Reconciling

At least twice a year we reconcile our various accounts:

• Checking Account (citibank)
• Stripe Account (for credit card contributions)
• Pay Pal

The steps to reconcile are:

1. Login to each service and download the monthly statement for each month Each statement is placed in our Nextcloud accounting folder for the proper year.
   • Stripe: From left side bar click Reporting -> Reports -> Balance Summary. Generate a new report for each month. Click print and print to a PDF.
   • Paypal: Activity -> All Reports -> Statements - monthly and custom. Request and then download each monthly report.
   • Citibank (citi mobile web site, not citibusiness): Services -> Statements and Documents -> Statements. Download each month.
2. Login to our Payroll service and download the month to date payroll reports for each month and place them in our Nextcloud accounting folder.
   • Click Reports -> Payroll Reports -> Month to date. Select each month, click “Update Report” and download the PDF.
3. Ensure member income, donations, refunds and expenses are imported properly from our CiviCRM installation using the GnuCash Importer script
4. Enter the Payroll data using the GnuCash Payroll Importer script
5. Enter the following data into our GnuCash system by hand:
   • Enter monthly salary information for staff not based in the US
   • Enter monthly payroll fees
   • Enter interest earned and all bank fees
   • Record transfers from Stripe to Citibank and Paypal to Citibank
   • Enter unusual income (like grants or program payments)
6. Reconcile each bank account in GnuCash.

End of Year

Each January, after reconciling, we take a number of steps to close out our books and manage our taxes.

1099’s

We have to report to the IRS all contractors that we paid more than $600 in the course of the year. If a contractor does not work in the US or is incorporated, we do not have to report them.

See the the page on 1099’s for more information.

Finalizing books for the previous year

1. Depreciation. In GnuCash we have a “Fixed Assets” account with our server purchases. Divide the cost of the server by 5 years and add a new line in the Depreciation account under the server in question for that amount. If it’s value is 0, you don’t have to do this any more. It can be dated December 31 of the previous year.
2. Deferred Revenue. If we get a one year membership paid in, for example, December, we can only count one month of revenue for last year. The rest is deferred to the next year. We account for this in the Deferred Revenue - Dues liability account. Every year:

• Account for the income we deferred the previous year. Create one entry called “YYYY (last year) Membership dues deferred from YYYY (2 years ago)” - it should be equal to the line from the previous year titled “YYYY (2 years ago) Membership dues deferred to YYYY (last year) and the amount put in the “Decrease” column and the Transfer column should be “Income:Membership Dues - Combined”. When you enter this amount, the balance in the “Deferred Revenue - Dues” account should be zero.
• Lookup the amount from the prevous year that should be deferred to this year. You need to access a SQL shell in our CiviCRM database and run this query: SELECT SUM(deferred_amount) FROM civicrm_mayfirst_contribution mc JOIN civicrm_contribution c ON mc.contribution_id = c.id WHERE invoice_start_date BETWEEN '2024-01-01' AND '2024-12-31' AND currency = 'usd'; (assuming the accounting year is 2024 - change as needed).
• Defer income to next year. Create one entry called “YYYY (last year) Membership dues deferred to YYYY (this year)”. The Transfer account should be “Income:Membership Dues - Combined” and it should go in the Increase column.

Filing 990’s

By May 15 of each year we have to file a form 990 with the US government.

To do so, we use a special non-profit fiing service called 990s Online.

Before filling out the forms, we have to be sure to import all payments received by running our import script (if someone pays us May 14th for an invoice dated December 31st, it has to be recorded as income for the previous year).

Any unpaid membership from the previous year has to result in the membership being cancelled. We can’t carry over money owed from the previous year. Any unpaid invoice from the previous year that is paid in the following year is recorded as “Accounts Receivable” to indicate that it was owed to us in the previous year.