[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: The basics



Hi Roy,

No worries about the name, I think that G throws people off ... you are not the first, and probably not the last!

It sounds like your setup is similar to ours ... thanks for sharing. I am curious about your comment that each of the races was set up as separate departments. I was wondering what to do here... we generally hold 5 races each year. At the Board level, all races are overseen by one director, the "Competitive Events" Director (although there are many volunteers that help out at each race). So, I was thinking of having one department for all "Competitive Events".

In fact, (and again I am just getting my feet wet here so bare with me), my initial thought was that I would set up a separate "department" for each core group of activities that the club is involved in. For example, falling out of the structure of the Board of Directors, we have:

1. "Racing Program" Director
2. "Learn to Ski Program" Director
3. "Competitive Events" Director
4. "Facilities" Director
5. "Safety" Director
6. "Social Events" Director

Then, there is a president, secretary and treasurer.

So, coming back to my question, what makes sense here? I can see the appeal of having each race as a separate department ... but it would also seem to make sense that there is a tie-in back to board from an accountability perspective. Roy, what does the structure of your club look like? Is there a board? How are the responsibilities split up?

I think that putting the case-study together would make a lot of sense and would answer a lot of questions for those just starting to learn. I also think that this could be a real coup for ledgerSMB from the perspective of bringing all sorts of non-profits onboard. There is a definite need for an inexpensive, cross-platform, multi- user accounting application for non-profits.

Roy - a few other questions about your club.

1. How big is your club?
2. Do you have online registration for membership? for the races?
3. Any employees?
4. Do you have any equipment? or buildings?
5. Do you have any loans? or mortgages?
6. Do members of your club go out and buy things, and then need to be reimbursed? (Our club operates like this. For example, say an instructor for one of the classes needs some pylons for his class, he will just go out and buy them and then submit an expense to the club.)

Anyways, it is good to meet you and I think that we should sit down and start talking about how we want to structure the case study. I don't know how well you know anyone here but they seem like a nice bunch, so let's get some direction from the core developers about how they would like to see the documentation. (I would like to write this up so that I can eventually get someone to take this job over from me with little or no interruption...)

By the way, do people mind if we have this discussion here -- or should Roy and I do this bilaterally?

Geoff





On 17-Mar-07, at 4:33 PM, Roy Nicholl wrote:

Greg,
I have been using  SQL-Ledger (transitioning to LedgerSMB) to look
after the books of a local running club + it's two major races (set
up as separate departments), over the past several years.

Similar to your  programme of ski lessons, we offer an annual slate
of running clinics.  We also have three classes of general membership
(plus we allow folks to purchase multi-year memberships).   For our
family memberships, we only register one customer - the parent who
purchased the membership.   If any of the family members signup for a
clinic (or purchase club gear), then they will become a customer at
that time.

We have setup out memberships and clinics as "services" - though this
year our marathon clinic has been set-up as an assembly which
includes a club membership (service) and a technical running
'T' {itself an assembly of the shirt + the vendor service of
screening a logo upon it}.

Likewise, Race entry fees have been "services" in the past, but this
year I am planning on using an "assembly" which will include the race
schwag (a shirt) and the pre-race pasta dinner.

If I can be of more help, let me know ... I would also be interested
in assisting with your 'case-study' so that the documentation would
contain a non-profit example.

Roy


On 17-Mar-2007, at 16:31, Geoff Wright wrote:
A typical transaction for the club:

	There is a family of four (Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter).  The family
purchases a "Family" membership ($100).  The family also purchases
"Bunnyrabbit" classes for Son ($30) and "Jackrabbit" classes for
Daughter ($40).  Mom joins the "Masters" program ($50).

What is the correct way of setting this transaction up?

	1. Add customer - should I add each member of the family separately
or should I enter it as one single family unit? We tend to think
about a family as one unit because the parents often pay for their
children. There can also be multiple transactions over the course of
the year as a child could be involved in other activities from time
to time.

	3. What are our products?  The memberships and classes are our
"products".  Should I set these up as "Services" in ledgerSMB?


Thanks in advance.  Would there be interest if I wrote this up as a
"Case Study" to be included in the documentation?  Perhaps as a
complement to the example, "Retail with Light Manufacturing".

(I realize that this request is going above and beyond the call and
would be interested in hiring a consultant to help us set up our
accounts and processes correctly ... if the price is not too high = ~
$200. Please contact me if you have the time to help us out.)

Cheers. And I just want to say that you have all done an amazing job
on this program (as have the folks over at sql-ledger prior to the
port)! I trully respect the job that you have done so far!

Geoff


--------------------------------------------------------------------- -
---
Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to
share your
opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash
http://www.techsay.com/default.php?
page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
_______________________________________________
Ledger-smb-users mailing list
..hidden..
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users


---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your
opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash
http://www.techsay.com/default.php? page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
_______________________________________________
Ledger-smb-users mailing list
..hidden..
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users