[software] NPO software: where we need to go

[Josh Berkus]

Bob,

> I was not aware of this.  All the nonprofits and small business I know
> use QuickBooks.  I do not understand accounting systems.

Yes, but QB is a painful fit for NPOs.  Actually, it's pretty painful for 
retail stores too; just try calculating Cost of Goods Sold for a 
multi-item sale on it.  So QB is an example of trying to suit everyone by 
dramatically restricting functionality.

> I think the accounting system should be a separate project --- either
> pre-existing or something we embark upon now.

Yes.

> They didn't abandon the code, they took it proprietary.
> 	http://www.linuxcanada.com/

Ah, similar then.  The main point is that we *don't* want to adopt a 
3rd-party project which is no longer maintained.  That's the worst of both 
worlds; we have to deal with someone's old cruft, and we get no help from 
them.

> My father uses Quasar for skating club finances and likes it.  It's well
> featured and stable.  I believe he might also use GNU Cash for his
> personal finances.

Gnucash works fine for personal finances.  Again, no one system can suit 
everyone.

> Again, something I know not a lot about.  You seem to be well versed in
> accounting systems, and I'm interested in learning more.  Really... I'm
> interested in being told to target a particular system without having to
> become myself an expert in accounting.

Yeah, I had to take a state college course to support the system I wrote.  
Not enough to make me an accountant, but enough to understand the 
language.

> I've done it.  A client needed specialty accounting (legal trust
> > management), existing systems were very painful to adapt, so we wrote
> > one from scatch.
>
> Is it free?  (I understand if it's not).

It belongs to the client.  Also, you wouldn't want it; it's very bent 
around the needs of environmental torts.  And written in Microsoft COM+.

> Can you explain what it does not do?  I barely even know what QB DOES
> do, so this is all a learning curve.  The more you can explain about
> accounting, the better off I will be.

Well, for an umbrella organization I need to be able to do a lot of stuff, 
incluing:

-- Track income and expenses by up to 4 different dates each, including 
date pledged, check date, date sent, date received and date deposited and 
date requested, date approved, date sent, date cleared.

-- Group income and expenses either by the IRS-approved chart of accounts, 
or by a completely orthagonal tree of project/sub-project.

-- Manage a set of automated, complex per-transaction deductions based on 
the type of transaction (e.g. Paysimple Visa gift -$0.45 - (gift * 
0.02) ), some of which go into asset accounts.

-- Manage a system of expense requests which require approval.

-- Run ad-hoc queries on the data for anything the canned reports don't 
cover.

> And in that case... maybe we should REALLY keep accounting and NPO
> systems separate, so that an org can choose the acounting system that
> meets its needs, independent of its needs for marketing, sales, donor
> management, etc.

Yes.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL
San Francisco