Sage 50 Pro Accounting (Release 2017.2), single licence.
I am the Treasurer for a small Not-For-Profit society, which I'll call a Chapter. Sage is probably overkill for what we do but it's what I inherited and I've been happy so far. I am not an accountant by trade or education.
Originally, the Chapter was synonymous with one business unit, i.e one Chart of Accounts, one bank account, no credit cards, and using Projects to report on reoccurring and unique events. Chapter reporting is easy and no payroll is required - there are no employees. It's all worked reasonably well.
Recently, we have been contemplating creating a second unit (and in theory there could be more in the future) and must determine how the finances are going to be handled, One of my tasks related to this expansion is to advise the Board of Directors (BOD) on how we're going to manage the additional unit financially and what tools can be used to do so; can we continue to use Sage and, if so, how and at what cost?
The units do the same type of work, just would have different occasions for the work and would have different membership (although, clearly, Sage doesn't care what the membership is). Thus, the Chart of Accounts for both units would be the same, and if not entirely so, small additions would solve the problem. The units would report independently to the BOD and the BOD would have to roll up the unit reporting for a Chapter report. Projects would still be used since each unit could have its own events and units could collaborate on others. There would be Chapter level expenses requirements (and possibly revenue streams) that would apply to both units albeit not necessarily in a 50-50 proportion.
I have several questions:
- Can Sage handle this structure, and if so, what version of Sage must we have? I understand that there is a Departments function but it's not in my current version of Sage. Might it solve the problem?
- Can we continue to use the Projects function for events that affect both units? I can see independent projects (i.e. one of the two units alone) working the same way but if both units collaborate on the same project can the expenses and revenues be split not only by GL but also unit?
If there is another way to provide accounting for multiple units within the Chapter, I'm open to suggestions.
