Beginnings of draft of NPO Ledger CLI tutorial.
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npo-ledger-cli-tutorial.md
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Non-Profit Accounting With Ledger CLI, A Tutorial
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=================================================
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Non-profit organizations (NPOs), particularly 501(c)(3) charities in the USA,
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have their own specific accounting needs. These often differ from for-profit
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accounting needs. For example, for-profit-oriented systems often make
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problematic assumptions about the workflow of accounting tasks (often because
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NPOs rely primarily on donations, rather than fee-for-service or
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widget-selling income). Also, non-profit income is categorized differently
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than for-profit income, and the reporting requirements vary wildly from their
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for-profit equivalents.
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This project is designed to provide some basic templates, tutorials, workflow
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documentation and scripts to handle accounting for an NPO. The primary
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example is a
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[direct project (aka Model A) fiscal sponsor NPO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship#Models_of_fiscal_sponsorship).
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This tutorial was written primarily based on
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[Software Freedom Conservancy](http://sfconservancy.org/)'s use of Ledger CLI
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from 2008-10-22 to present for its own accounting needs. While Conservancy
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has done well using this system, and believes that its account system meets
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Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), this document **does not**
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constitute advice from a CPA nor legal advice for a non-profit that seeks to
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comply with relevant state and/or federal accounting requirements for USA
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non-profits. The authors make no representations nor warranties regarding
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this information and this information is provided for discussion purposes
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only. Readers of these tutorial and templates are urged to seek professional
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advice from a CPA and/or tax legal counsel in constructing an accounting
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system appropriate for your organization.
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Furthermore, given the authors' limited knowledge of accounting requirements
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outside the USA, the suggestions herein probably are not particularly useful
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at all for organizations outside the USA.
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Configuration of Chart of Accounts
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----------------------------------
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The first thing any accountant will ask to see if your so-called "chart of
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accounts". The first time I heard this phrase, I thought it was something
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complicated. Fact of the matter is, it's really just a list of all the
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accounts that you use. Accountants also use "account codes", which, as near
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as I can tell, are of primary interest because they get better sorting.
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Ledger CLI doesn't really support account codes, so I've ignored them.
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The real place that Ledger CLI stores your chart of accounts is if you use
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the `account` directive along with the `--pedantic` CLI option. This will
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ensure that only accounts you declared explicitly will used.
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### Asset Accounts
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Our recommendation for asset accounts FIXME.
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### Reporting The Chart of Accounts
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The
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[`general-ledger-report.plx` script in the `non-profit-audit-reports` Ledger CLI contrib directory](https://github.com/ledger/ledger/blob/next/contrib/non-profit-audit-reports/general-ledger-report.plx)
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will generate a file called `chart-of-accounts.csv`, which is the chart of accounts.
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Copyright and License of This File
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----------------------------------
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This specific document, the README.md file for npo-ledger-cli, is copyrighted:
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Copyright © 2013, Bradley M. Kuhn
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This document's license gives you freedom; you can copy, modify, convey,
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propagate, and/or redistribute this software under the terms of either:
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* The GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
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Foundation, Inc.; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)
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any later version (aka GPLv3-or-later).
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* *or* the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
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license, as published by Creative Commons, Inc. (aka CC-By-SA-USA-3.0)
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In addition, when you convey, distribute, and/or propagate this document
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and/or modified versions thereof, you may also preserve this notice so that
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recipients of such distributions will also have both licensing options
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described above.
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A copy of GPLv3 and CC-By-SA-3.0-USA can be found in the same repository as
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this file under the filenames GPLv3.txt and CC-By-SA-3.0-USA.txt. If this
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document has been separated from the repository, a
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[copy of GPL can be found on FSF's website](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt)
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and a
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[copy of CC-By-SA-USA-3.0 can be found on Creative Commons' website](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode).
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