Church Accounting Using Gnucash - 4: Sample chart of accounts

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Find below a link to a stripped down and simplified version of the chart of accounts used by the St Stephens Marthoma Church, Koramangala in an Excel sheet format. You will find many Account Heads in Malayalam - The main Language of the the Marthoma Church. (All the Malayalam Account Names have the English translations given as "comments")

Dropbox: SSMCK Chart of Accounts.xlsx
Github:    SSMCK Chart of Accounts.xlsx

In GnuCash, this looks like this:



Open the GnuCash file, downloadable in the link below, to create the same chart of accounts directly in GnuCash.

Dropbox: TypicalChartOfAccountsforaMarthomaChurch.gnucash
GitHub:   TypicalChartOfAccountsforaMarthomaChurch.gnucash 

This chart of accounts has the accounts typically used in a Marthoma Church – some of the account names are in Malayalam. (The English Translations are given as "comments" in the Heading row).  Change the account names and account structure to suit the requirements of your own church.

Especially note the accounts in the "Equity:Offertories Earmarked for Charity" accounts. In the St, Stephens church, all Birthday and Wedding offertories are earmarked for charity, and hence accounted in the Equity accounts – A result of this is that these accounts appear in the financial statements in the Balance Sheet (and not in the income and expenditure statement). Typically, in other churches, these offerings would be accounted under the Income accounts.

You can easily move around the accounts by right clicking on an account, and selecting “edit account”. Changing the “Parent account” will cause the account, with all its transactions to move to be under that "Parent" account

Please enter let me know your comments and suggestions through the comments box below.

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