Re: [GNC] GNC 3.11

[Geert Janssens]

The "1:" prepended to the version number comes from packaging gnucash. I don't 
know the 
details but it's a mechanism commonly used by distro packagers to force a 
certain version 
over another one. Some packages in Fedora have this too, though not all.

Regards,

Geert

Op woensdag 26 augustus 2020 20:25:51 CEST schreef Bruce Irving:
> I was very surprised that
>sudo apt install gnucash
> installed 3.11 on Peppermint 10, a subversion of ubuntu 18.04.  My Software
> Manager lists it as 1:3.11 so I always thought it was version 1.3!
> Unfortunately, I have been using flathub 4.01 so I had to remove it.
> 
> Bruce
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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Chris Green]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:16:43PM +0100, Michael Hendry wrote:
> On 26 Aug 2020, at 11:21, Chris Green  wrote:
> > 
> > I have just taken over as treasurer of a (very) small church Parochial
> > Church Council.  The existing accounts are all wholly manual and I
> > want to move to some level of computerisation.
> > 
> > I am a long time Linux user and was, before I retired, a Software
> > Engineer so the 'techie' side of things shouldn't be a big issue. I
> > can install GnuCash OK and get it running etc.
> > 
> > I used to run my own small Ltd. company so basic accounting methods,
> > VAT, etc. are not beyond me either.
> > 
> > What I want is more on the 'how to run a small PCC accounts with GnuCash'
> > sort of thing.  There are some quirks to PCC accounts (I think!):-
> > 
> >How does one deal with 'unrestricted' and 'restricted' accounts?
> >Can one set up 'types' of accounts in GnuCash?
> > 
> >Is GnuCash overkill for this?  Total cash assets are only a few
> >thousand pounds and annual turnover is probably down in the
> >hundreds now.
> > 
> >Is there anyone else using GnuCash for this?
> > 
> > Thank you for any/all help that anyone can offer.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Chris Green
> 
> Hi, Chris, welcome to the GnuCash community.
> 
> I’ve been using GC for my personal accounts for 10 years, a small local 
> charity for 6 and recently became Treasurer of the local Rotary Club (which 
> has separate charity and club accounts). 
> 
Well it sounds as if you know the ins and outs then! :-)


> I was advised on this forum that I could represent restricted funds as 
> Liabilities, but the accountant who certifies the first-mentioned charity’s 
> accounts advised that this is not acceptable in the UK - which is where 
> I’m assuming you’re based. It’s necessary to keep a separate account of 
> receipt and payment of restricted funds, which can then be detailed on 
> the annual report. 
> 
Yes, I'm in the UK.  I'm unfamiliar with 'restricted' and
'unrestricted', I don't really know what they mean.  It *seems* to be
that 'restricted' funds/donations are monies received for specific
causes (in our case nearly always church repairs and maintenance)
whereas 'unrestricted' are monies recieved in the regular Sunday
collection etc. used to pay outgoings such as vicar's expenses, CofE
central admin/costs, electricity bills and such.

We seem to keep the 'restricted' funds in a deposit account and
'unrestricted' in a current account but I suspect the differentiation
is just 'how it happened' rather than any specific intent.

I'm assuming that my basic book-keeping will be:-

Create an 'assets' account for the current (unrestricted) account
and another 'assets' account for the deposit (restricted) account.

Create 'liabilities' accounts for outgoings (vicar's expenses,
electricity bill, repairs, etc.) which will be either restricted
or unrestricted.

Create accounts for income - but what are these called?  Again
they need to be 'restricted' or 'unrestricted'

Is there a way in GnuCash to group accounts such that it will only
allow transactions between the same groups (i.e. either restricted or
unrestricted)?

Thanks for any help on any of the above.

-- 
Chris Green
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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Chris Green]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:51:47PM -0400, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> On 8/26/2020 7:16 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:
> 
> > > I used to run my own small Ltd. company so basic accounting methods,
> > > VAT, etc. are not beyond me either.
> > > 
> > > What I want is more on the 'how to run a small PCC accounts with GnuCash'
> > > sort of thing.  There are some quirks to PCC accounts (I think!):-
> > > 
> > > How does one deal with 'unrestricted' and 'restricted' accounts?
> > > Can one set up 'types' of accounts in GnuCash?
> > > 
> > > Is GnuCash overkill for this?  Total cash assets are only a few
> > > thousand pounds and annual turnover is probably down in the
> > > hundreds now.
> > > 
> > > Is there anyone else using GnuCash for this?
> > > 
> A number of us use gnucash to keep the books for non-profits. using gnucash
> There have been numerous discussions on the topic of accounting for
> restricted funds.
> 
> ESPECIALLY when the person asking says familiar with regular bookkeeping I
> will begin by asking in return "if you know how you would be doing this
> (accounting for restricted funds that are kept in the common bank account)
> the old fashioned way, pen and ink on paper, what is the problem you see
> doing that with gnucash?" And if you don;t know any of the various options
> for accounting for restricted funds, grants, etc. isn't THAT the problem as
> opposed to "doing it using gnucash"?
> 
Well, yes, but the existing paper system is hardly transparent! :-)

I'm really only trying to work things out from what has to be on the
annual return to the CofE.

The restricted and unrestricted funds are at least basically separated
by being in separate accounts.

-- 
Chris Green
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[GNC] Setting up for restricted/unrestricted PCC accounts - what's a reasonable approach.

[Chris Green]

I have installed GnuCash on my xubuntu system and I've done the
default 'business' accounts set-up as that seems closest to what a PCC
needs.

Now presumably I need to apply some sort of restricted/unrestricted
account types.

It would seem that the way to go would be to split 'expenses' into
'restricted expenses' and 'unrestricted expenses' and, similarly have
'restricted income' and 'unrestricted income'.  I guess these should
be a layer below 'expenses' and 'income' so one has:-

expenses
restricted
church repairs
new church furniture etc.
unrestricted
vicar's expenses
CofE
electricity bill

... and similar for income.

Or should one have it the other way about:-

restricted
expenses
   ...
   ...
income
   ...
   ...

unrestricted
expenses


income



It feels like the first is right as one can then still do overall
expenses versus income more easily, or have I got it completely wrong
and I shouldn't have restricted/unrestricted placeholders at all?

-- 
Chris Green
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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[John Angelico]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 at 19:42, Chris Green  wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:16:43PM +0100, Michael Hendry wrote:
> > On 26 Aug 2020, at 11:21, Chris Green  wrote:
> > >
> > > I have just taken over as treasurer of a (very) small church Parochial
> > > Church Council.  The existing accounts are all wholly manual and I
> > > want to move to some level of computerisation.
> > >
> > > I am a long time Linux user and was, before I retired, a Software
> > > Engineer so the 'techie' side of things shouldn't be a big issue. I
> > > can install GnuCash OK and get it running etc.
> > >
> > > I used to run my own small Ltd. company so basic accounting methods,
> > > VAT, etc. are not beyond me either.
> > >
> > > What I want is more on the 'how to run a small PCC accounts with
> GnuCash'
> > > sort of thing.  There are some quirks to PCC accounts (I think!):-
> > >
> > >How does one deal with 'unrestricted' and 'restricted' accounts?
> > >Can one set up 'types' of accounts in GnuCash?
> > >
> > >Is GnuCash overkill for this?  Total cash assets are only a few
> > >thousand pounds and annual turnover is probably down in the
> > >hundreds now.
> > >
> > >Is there anyone else using GnuCash for this?
> > >
> > > Thank you for any/all help that anyone can offer.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Chris Green
> >
> > Hi, Chris, welcome to the GnuCash community.
> >
> > I’ve been using GC for my personal accounts for 10 years, a small local
> > charity for 6 and recently became Treasurer of the local Rotary Club
> (which
> > has separate charity and club accounts).
> >
> Well it sounds as if you know the ins and outs then! :-)
>
>
> > I was advised on this forum that I could represent restricted funds as
> > Liabilities, but the accountant who certifies the first-mentioned
> charity’s
> > accounts advised that this is not acceptable in the UK - which is where
> > I’m assuming you’re based. It’s necessary to keep a separate account of
> > receipt and payment of restricted funds, which can then be detailed on
> > the annual report.
> >
> Yes, I'm in the UK.  I'm unfamiliar with 'restricted' and
> 'unrestricted', I don't really know what they mean.  It *seems* to be
> that 'restricted' funds/donations are monies received for specific
> causes (in our case nearly always church repairs and maintenance)
> whereas 'unrestricted' are monies recieved in the regular Sunday
> collection etc. used to pay outgoings such as vicar's expenses, CofE
> central admin/costs, electricity bills and such.
>
>
I'm in Australia and have been involved with church and other non-profit
charities, bodies and community organizations for a while too.

I am likewise unfamiliar with those terms although the concept is clear.
Funds are collected or donated for specific purposes, and must be used only
for those purposes. Unrestricted probably means open plate offerings
collected every Sunday for normal expenses, or given without any
stipulations.


> We seem to keep the 'restricted' funds in a deposit account and
> 'unrestricted' in a current account but I suspect the differentiation
> is just 'how it happened' rather than any specific intent.
>

The same applies to a more strict "trust fund" concept (eg. donations and
bequests). In Australia the Tax Office allows donors a deduction for funds
given to specially designated recipients. The recipients are required to
treat the funds separately, so they are kept in a separate account with the
bank, and drawn upon only for the specific purposes permitted. Donors are
sent a receipt which is evidence to support their claim for a deduction in
their annual tax returns. Recipients are required to report donations above
a threshold value to the Tax Office annually.



> I'm assuming that my basic book-keeping will be:-
>
> Create an 'assets' account for the current (unrestricted) account
> and another 'assets' account for the deposit (restricted) account.
>

Yes, in the same way that you would have an account for all assets. Your
accounting setup is meant to reflect the real world situation. Thus if you
have separate bank accounts you would have separate accounts and do
separate reconciliations for them.



> Create 'liabilities' accounts for outgoings (vicar's expenses,
> electricity bill, repairs, etc.) which will be either restricted
> or unrestricted.
>

Not liabilities unless you plan on accrual accounting. Even if you did go
that way, you would still need expenditure accounts for those outgoings.


>
> Create accounts for income - but what are these called?  Again
> they need to be 'restricted' or 'unrestricted'
>

Yes, for a church it may be Weekly Collection, Special Collection,
Donations, Bequests and then marked restricted as necessary.

For a theatre production company (I have been treasurer of a Gilbert &
Sullivan company here :-) ), we have Member Subscriptions, Theatre ticket
Income, Programme Sales, Donations. So the income account names identify
those amounts you

[GNC] Further to restricted/unrestricted funds

[Chris Green]

I have been doing some reading around this restricted/unrestricted
funds issue.

I think in reality we have *no* restricted funds in our PCC.  What I
*thought* were restricted funds are actually 'designated' funds.  I.e.
we (the PCC) have made a collection for example 'for repairs to the
church roof', this is (as I understand it anyway) designated and while
it will probably be used to mend the roof the PCC is quite at liberty
to change its mind and do something else with the money.

A restricted fund is something where the *donor* has specified that
the money is to be used for a specific purpose and is often long term
and may actually (though not necessarily) be an endowment or some such.

I don't think I need to manage 'restricted' funds as we don't have any
in our tiny little church.

-- 
Chris Green
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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Michael Hendry]

> On 29 Aug 2020, at 10:39, Chris Green  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 12:16:43PM +0100, Michael Hendry wrote:
>> On 26 Aug 2020, at 11:21, Chris Green  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I have just taken over as treasurer of a (very) small church Parochial
>>> Church Council.  The existing accounts are all wholly manual and I
>>> want to move to some level of computerisation.
>>> 
>>> I am a long time Linux user and was, before I retired, a Software
>>> Engineer so the 'techie' side of things shouldn't be a big issue. I
>>> can install GnuCash OK and get it running etc.
>>> 
>>> I used to run my own small Ltd. company so basic accounting methods,
>>> VAT, etc. are not beyond me either.
>>> 
>>> What I want is more on the 'how to run a small PCC accounts with GnuCash'
>>> sort of thing.  There are some quirks to PCC accounts (I think!):-
>>> 
>>>   How does one deal with 'unrestricted' and 'restricted' accounts?
>>>   Can one set up 'types' of accounts in GnuCash?
>>> 
>>>   Is GnuCash overkill for this?  Total cash assets are only a few
>>>   thousand pounds and annual turnover is probably down in the
>>>   hundreds now.
>>> 
>>>   Is there anyone else using GnuCash for this?
>>> 
>>> Thank you for any/all help that anyone can offer.
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Chris Green
>> 
>> Hi, Chris, welcome to the GnuCash community.
>> 
>> I’ve been using GC for my personal accounts for 10 years, a small local 
>> charity for 6 and recently became Treasurer of the local Rotary Club (which 
>> has separate charity and club accounts). 
>> 
> Well it sounds as if you know the ins and outs then! :-)

I seem to have got away with it so far, with the help of charity-friendly 
accountants and especially this forum!

> 
> 
>> I was advised on this forum that I could represent restricted funds as 
>> Liabilities, but the accountant who certifies the first-mentioned charity’s 
>> accounts advised that this is not acceptable in the UK - which is where 
>> I’m assuming you’re based. It’s necessary to keep a separate account of 
>> receipt and payment of restricted funds, which can then be detailed on 
>> the annual report. 
>> 
> Yes, I'm in the UK.  I'm unfamiliar with 'restricted' and
> 'unrestricted', I don't really know what they mean.  It *seems* to be
> that 'restricted' funds/donations are monies received for specific
> causes (in our case nearly always church repairs and maintenance)
> whereas 'unrestricted' are monies recieved in the regular Sunday
> collection etc. used to pay outgoings such as vicar's expenses, CofE
> central admin/costs, electricity bills and such.

The use of a Liability account to record unspent restricted funds was 
attractive to me, because it emphasised that (in this case) we had received 
money specifically for bursaries which hadn’t been applied for within the same 
financial year, and the “Liability” to pay them would be carried forward into 
the next and subsequent financial years. I think the reason we couldn’t present 
such accounts to OSCR (the charity regulator in Scotland) is that our accounts 
are recorded on a cash (rather than accrual) basis. OSCR requires a specific 
section on restricted funds in the annual report.

> 
> We seem to keep the 'restricted' funds in a deposit account and
> 'unrestricted' in a current account but I suspect the differentiation
> is just 'how it happened' rather than any specific intent.

That works if you are meticulous in putting the ear-marked donations into a 
specific bank account, but gets more complex if you have several different 
destinations for restricted funds.

A number of GnuCash users use child accounts of their bank accounts to assist 
with budgeting - the “Envelope” method. In this scenario the parent is the bank 
account, which has children called (let’s say) “Available Cash”, “Gas Budget”, 
“Electricity Budget”, “Motoring Budget”, “Holiday Budget” etc. Regular pay-day 
transfers of budgeted amounts are made from “Available Cash” are made into the 
relevant sibling accounts, and when relevant expenditure is made, it is charged 
to the relevant account. If you search the archive you’ll find discussion of 
this method.

> 
> I'm assuming that my basic book-keeping will be:-
> 
>Create an 'assets' account for the current (unrestricted) account
>and another 'assets' account for the deposit (restricted) account.
> 
>Create 'liabilities' accounts for outgoings (vicar's expenses,
>electricity bill, repairs, etc.) which will be either restricted
>or unrestricted.

Seductive, but I think invalid for the same reason as the use of a Liability 
account for bursaries.

> 
>Create accounts for income - but what are these called?  Again
>they need to be 'restricted' or 'unrestricted'

I don’t think there’s any great advantage in labelling them in this way, as 
they don’t survive the year end (the way Liabilities would).
But you could have "Income:Donation:Church Roof”, "Income:Donation:Memorial 
Bench” and “Income:Donation:General” and make sur

Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Chris Green]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 11:40:03AM +0100, Michael Hendry wrote:
> > On 29 Aug 2020, at 10:39, Chris Green  wrote:
> >> 
> > Well it sounds as if you know the ins and outs then! :-)
> 
> I seem to have got away with it so far, with the help of charity-friendly 
> accountants and especially this forum! 
> 
> > 
> > We seem to keep the 'restricted' funds in a deposit account and
> > 'unrestricted' in a current account but I suspect the differentiation
> > is just 'how it happened' rather than any specific intent.
> 
> That works if you are meticulous in putting the ear-marked donations into 
> a specific bank account, but gets more complex if you have several different 
> destinations for restricted funds. 
> 
I've been reading around this and it now seems to me that what 'we'
(my PCC) have been calling restricted funds are actually just
designated funds.  E.g. they ar such things as fundraising (run by the
PCC) for church repairs.  We don't seem to have any donations which
have been made with specific requirements as to use by the donor.

> > 
> > I'm assuming that my basic book-keeping will be:-
> > 
> >Create an 'assets' account for the current (unrestricted) account
> >and another 'assets' account for the deposit (restricted) account.
> > 
> >Create 'liabilities' accounts for outgoings (vicar's expenses,
> >electricity bill, repairs, etc.) which will be either restricted
> >or unrestricted.
> 
> Seductive, but I think invalid for the same reason as the use of a Liability 
> account for bursaries. 
> 
Yes, wrong word, I meant 'expenses', and (it would seem) no need for
any restricted ones.

> > 
> >Create accounts for income - but what are these called?  Again
> >they need to be 'restricted' or 'unrestricted'
> 
> I don’t think there’s any great advantage in labelling them in this way, 
> as they don’t survive the year end (the way Liabilities would). 
> But you could have "Income:Donation:Church Roof”, "Income:Donation:Memorial 
> Bench” and “Income:Donation:General” and make sure to keep a separate note 
> of the cumulative income and expenditure for these at the year end. 
> 
Yes, OK, thanks.

> > 
> > Is there a way in GnuCash to group accounts such that it will only
> > allow transactions between the same groups (i.e. either restricted or
> > unrestricted)?
> 
> I don’t believe so.
> 
... and I don't think I need it now anyway.


> My advice would be to go for a very simple chart of accounts and deal with 
> restricted funds and budgeting externally, either on paper or on a 
> spreadsheet. 
> I have discovered from bitter experience that it is possible to overthink 
> these things… 
> 
Yes, I was! :-)

-- 
Chris Green
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Re: [GNC] Setting up for restricted/unrestricted PCC accounts - what's a reasonable approach

[pobox . deva]

Chris,

You will find plenty of discussions on this list on restricted/unrestricted 
funds for charity, trust, etc. Much of the account setup also revolves around 
taxation in your jurisdiction, so I won’t delve into those aspects.

My comment here is restricted to your query on which account setup is the way 
to go as you stated in the post below…

Since GnuCash’s account hierarchy starts with 5 fundamental account types as 
the root accounts viz., Assets, Equity, Expenses, Income & Liabilities, you 
will find that your first model will be easy to tailor in your scheme of things.

If you try to set it up as per your second model, you will soon run into 
technical restrictions imposed by GnuCash such as certain account types cannot 
be child accounts of certain parents and so on. So a lot more struggle will be 
involved in setting that up, or in some cases, it may just not allow it at all.

Cheers,
Deva

> On 29-Aug-2020, at 3:48 PM, gnucash-user-requ...@gnucash.org wrote:
> 
> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 11:14:46 +0100
> From: Chris Green mailto:c...@isbd.net>>
> To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org 
> Subject: [GNC] Setting up for restricted/unrestricted PCC accounts -
>   what's a reasonable approach.
> Message-ID: <20200829101446.GA138604@esprimo>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> I have installed GnuCash on my xubuntu system and I've done the
> default 'business' accounts set-up as that seems closest to what a PCC
> needs.
> 
> Now presumably I need to apply some sort of restricted/unrestricted
> account types.
> 
> It would seem that the way to go would be to split 'expenses' into
> 'restricted expenses' and 'unrestricted expenses' and, similarly have
> 'restricted income' and 'unrestricted income'.  I guess these should
> be a layer below 'expenses' and 'income' so one has:-
> 
>expenses
>restricted
>church repairs
>new church furniture etc.
>unrestricted
>vicar's expenses
>CofE
>electricity bill
> 
> ... and similar for income.
> 
> Or should one have it the other way about:- 
> 
>restricted
>expenses
>   ...
>   ...
>income
>   ...
>   ...
> 
>unrestricted
>expenses
>
> 
>income
>
> 
> 
> It feels like the first is right as one can then still do overall
> expenses versus income more easily, or have I got it completely wrong
> and I shouldn't have restricted/unrestricted placeholders at all?
> 
> -- 
> Chris Green
> 

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Re: [GNC] help with error message

[Greg Feneis]

Jane, usually this happens when the user downloads and tries to import
transactions that have already been downloaded and imported.  Perhaps
confirm that the data hasn't already been imported?

However, sometimes GnuCash incorrectly treats new transactions as if
they've already been imported. If this is the case, I recommend mentioning
your OS and GnuCash version, and someone with more expertise will be along
shortly

Kind regards, Greg Feneis
(Pixel 3)


On Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 23:30 Jane Knichel-Aldea  wrote:

> Hello:
>
> Can anyone provide some troubleshooting advice for this error:
> [image: image.png]
> I have downloaded transactions from my bank many, many times, but never got
> this message that 2 transactions were processed, but no trx to match. There
> are definitely transactions in the date range I downloaded, so I do not
> understand why i cannot add them, there is nothing to match them to. I am
> not aware of making any configuration changes.
>
> Thank you,
> Best Regards,
> Jane Knichel Aldea
> 201-725-3507
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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Michael or Penny Novack]

Well, yes, but the existing paper system is hardly transparent! :-)

I'm really only trying to work things out from what has to be on the
annual return to the CofE.

The restricted and unrestricted funds are at least basically separated
by being in separate accounts.

If the restricted funds are in a separate bank account, especially if it 
is a deposit account, you have simple options compared to those of us 
who keep books for organizations that so not have funds segregated that 
way.


a) You can just partition the deposit account. Won't interfere with 
check reconciliation to have it partitioned.


b) You won't perceive yourself as doing any extra work since going to be 
a REAL transaction moving funds from "deposit" to "current" when paying 
ans expense that qualifies for the use of that restricted fund.


Michael D Novack


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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Chris Green]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 09:26:53AM -0400, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> > Well, yes, but the existing paper system is hardly transparent! :-)
> > 
> > I'm really only trying to work things out from what has to be on the
> > annual return to the CofE.
> > 
> > The restricted and unrestricted funds are at least basically separated
> > by being in separate accounts.
> > 
> If the restricted funds are in a separate bank account, especially if it is
> a deposit account, you have simple options compared to those of us who keep
> books for organizations that so not have funds segregated that way.
> 
> a) You can just partition the deposit account. Won't interfere with check
> reconciliation to have it partitioned.
> 
> b) You won't perceive yourself as doing any extra work since going to be a
> REAL transaction moving funds from "deposit" to "current" when paying ans
> expense that qualifies for the use of that restricted fund.
> 
Yes, that was how I saw it originally.  However (as you may see from
some of my subsequent posts) I don't think we have any restricted
funds, what I (and others here at the PCC I suspect) thought were
restricted funds are simply designated.

We might have the odd donation that is restricted but not very much, I
can add an income account for those, e.g. 'building repairs -
restricted' and that will be all I need I think.  If it turns out that
there are several then I can have a hierachy with a 'placeholder'
restricted and underneath it 'new roof', 'building repairs' or
whatever. However I think this may be overkill, we aren't going to be
that lucky.

-- 
Chris Green
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Re: [GNC] Further to restricted/unrestricted funds

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 8/29/2020 6:40 AM, Chris Green wrote:

I have been doing some reading around this restricted/unrestricted
funds issue.

I think in reality we have *no* restricted funds in our PCC.  What I
*thought* were restricted funds are actually 'designated' funds.  I.e.
we (the PCC) have made a collection for example 'for repairs to the
church roof', this is (as I understand it anyway) designated and while
it will probably be used to mend the roof the PCC is quite at liberty
to change its mind and do something else with the money.

A restricted fund is something where the *donor* has specified that
the money is to be used for a specific purpose and is often long term
and may actually (though not necessarily) be an endowment or some such.

I don't think I need to manage 'restricted' funds as we don't have any
in our tiny little church.

WELL --- you might not have any restricted funds in the legal sense of 
the term. But there might be moral considerations. Thus one organization 
for which I kept books received a donation for a fund for a stage in the 
project years in the future that the donor did not expect to live long 
enough to see. He specifically made the restriction informal (we could, 
if necessary, use the money for something else). But we DID track this 
as a restricted fund.


But there is also the matter of grants. You do have to treat those as 
restricted funds because you report to the granting entity. Even when 
you are not legally required to use the funds that way, you better, or 
you'll never get a grant from that entity again. To give another example 
(from the organization above) we had a grant "to build a fence for 
orchard X". When THAT didn't materialize within the required time period 
we ASKED the entity to change the conditions so still for orchard 
fencing but elsewhere (they agreed).


Michael D Novack

--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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Re: [GNC] How do I add notes to my columns?

[azalea4va]

When using gnucash on a modern computer monitor, I found it frustrating that
there was plenty of space for the NOTEs field to appear yet also could not
find anyway to make it happen. So I made some chnaged to a file in the
source code, recompiled, and now have that capability.  See
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Notes-column-in-SingleLine-display-td4692253.html

That thread included the diff file for the modified
src/register/ledger-core/split-register-layout.c for version 2.6. Here is
the changed file for version 4.0.  

split-register-layout.c_diff

  

I am disappointed that this revision has not been incorporated into gnucash.



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Re: [GNC] How do I add notes to my columns?

[David Carlson]

azalea4va,

Why would you want to impose an ultra-wide layout onto most users that find
it very difficult to see the information even in the double line mode on
their monitors?  You have not even provided an illustration of what it
would look like and asked for an opinion from other users.  How would it
look to a user that is still using an 800x600 screen?  If you were to ask
me about this I would suggest a three line view to see a long description,
long note and long account name for every transaction, not just the one
that has the focus, but make it optional, because the current layout is a
compromise that works fairly well for the majority of users.

David Carlson



On Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 9:41 AM azalea4va  wrote:

> When using gnucash on a modern computer monitor, I found it frustrating
> that
> there was plenty of space for the NOTEs field to appear yet also could not
> find anyway to make it happen. So I made some chnaged to a file in the
> source code, recompiled, and now have that capability.  See
>
> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Notes-column-in-SingleLine-display-td4692253.html
>
> That thread included the diff file for the modified
> src/register/ledger-core/split-register-layout.c for version 2.6. Here is
> the changed file for version 4.0.
>
> split-register-layout.c_diff
> <
> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t377531/split-register-layout.c_diff>
>
>
> I am disappointed that this revision has not been incorporated into
> gnucash.
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
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Re: [GNC] Further to restricted/unrestricted funds

[Fred Bone]

On 29 August 2020 at 11:40, Chris Green said:

> I have been doing some reading around this restricted/unrestricted
> funds issue.
>
> I think in reality we have *no* restricted funds in our PCC.  What I
> *thought* were restricted funds are actually 'designated' funds.  I.e. we
> (the PCC) have made a collection for example 'for repairs to the church
> roof', this is (as I understand it anyway) designated and while it will
> probably be used to mend the roof the PCC is quite at liberty to change
> its mind and do something else with the money.
>
> A restricted fund is something where the *donor* has specified that
> the money is to be used for a specific purpose and is often long term and
> may actually (though not necessarily) be an endowment or some such.
>
> I don't think I need to manage 'restricted' funds as we don't have any in
> our tiny little church.

You may be right, but if a collection has been made *for a specific
purpose* (such as "repairs to the church roof") then the contributors are
entitled to expect the proceeds to be spent on that specific purpose, and
so you should be running a "restricted" fund. The fact that there are
dozens of people rather than a single donor is beside the point.
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Re: [GNC] How do I add notes to my columns?

[azalea4va]

To each his own, but I would not call this "ultra-wide", it is normal wide on
a modern monitor. I have no problem seeing the information and I have
old-man eyes.  My post was a reply to someone whom seemed to be requesting
this feature and a followup to a post three years ago where I provided a
solution.  If you bothered to go to the original post, you would have seen a
link to an image showing exactly what it looks like. But I will include
another here.  On my monitor there is tons of white-space available to
handle a NOTES fields and I get the advantage of getting double the rows I
would get with double line mode.
Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-23-26.png

  
(BALANCE column omitted for privacy, strech the image to full screen width
to check readability on your monitor, very readable on mine.)

You are right, this is not for everyone.  Space is at a premium on
smartphones, some tablets/laptops and even a 800x600 monitor (ancient as
they are).  But this change just gives people the OPTION of having the notes
field in single line.  The default width could be VERY small, taking up
almost no space.  But with a single click, those that want it get to see a
decently wide notes field.  Here is the same screen with the NOTES field
condensed.
Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-28-09.png

  

I have no idea what works better for a majority of users but good software
gives users options that allow it to work optimally in a number of
scenarios.  Yes you get wider fields with a double or triple line mode but
you also get half or a third the number of lines on the display.  It is a
trade-off.  In my case, and in the OP's case apparently, we phave room to
put NOTES on the single-line display.  Again, same screen, in double-line
mode.  Note how much of the screen real-estate is wasted just showing blank
stuff.
Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-41-04.png

  

The change I propose would allow you to keep things as are, you want to deny
others this option?



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Re: [GNC] New user - anyone else using GnuCash for PCC (church) accounts? Advice?

[Liz Dodd]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 12:03:10 +0100
Chris Green  wrote:

> > My advice would be to go for a very simple chart of accounts and
> > deal with restricted funds and budgeting externally, either on
> > paper or on a spreadsheet. I have discovered from bitter experience
> > that it is possible to overthink these things… 
> >   
> Yes, I was! :-)

You can add extra accounts when you need them, so if you do get a
donation specifically for the roof repairs, you can set up separate
accounts in Gnucash at that time.

Liz
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Re: [GNC] How do I add notes to my columns?

[David Carlson]

First, I thought I followed all the links in your previous post,and all I
found were Diff files which don't mean much to an ordinary user.
Especially since your post suggested that you would make that change the
default.  Your example views in your last post show a register with the
longest note "train station coke", longest description "Best Western
Executive Seat" and longest account name "@#Points,Amtrack,Both".  All of
these are extremely short compared to my typical entries, which are likely
to count between 40 and 100 or more characters in many cases.  A more
typical screen resolution might be 1280x800 in a several year old laptop,
and trying to show my data in your one line configuration simply would not
work.  Other users' experience would be crucial to any decision regarding
changes.

Second,  The reason that I mentioned the 800x600 display size is not
because there are a lot of users still using such low res monitors, but
because most operating systems default to that low res when they do not
find a monitor with higher resolution, and it should still be possible to
limp along in that resolution until one can get their computer fixed.

Third, the register layout in GnuCash has seemingly become a sacred cow of
sorts over the years, partly because the code to implement it is
extraordinarily complex behind the apparently simple appearance, and a
significant change request would likely meet a lot of resistance both from
users and developers.  An actual implementation would require extensive
testing.  Would your proposal work correctly with the tab key?

If users are ok with it, and the current configuration with the current
settings for each of the several different register variations such as
stock accounts, search reisters, journal registers, "with child account"
registers etc. remains the default, would you be able to develop the code
and test it?

David Carlson

On Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 5:51 PM azalea4va  wrote:

> To each his own, but I would not call this "ultra-wide", it is normal wide
> on
> a modern monitor. I have no problem seeing the information and I have
> old-man eyes.  My post was a reply to someone whom seemed to be requesting
> this feature and a followup to a post three years ago where I provided a
> solution.  If you bothered to go to the original post, you would have seen
> a
> link to an image showing exactly what it looks like. But I will include
> another here.  On my monitor there is tons of white-space available to
> handle a NOTES fields and I get the advantage of getting double the rows I
> would get with double line mode.
> Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-23-26.png
> <
> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t377531/Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-23-26.png>
>
> (BALANCE column omitted for privacy, strech the image to full screen width
> to check readability on your monitor, very readable on mine.)
>
> You are right, this is not for everyone.  Space is at a premium on
> smartphones, some tablets/laptops and even a 800x600 monitor (ancient as
> they are).  But this change just gives people the OPTION of having the
> notes
> field in single line.  The default width could be VERY small, taking up
> almost no space.  But with a single click, those that want it get to see a
> decently wide notes field.  Here is the same screen with the NOTES field
> condensed.
> Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-28-09.png
> <
> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t377531/Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-28-09.png>
>
>
> I have no idea what works better for a majority of users but good software
> gives users options that allow it to work optimally in a number of
> scenarios.  Yes you get wider fields with a double or triple line mode but
> you also get half or a third the number of lines on the display.  It is a
> trade-off.  In my case, and in the OP's case apparently, we phave room to
> put NOTES on the single-line display.  Again, same screen, in double-line
> mode.  Note how much of the screen real-estate is wasted just showing blank
> stuff.
> Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-41-04.png
> <
> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t377531/Screenshot_from_2020-08-29_13-41-04.png>
>
>
> The change I propose would allow you to keep things as are, you want to
> deny
> others this option?
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
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-- 
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Re: [GNC] How do I add notes to my columns?

[azalea4va]

David Carlson-4 wrote
> First, I thought I followed all the links in your previous post,and all I
> found were Diff files which don't mean much to an ordinary user..

I had two links in the previous post and one was a .png file. 

> Especially since your post suggested that you would make that change the
> default.

I would make having a NOTE field in SingleLine mode the default. The
question is how wide would it be (a very low width like 2px effectively
turns it off). Until somebody gets serious about incorporating that into the
code, there is no point in addressing what width is best.  I am open to
suggestions.

> All of
> these are extremely short compared to my typical entries,  ... most
> operating systems default to that low res 

As I said, different users operating under different circumstances.  Many of
my entries come from information downloaded from things like financial
institutions and they are short.  And I don't know what OSes you are using,
not my experience.  But that is why flexibility is important.

>  the register layout in GnuCash has seemingly become a sacred cow of
> sorts over the years, partly because the code to implement it is
> extraordinarily complex 

I have struggled with understanding various parts of gnucash code.  But this
particular aspect of it I found quite straightforward. Now there are some
types of usage I have not tested because I made the changes for me and had
no call to do exhaustive testing on things I do not use.  But from what I 
have seen, it is a very simple change. Just changing a whole bunch of lines
in one file that were like this (what was in column 3 is not in column 5).
   *gnc_table_layout_set_cell (layout, curs, MXFRM_CELL, 0, 3);*
To this.
  * gnc_table_layout_set_cell (layout, curs, MXFRM_CELL, 0, 5);*

> would you be able to develop the code
> and test it? 

The code is already developed.  I have been using it for 3 years.  For
production use it would need production testing and I would be willing to
help with that.  But as they say, the worst person to test some code is the
person who wrote it.  I would need to learn much more about gnucash testing
protocols.  (If the gnucash team is interested in my involvement, I would be
happy to share my expertise and experience qualifications in the field.)



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