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Re: The basics

Geoff,
As I eluded in my prior post to Chris, a department (or division), in corporate speak, is typically it's own profit or cost centre: Departments such as legal or marketing which generate no revenue for the Corporation are "cost" centres while the 'consulting division' which has the potential (or at least the expectation) to generate revenue would be a "profit" centre.
In the instance of our running club, the {spring} marathon and autumn 10K road race were setup as separate departments/divisions because each is its own 'profit' centre and functions with its own bank accounts independent of the Club's general operating account. In our case we could have setup both the marathon and autumn road race as separate 'companies', but chose to have them as departments.
Separate bank accounts are necessary for departments, it just happens to be the way things are for us.
In addition to these two annual "major" events, the club also presents, or assists with, several smaller events during the year, these ones we handle out of the Club's general operations.
Conceivable we could put our clinics in a separate department and run them as a profit centre. If the participation levels continue to grow, we just may do that in the future.
In your case, it sounds like all your races could be put under one "Racing/Events" department; likewise for your clinics/schools as it is reasonable to treat these as separate "profit" centres (which may operate with their own independent coffers or which may use the general operating account).
The other areas/director titles sound like they are applicable to the general operations of the club and could be handled without separate departments ... projects could be used for significant club events (such as the AGM or X-mas party) is you want a way to track the finances of a particular event.
Our club organisation is pretty classic. The BoD/Executive is comprised of four officers: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer (who doubles as the Registrar), and four Directors at large who hold a variety of portfolios (two of which are currently Marathon Race Director and Newsletter Editor). 

Now to approach your list of questions:

1. How big is your club?

Approximately 200 members.

2. Do you have online registration for membership? for the races?

Yes, we conduct online registration through a local Race Timing Company.

3. Any employees?

No, not at this time.  And not ever to my knowledge.

4. Do you have any equipment? or buildings?
We have a moderate amount of capital equipment which belongs to both the club proper and the marathon. This includes a race clock, aide station equipment, course signs and markers, a large bell tent, etc. 
5. Do you have any loans? or mortgages?

No

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.)
Yes, our club functions like this as well. This is just like handling employee expenses in a corporation (only our employees are volunteers). Since it's always the same core cadre involved in organising everything, the biggest hassle we have here is getting them to report their expenses against the appropriate department (it's not a big hassle - though, as treasurer, it is sometimes left to my interpretation).
My cycles available towards working on a "case study" will be sporadic over the coming weeks/months (I'm one of that cadre involved in "too much" {as my wife would say}). 

Run gently,

Roy


On 17-Mar-2007, at 18:28, Geoff Wright wrote:


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
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