DanCT
Forum Replies Created
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If you are working with just a few government grants, classes and projects can be configured to track them in Quickbooks. If you have a larger portfolio of government grants, Quickbooks is not as well suited. Accounting software that can apply multiple dimensions/segments to each transaction is then required. A number of years ago Abila MIP Fund Accounting was the gold standard for this type of thing. Today, it’s Sage Intacct. My organization will be transitioning from MIP to Intacct this coming year. Intacct is superior in practically every way, from its reporting, to drill-down capability, to A/P automation. But one feature that really helps with government grants accounting is its dynamic cost allocation module. So, in other words, as your grants portfolio changes (old grants expire, new grants are added to the mix), and as headcount fluctuates, the formulas that allocate various expenses to the grants are updated in real time.
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Absolutely agree with Nonprofit_Bookkeeper. I saw the “legally” and thought I’ll pass 🙂
Now that that’s cleared up… I just wanted to add that they’re responsible for broad oversight and governance to ensure that the right people and systems are in place (particularly internal controls, annual audits if large enough). They Board is NOT responsible for managing the books themselves or for micro-managing finance employees. An important distinction! “Nose in, fingers out”, as they say.
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My apologies. I see there is already a thorough and excellent thread on this topic in the forum.
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We separate grants from individual gifts based on whether we had to apply for the grant or not. If the gift did NOT require an application, we record it to the Individual Giving G/L and NOT as a Private Grant.
(By the way Government Grants are recorded in a separate G/L from Private Grants, as they are really two different animals.
You could also create sub-G/L’s within Individual Giving if you wish – for Donor Advised Funds, Bequests, Corporate Giving, you name it. Or you could accomplish the same thing by using a separate segment/dimension if your accounting software allows it. For example, all Individual Giving could be recorded to the same “G/L Account”, but could be recorded to a different “Funding Source”