[GNC] Project moderation and governance
I have used GNUCash for over 16 years personally and professionally. I hoped to repay the effort into the project by contributing knowledge from my professional accounting training and experience - plus some amateur programming skills. I hoped that this knowledge could help the project grow and benefit everybody. In early September, a user on the devel list said several incorrect and insulting things. I replied firmly, yet tactfully, in a single message explaining why the user was wrong. I let it go after that. Some seven hours later, someone who self-identified as a moderator called me an "offender" on-list - as if I'm a criminal - and e-mailed me personally to say: > I don't permit this on our mailing lists. > I privately email offenders, like this to keep it quiet. I asked this person which code of conduct I breached. I should know what's expected of me. I received this reply: > you participated in an argument which was not about the code. > you followed up on an unacceptable post - that's my job. Fair enough, but there is no way of knowing what the rules are, and I spoke up because nobody else did to curb misinformation. The mod continued: > these policies are not written and promulgated, so I don't have to get > into any discussion, I just make a ruling. This is troubling. Codes of conduct are fundamental to organisations of any size. Rules tell members what is expected of them and provides fair and consistent ways to resolve problems. Letting one person "just make a ruling" leads to abuse. We abandoned Tudor courts where members curry favour with arbitrary rulers claiming divine right for this reason. I suggested that this person communicate expectations in a more welcoming and inclusive way. I also conceded that I might have misread the tone, and so I offered to help with future communication. This person ignored my feedback and accused me disparaging doctors. It's a ridiculous thing to say - I owe my life to medicine many times over! It is ironic to be accused of being disrespectful and irrelevant - without evidence - in a disrespectful and irrelevant e-mail. I don't want to be bullied. To be certain, I support moderation. I'm saying that there's a good way to communicate expectations and manage conflict, and there's what this person did. I wanted to become an active GNUCash contributor, improve documentation (starting with explaining what "debit" and "credit" mean, since there's still a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation) and help users with their accounting issues, but I also I appreciate that nobody cares whether I stay. Nevertheless, I can't see talent gravitating to toxic environments, so I want to appeal to the project's admins in hopes that there will be change lest the project suffocate itself. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Redo account reconciliations
6 Sept 2021, 23:51 by jra...@ceridwen.us: > > > >> On Sep 6, 2021, at 12:35 PM, Borden via gnucash-user <>> >> gnucash-user@gnucash.org>> > wrote: >> >> My professional advice>> >> > > Just curious, where are you licensed and what's the focus of your practice? > > Regards, > John Ralls > I'm not a full CPA because I need CPA Ontario to sign off on my work experience meeting their standards. I'm working on what I hope is one of my final work reports now. However, I've met all other requirements of CPA Ontario's professional programme, including passing the examinations back in 2018. So I'm basically the equivalent of a law student finishing up his articles. In terms of focus, our firm does small business bookkeeping and tax preparation for individuals and corporations. However, we are trained and capable of doing assurance and a wide variety of consulting engagements. In my personal client list, I mostly provide accounting and Law Society compliance support. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Redo account reconciliations
Sep 4, 2021, 11:00 by david.carlson@gmail.com: > I guess it depends on how fussy you are about details. Since there is no way > to see the reconciliation date there is little reason to insist on that date > being correctly recorded. The GnuCash code displays an incorrect starting > balance in the Reconciliation window. When you follow Derek's suggestion and > just ignore the starting balance error in the current month's reconciliation, > the old transaction is recorded as being reconciled in the current month. > > If you really do want to record the correct reconciliation month for every > transaction, you need to unreconcile all transactions after the date of the > statement> before> the month that is not correct before starting the > rereconciliation. > So it's already been mentioned a few times that there are a few days to see the rec date on a transaction. I use it myself when producing ledgers for review to confirm when certain transactions cleared (like when you write a cheque that doesn't cash for 3 months and you need to show both dates). My professional advice is that there's no one "right way" to run your books. As we were told in intro (and again in intermediate, advanced and theory) accounting, the purpose of accounting is to capture and produce information. So what you capture and produce depends on what information is important to you. If all you care about is making sure that you haven't missed any transactions on your bank statements, then reconcile on any date you like. If you need a longer auditing record that matches recs to their statements, like I do, then you need to fiddle with your rec dates. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Redo account reconciliations
> The starting balance is computed from all the reconciled transactions "to > date". It *can* be safe to ignore the starting balance if, for example, a > transaction became unreconciled. For example, let's say you reconcile > from some starting balance X to a final balance of $1000. Then you > accidentally unreconcile a $100 transactions. If you try to re-reconcile > that same statement/date/ending-balance of $1000, it won't show X as the > starting balance, but something else (PROBABLY $900, but I'm not 100% > sure). But that's okay -- just ensure the ending balance is correct and > all the transactions that SHOULD be reconciled ARE reconciled. > > There is no way to get a transaction to reconciled status (y) manually -- > the only way is through a reconcile process. So if you have reconciled > transactions, that must've happened through a reconcile. > > I would recommend you just go ahead with March, ignore the starting > balance, enter the correct March ending balance, and see if the > reconciliation works (ensure you re-reconcile anything from earlier that > might have become unreconciled). > So I just want to build a bit on this answer. GNUCash doesn't have QBs reconciliation system - so don't equate the two. As an accountant who doesn't need to be handheld or leashed, I find GNUCash's system better than QBs - albeit there is room for improvement. However, I wouldn't recommend GNUCash to someone less comfortable with bare-ledger accounting - controls exist for a reason. I don't know how the backend works, but my experience is that the "Opening balance" is basically a running total of all the transactions marked "Reconciled" in that account. Whereas QB will _prevent_ you from attempting to reconcile August if July's reconciled balance differs from what it previously reconciled, GNUCash doesn't care - it just says "The transactions marked 'Reconciled' for this account total to $X." And that's good for when you have to go back and fix things... and know what you're doing. When you reconcile a transaction, again based on my experience, GNUCash toggles the "Reconciled" flag on the account _and_ inserts the reconciliation date. I personally like this because I can, say, start a fresh reconciliation for March having reconciled through August to pick up the transactions that _should_ have been in the March reconciliation but weren't because I readded them (or whatever). However, I need my calculator with me because I need to adjust the "closing balance" to reflect not the statement balance but what GNUCash's "running total" balance should be. Contrast this to having to undo every rec in QB back to March and redo every rec again. Still, as I said, there's room for improvement in GNUCash:1) Since the rec date gets stored with the Rec flag, GNUCash can have a function that unreconciles every transaction before a given rec date. This would be analogous to QB's batch rec undo. 2) One should be able to rec from the ledger as QB lets you do - and prompt for a rec date. Yes it's dangerous, poor practice, etc., but the GNU philosophy is not to leash the user. If a user wants to sudo rm -rf / their installation, GNU warns them first, but ultimately lets them. User knows best. If you want your computer to dictate what you're allowed to do with it, that's what Apple's for. I hope that helps a bit ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Recording non-cash donations
> Non-cash donations are tax deductible; for example, milage and fuel while > delivering Meals on Wheels to shut-ins, books to the county library, and > items given to Goodwill. For those of us who are sole members of an LLC the > company's net profits roll over to our personal accounts so both business > and personal donations (cash and non-cash) are reported on my personal tax > reports. > > For years I've sent my accountant the proof of non-cash donations separate > from the business and personal financial reports for tax preparation. I've > decided now to record these in my personal books so they show up in the > year's balance sheet and income statement. > >> If the item does have significant value but for some reason you never >> entered them in your books, you would create one or more asset accounts >> for them. Then you'd make two transactions for each item: >> (1) Debit: asset account >> Credit: Equity (I think this is a case for making a direct credit to >> the main equity account, essentially a correcting item, because the item >> is not new income but something that you've had all along but just not >> in your books.) >> (2) Debit: Expenses:Charity >> Credit: asset account >> > > I'll look closely at this. It makes sense and allows me to think about it > until I see something from my accountant. > I'm Canadian-trained, so your CPA will have to direct you on the tax calculations. You are correct that they're fundamentally an expense to the business. DR Expense & CR Asset, as suggested in (2) is fundamentally correct: charitable donations should be in an expense account. Credits go to the source account for the donation, which can be an asset or even an expense. Using your examples: Meals on Wheels: when you gas up, get car maintenance, etc., you DR the appropriate automotive expense and credit cash/credit/shareholder contributions, etc. When you can reliably calculate the portion of those expenditures that are charitable, you DR donation and CR the appropriate automotive expense. The net result is that you're transferring the charitable value of your automotive expenses from your SG&A into donations. Goodwill & library donations: unless the US system is fundamentally different from Canada's, asset disposals are calculated on fair market value, not book value, so there's an extra step. You need to write the value of the asset on the books down to its fair market value before booking the donation. Say you're donating old computers to Goodwill that have a cost basis of $1,000 and a book value of $500 (after depreciation). Goodwill says that the value of the computers is currently $400. Step one: write down the computers to $400: DR Loss on asset disposal (or deprecation, depending on the tax rules) $100; CR Computer asset $100. Step two: record the donation, similar to the previous example: DR Donation expense $400; CR Computer asset $400. Or you can do it in one step if you're confident: DR Donation $400; DR loss on asset disposal $100; CR Computer asset $500. Your accountant should be able to calculate the rest from there. If you're astute, you'll notice that you can have a _gain_ on an asset disposal when the FMV has increased over book value. In this case, you'd have to credit the asset disposal (or depreciation, depending on the tax rules) account to balance the difference between the asset and the donation amounts. For example, if you donated a rare book to a library that has doubled from $100 to $200 in value, then your entry would be: DR: Donation expense $200; CR: Rare book $100; CR: Gain on asset disposal $100. Making direct contributions to Equity as suggested in (1) is _strongly_ discouraged, especially in corporations. You need to maintain the corporation as an autonomous legal entity, so you cannot blend your equity with the corporation's. At least when filing Canadian returns, equity transactions are an easy way to get a call from CRA (Canada's IRS) as they expect Equity = shareholder capital + cumulative profits (or losses) over the life of the corporation. I hope that helps. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
