USA Chart of Accounts issues

[JayBird77]

Hi all!

I am not an accountant and I haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in a while, so I need help! I am attempting to get Quickbooks Online setup for a non-profit that I am a member of. I will explain the situation of what we do and then ask for advice.

What we do:
We are a non-profit boosters that supports the fine arts programs (band, choir, drama, etc) at a high school. We have many fundraisers and donations, just like every boosters program. The issue that I am having is understanding how to store all of the information. The checking account and expenses are easy enough. The issue I am having is that each student has a "student account" that is technically nothing more than a collection of records from every time that they owe money (band fees, checked out candy, etc) or make money from fundraisers. I don't understand how to create those accounts.

What do I need help with:
I am having a lot of trouble understanding and deciding what those "student accounts" should be as far as accounting. I thought at first that they should just be sub-accounts of our checking account, but then I realized that we charge the kids fees that doesn't technically reflect in the physical bank account. For example, band fees are added to their accounts every season for $100. If I were to add a $100 debt to each account for band, it would reflect the main checking account by reducing the balance by $100 * number of kids. Then I thought maybe they should be accounts payable, since we are technically paying them to attend fundraisers, etc and soon realized that I cannot modify a payable account manually, that everything needs to show on the general ledger. As I have said, we are a non-profit, so I setup quickbooks as a non-profit and have made the "customers" to display as "donors". Should the student accounts be made as donor accounts? If that is the case, how do I track that money? As invoices? I am literally confused as could be. Sorry!

So, my question is, how do I setup these "student accounts"? What type of account should they be? Should they even be in the chart of accounts? I am losing my mind at this point and could seriously use some help. Thank you in advance for anyone that supports our organization and my lack of accounting skills!

Sincerely,

Jay

 

[JayBird77]

No one?

 

[CPAinUSA]

Hi Jay,
My apologies for lack of response from the forum. I pop in here once in a while. Hopefully, you have not yet given up on the accounting for the NFP.
Here are my suggestions:
• Don't overdo the accounting. It sounds like these are fairly small numbers of students and dollars, right? You're not handling millions of dollars or thousand of students . . . ? And you are not getting audited by the IRS? (What we call in Accounting "The Reporting Environment".)
• So it is probably best if you just keep track of the candy boxes, dues, whatever in Excel, and then just post monthly numbers to QuickBooks.
• You will just need to make sure that all your numbers tie out, and you can balance back to the $ amount in the account, the inventory of candy boxes, etc.
• Keep a simple folder/filing system for your paperwork.
• Set QuickBooks up in the simplest possible way. Otherwise, unless you have fairly special NFP reporting/tracking needs, you will spend all of your time trying to figure out how to get QuickBooks to do what you want.
Hope that helps!

 

[Crunchingdumbells]

This may be actually my first time replying on this forum. I haven't lurked around on here in years. I think I may be able to help though. I work for a government agency that has a non-profit foundation and we also use QB. It sounds to me like you should setup the student accounts as customers. I think they would be called donors in "non-profit" terms. And yes, when they owe money, you would create an invoice for the amount of money owed. Effectively, you would be use a modified-cash accounting system. Let me know if that works or if I'm missing anything.