[software] Design Decisions

[Josh Berkus]

Dave,

> It would probably help. The real problem is I just don't understand how an 
> umbrella org operates, whereas I understand a small nonprofit like my 
> animal rights group quite intimately, as I'm a board member, the 
> 

The main difference with umbrella orgs is that each donation and expense 
has a separate, orthagonal-to-the-chart-of-accounts, heirarchical 
project designation.  All expenses of the donation need to be deducted 
from that donation *on receipt* and usually there's a "commission" for 
the umbrella organization itself.  Many donations will be split between 
multiple projects.

Further complicating this is that we also usually want to give the 
projects "credit" for their donations on receipt rather than waiting 
until they hit the bank account ... even though we're on cash 
accounting.  So for a sample donation:

Joyce Person gives $80 as $60 attendance donation for DebConf9 and $20 
to go to PostgreSQL, which she sends on 4/11/09, arrives on 4/20/09 and 
is deposited on 4/25/09.

Joyce sees in her receipt:
4/11/09  $60.00  Debian Project
DebConf9
4/11/09	 $20.00  PostgreSQL Project General Fund

The Debian project admin sees:
4/20/09  Debian Project DebConf9
Joyce Person joyce at person.org
$20 - ($2.40 CC fee) - ($3.00 SPI commission) = $54.60

The PostgreSQL project admin sees:
4/20/09	 PostgresQL Project
Joyce Person joyce at person.org
$20 - ($0.80 CC fee) - ($1.00 SPI commission) = $18.20

The accountant sees:
4/25/09  $60.00  Revenue: Events, deductible donations
4/25/09  $ 3.20  Expense: Credit card fees
4/20/09	 $54.60  Liability: Debian Earmark
4/20/09	 $18.20  Liability: PostgresQL Earmark

This is what I mean by complexity.

Further, it strongly affects users and permissions, because we would 
like each project admin to be able to log into the system, and see their 
donations, donors, and summary reports, but not anyone else's.

See why existing software doesn't work for us?

--Josh