Multi-year pledges and what accounting sees

The problem here is that accounting does need to see the full $50k pledge up front, because in the strange world of GAAP, you have to recognize the entire pledge as income in the year in which the pledge was made (even though you may not have received a penny in cash). You then offset that with a receivable for $50k and reduce the receivable over time as the cash comes in.

Many development folks, however, would prefer to track the cash as it comes in, which is what it sounds like you are trying to do by entering five $10k amounts rather than a single $50k gift.

If you enter the $50k pledge correctly in Tessitura and set up the appropriate payment schedule, you can use the Yearly Cash Planning Report in the Finance folder to see how much cash is supposed to come in each year.

_______________

Julie P. Hamre

Finance/Development Associate

Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc.

5301 Tuckerman Lane

North Bethesda, MD  20852-3385

301.581.5136; fax 301.581.5201

in office Monday-Tuesday-Thursday

www.strathmore.org

Support what you love. Strathmore Stars enjoy

10% off Strathmore performance tickets, advance

ticket purchase, discounts in the Shops at

Strathmore and in Tea Room, and access to special events.

Hello all,

I'm looking for some best practices on how to treat multi-year pledges in Tessitura and reporting with accounting.  In general we in Development do not want to worry about reconcilling the pledges with accounting as we know how often we could end up changing this information. Currently, we are using a somewhat complicated method with the payment plan and the restricted tab to try and reconcile with Accounting. So for a $50,000 over 5 years. I double enter $10,000/year with the expected date on the Payment plan and on the restricted tab as future receivable.  We don’t really like having to do this twice but if we don’t accounting sees it all at the same time.

Does anyone use a different method of tracking pledges, maybe one where accounting only sees the actual money in and doesn't have to see the pledge amount at all? Do any of you have a simpler way of tracking them so that we can make changes once?

Thank you,

Elizabeth

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The problem here is that accounting does need to see the full $50k pledge up front, because in the strange world of GAAP, you have to recognize the entire pledge as income in the year in which the pledge was made (even though you may not have received a penny in cash). You then offset that with a receivable for $50k and reduce the receivable over time as the cash comes in.

Many development folks, however, would prefer to track the cash as it comes in, which is what it sounds like you are trying to do by entering five $10k amounts rather than a single $50k gift.

If you enter the $50k pledge correctly in Tessitura and set up the appropriate payment schedule, you can use the Yearly Cash Planning Report in the Finance folder to see how much cash is supposed to come in each year.

_______________

Julie P. Hamre

Finance/Development Associate

Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc.

5301 Tuckerman Lane

North Bethesda, MD  20852-3385

301.581.5136; fax 301.581.5201

in office Monday-Tuesday-Thursday

www.strathmore.org

Support what you love. Strathmore Stars enjoy

10% off Strathmore performance tickets, advance

ticket purchase, discounts in the Shops at

Strathmore and in Tea Room, and access to special events.

Hello all,

I'm looking for some best practices on how to treat multi-year pledges in Tessitura and reporting with accounting.  In general we in Development do not want to worry about reconcilling the pledges with accounting as we know how often we could end up changing this information. Currently, we are using a somewhat complicated method with the payment plan and the restricted tab to try and reconcile with Accounting. So for a $50,000 over 5 years. I double enter $10,000/year with the expected date on the Payment plan and on the restricted tab as future receivable.  We don’t really like having to do this twice but if we don’t accounting sees it all at the same time.

Does anyone use a different method of tracking pledges, maybe one where accounting only sees the actual money in and doesn't have to see the pledge amount at all? Do any of you have a simpler way of tracking them so that we can make changes once?

Thank you,

Elizabeth

This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!