How do you record a gift received through PayPal or via credit card?

Many organizations are now accepting Gifts through PayPal and have asked about the best way to account for this in FIMS. The majority of the organizations appear to be recording the original or entire Gift to the Fund, and absorbing the PayPal fee in the Operating Fund.  A few are recording the total Gift as a Gift, but charging the Fund the fee.

Regardless of who pays the fee, you are probably going to be entering the Gift in the following way:

• Assume for this example that the Gift is for $50 and the PayPal fee is $4. 
• The amount received is $46.
• In the Gift module create a new Gift and enter the amount as $50 to the receiving Fund.
• Enter a Non-gift amount of -$4.
• Click on the Distributions radio button and adjust the drop-downs as necessary and enter in the Fund-ids associated with the various pieces.
• If the receiving Fund is paying the fee, that Fund will be in both the Gift and Non-gift lines. 
• If the Operating Fund is paying the fee, it should be entered on the -$4 line.
• On the General ledger tab, the account associated with the $46 gift should be the debit for both the Gift and Non-gift.
• The $50 should go to the appropriate revenue account and the $4 should go to the appropriate expense account.