I am considering the possibility of using ERPNext for a non-profit.
In this non-profit, two things are crucial in how we operate: we must account for Income and Expenses.
Income:
This is monies received by way of donations, grants etc (I must provide a way of categorising the list of possible income streams)
Expenses:
This are monies paid to settle expenses in the organization (I must also provide a way of categorising the list of possible expenses)
NOTE:
The terminology is very important in our organization. For example, I cannot use the terms “Sales” or “Payments”. It must be Income vs Expenses.
Is it possible to use ERPNext for this kind of scenario?
Has somebody managed to do something similar to this?
ERPNext, like many other accounting packages, uses “Income” and “Expense” to categorize the two kinds of accounts used to track transactions that should show up on a P&L or Income Statement. Many different documents will write to these accounts, and you can use them or not as you like.
If you don’t need an invoicing cycle, you don’t need to use Sales Invoices. If you don’t need to manage accounts payable or receivable, you don’t need to use Payments. I would think most non-profits still deal with Purchase Invoices, but if you don’t want to use those either you can do all your accounting with direct Journal Entries.
All that said, this is software for accrual-basis double entry accounting. Words like “Payment” have fairly standardized definitions rooted in generally accepted accounting principals, and if you’re looking for something simpler this might not be the software for you.
Edit: But, yes, you can definitely use this software to run a non-profit! That’s exactly what I do with it most of the time. Pretty much any software, including ERPNext, will allow for income and expenses in multiple streams, so that’s not likely to be a barrier.
Welcome, Petro. Yes, you can definitely use ERPNext for a non-profit. I have a few non-profits that I support that use ERPNext.
To account for donations, you can just do a journal entry, or you could create a custom DocType called ‘Donation’, which is the route I’ve done with the non-profits I support.