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OS Accounting softwareFound TurboCash software. It appears to be sufficient. It was written in the UK so there are a few differences in what things are called, but the help files are full of all sorts of helpful information (FANCY!) Boy it sure does help that the part of the CPA exam that I'm looking at covers accounting for non-profit organizations. Now I probably won't muck it up completely by accounting for it as I would a normal business. Turns out a non-profit's equity is called "Net Assets." Makes sense, it's the assets less the liabilities. It's not as intuitive as QuickBooks or Quicken, but it is much more flexible; I believe to adapt Quickbooks to use in a non-profit organization you have to buy additional software. With this software I just have to set up the books properly. (Hmm, I think this desk is real wood.
By Michelle at 2006-07-01 14:21 | Michelle's blog | login or register to post comments | printer friendly version
Sounds goodTurbocash sounds like a winner if you're comfortable with it. Re Quickbooks, I think you just have to get the nonprofit edition. I think it's sometimes available at much lower cost via Tech Soup. At the moment they're out of stock. ...Plus there is the idea that I will be able to release the Chart of Accounts, reporting funtions and any other modifications that need to be made to adjust for non-profits, so that it can be used by other non-profits. Viral open source. It's just got to incubate for a little while first. M |
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nonprofits CAN use regular QuickBooks
The regular version of QuickBooks CAN be used successfully for accounting for nonprofit finances. The "nonprofit" version is just a way to spend extra money to have a few things relabeled - it doesn't really give you any different functionality.
To make the regular version work effectively, each funding source should be set up as a "customer" and each grant/contract/project should be set up as a "job". Then you can see your fund balances by with a report of "income by customer summary" customized to show all transactions (not restricted by date) and only show rows with non-zero balances (this is under advanced button). Memorizing this report lets you see balances at any time. Setting up "estimates" (= budgets) for each "job" (=grant/contract/project) lets you do progressive invoicing.
Gina Massoni, Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council