
>> 19:09 < AlanBell> not sure what the specific issues an NGO or third
>> sector organisation would have with accounting
>> 19:10 < jimcooncat> fund accounting can be difficult if you don't have
>> that explicitly supported in the software
>> 19:11 < jimcooncat> you have to keep track of balances of funds that are
>> restricted to certain uses
>> 19:11 < AlanBell> ringfenced stuff
>> 19:11 < jimcooncat> "third sector", "ringfenced" -- so much jargon.
>> 19:12 < AlanBell> I am a bit surprised that fund accounting is different
>> to cost centres/profit centres in a business
>> 19:13 < jimcooncat> It's not -- but Quickbooks is terrible at doing
>> balances for those
>> 19:14 < AlanBell> ah ok
>> 19:14 < AlanBell> GNUcash doesn't have a template set of accounts for a
>> fund accounting type organisation, but I think it should do, and it
>> wouldn't be hard
>> 19:15 < AlanBell> that would help organisations where there is one
>> person who does the bookkeeping
>> 19:17 < jimcooncat> Some simple organizations use asset sub-accounts,
>> which works until they split their funds into separate bank accounts.
>> 19:18 < AlanBell> what size organisation are we talking about here?
>> 19:19 < jimcooncat> In USA, before the financial crisis, once an
>> organization had more than $100,000 they needed a second bank account.
>> 19:19 < jimcooncat> At the moment, it's $250,000 -- so that's not so bad
>> 19:21 < AlanBell> how many people would touch the accounts?
>> 19:23 < jimcooncat> you need at least two with access to the accounts
>> (in case one becomes unavailable). But you should have all transactions
>> going through one central place. Is that what you meant?
>> 19:25 < AlanBell> that sounds fine for GNUcash, it doesn't have great
>> support for multiple simultaneous users (unless you use a specific
>> version with a postgres backend that nobody is maintaining last time I
>> looked)
>> 19:26 < jimcooncat> old-style accounting never had simultaneous users
>> anyway -- they'd split the books up like a sales journal, payables
>> journal, etc.
>> 19:27 < AlanBell> hmm, so I think with a bit of research and a friendly
>> NGO it would be possible to do a great howto for such organisations and
>> develop an exemplar chart of accounts to go into GNUcash as one of the
>> templates available
>>
>>
>> So with that there is the germ of an idea.
>> GNUCash is a double entry accounting package. I use it to run two UK VAT
>> registered small businesses and it works great for me. It supports a
>> huge list of currencies and a chart of accounts can run with mixed
>> currencies. It is a single user system which limits the size of
>> organisation a bit (multi-user is on the roadmap but I am not sure
>> if/when that would happen) but vast numbers of NGOs/charities are small
>> enough that one person has the primary responsibility for bookkeeping.
>> GNUCash out of the box on Ubuntu has a bunch of template account
>> hierarchies, for example "A Simple Checkbook" "Homeowner Expenses"
>> "Business Accounts" "UK VAT Accounts" etc. There isn't really one
>> designed for the needs of a charity. You can set up the accounts any way
>> you like, the templates are just a starting point so you could today use
>> GNUcash for any business. It would be great to say that with Ubuntu you
>> have an accounting package with a pre-configured template to get a
>> charity up and running.
>>
>> Now from a bit of research it turns out that there are very different
>> requirements for NGOs depending on what jurisdiction they are in. In
>> America there are federal requirements for Fund Accounting
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fund_Accounting
>> in the UK there are two different ways, Receipts and Payments for
>> smaller organisations
>> http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc16.asp and Accruals
>> for those over a threshold
>> http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc17.asp and no doubt
>> those charities domiciled in other countries will have different
>> standards to meet.
>>
>> Now what I think we could usefully do is to find a charity that is
>> "usefully typical" in that they are not doing anything weird financially
>> (such as providing micro-finance loans) and are in a jurisdiction where
>> their problems would be shared by lots of other organisations who would
>> benefit from Software Freedom. If they will open the books and talk to
>> us about what they need in an accounting package so we can build a chart
>> of accounts that works for them, and generically for organisations like
>> them I think this would be a great reason for people to switch to
>> GNUcash on any platform, preferably Ubuntu.
>>
>> As a project this isn't programming, and it isn't particularly hard. You
>> don't need to be an accountant (I am not) but it would be great if an
>> accountant could check it.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Alan.
>>
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