; -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

;

; config-tags.ledger: The Ledger CLI tag declarations for NPO use-case.

; Copyright © 2013, Bradley M. Kuhn.

;

; The copyright holders wish that this document could be placed into the

; public domain.  However, should such a public domain dedication not be

; possible, the copyright holders grant a waiver and/or license under the

; terms of CC0-1.0, as published by Creative Commons, Inc.  A copy of CC0-1.0

; can be found in the same repository as this README.md file under the

; filename CC0-1.0.txt.  If this document has been separated from the

; repository, a [copy of CC0-1.0 can be found on Creative Commons' website at

; http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

; ################################# TAGS ################################

; The Statement, Receipt, and Invoice tags' values should always a be a

; relative path names.  Note that we "check", but do not "assert" that the

; file name match a standard Unix-like path syntax, without spaces in the

; file name.

tag Statement

    assert value =~ /[^\/].+/

    check value =~ /[^\/][^ ]+(\/[^ ])+/

tag Receipt

    assert value =~ /[^\/].+/

    check value =~ /[^\/][^ ]+(\/[^ ])+/

tag Invoice

    assert value =~ /[^\/].+/

    check value =~ /[^\/][^ ]+(\/[^ ])+/

; IncomeType refers to the types of income a non-profit can receive.  In this

; example, it's for the categorizations on the USA Form 990.  This could be

; changed to accomodate other jurisdictions around the world.

tag IncomeType

    assert value =~ /^(Donations|RBI|UBTI)$/

; Program tag must match the general format of a ledger account as an

; assertion, but we at least check known names of programs, so that warnings

; are produced if a new program never seen before is encountered.

tag Program

    assert value =~ /[ A-z0-9\-]+(:[ A-z0-9\-]+)*/

    check  value =~ /^(Main Org:(Overhead|Direct Fundraising))$/

#### Invoice Tag

The `Invoice:` tag refers to an actual invoice, either generated by the

organization or received by the organization.  Typically, this is a document

that is a request for payment, rather than documenting an actual payment that

has occurred.  The value of the `Invoice:` tag is always a valid pathname in

repository to the document, [as described above](#documentation-tags).

Some examples of appropriate uses of the `Invoice:` tag are:

* an actual invoice as sent by a vendor to the organization.

* a request for payment sent by the organization to someone else.

* a reimbursement request submitted by an employee, contractor, or volunteer

  for expenses they've already incurred and would like the organization to

  reimburse (e.g., an expense report, requesting for reimbursement of travel

  expenses).

#### Statement Tag

The `Statement:` tag refers to any sort of written statement received from an

external party (or even perhaps generated internally) that provides document,

insight, or other information about the transaction.  The value of the

`Statement:` tag is always a valid pathname in the repository to the

document, [as described above](#documentation-tags).

Some examples of appropriate uses of the `Statement:` tag are:

* bank statements, as received from the banking institution.

* written reports of travel.

* blog posts made by a contractor documenting their work.

* written organizational policies about the expense.

* just about anything that is clearly not an [invoice](#invoice-tag) nor a

  [receipt](#receipt-tag), but definitely is valid backup documentation for

  the transaction.

### Information Tags

In contrast to documentation tags, information tags can more traditionally be

considered pure "meta-data" for a ledger entry.

#### IncomeType Tag

The `IncomeType:` tag is used for all `Income:` accounts.  This refers to the

type of income.  The value of the `IncomeType:` tag is always a string.

Since this particular system is designed for USA non-profit entities who file

USA Form 990, the following `IncomeType` values are supported:

* `Donations`, which refers to standard charitable donations.

* `RBI`, which refers to "related business income".

* `UBTI`, which refers to "unrelated business taxable income.

Not that donor-advised funds and government grants don't currently have their

own `IncomeType`.  It's possible this might be necessary; the authors aren't

familiar with how to handle those items on the Form 990.  It would be a

relatively simple change to `config-tags.ledger`, though, to support other

income types, or to change it entirely to handle use-cases other than USA

Form 990 filing.

#### Program Tag

The `Program` tag is used primarily to track program activity for `Income:`

and `Expense:` accounts.  This allows for knowing what particular initiative

initiated the income (e.g., a specific fundraising campaign) and/or what

particular program activity an expense is toward (e.g., funding travel to

some specific conference).

The Program tag is always a string with the same format as a Ledger CLI

account (primarily for use with Ledger CLI's `--pivot` and `--group-by`,

[as described later](#testing-program-success).

### Expense Account Documentation

Each `Expense:` account entry must be tagged with the following tags:

* One of: [`Invoice:`](#invoice-tag) [`Receipt:`](#receipt-tag), or

  [`Statement`](#statement-tag).  (The only exception to this rule: an entry

  does not need an `Invoice:`, `Receipt`, nor a `Statement` tag if the

  [payee was never charged](#never-charged-payee).

#### NEVER CHARGED Payee

The only exception to the standard tagging requirement is when the payee has

been modified to indicate that the expense was `NEVER CHARGED`.  This is an

historical special-case.  The solution was originally design for the

following scenario:

Suppose an expense was expected — for example, a situation where you

gave a credit card number to charge something and the charge never came

through — but it turns out the charge never happened.

The recommended way to resolve this problem in the system is to just delete

the entry entirely from the Ledger file, and allow the VCS to log the fact

that the charge was expected, but the vendor never billed the credit card.

The reason the `NEVER CHARGED` payee text was added was to handle the

situation where the books included this charge, but the books were already

closed for the financial period (e.g., the books had already been audited).

Changing the payee was a method for documenting the expense.  You might use

it like this:

    2011/05/28 My Bad Billing Hosting - NEVER CHARGED

        Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa            $-100.00

        Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting             $100.00

    2012/01/01 My Bad Billing Hosting - REVERSAL - NEVER CHARGED

        Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa             $100.00

        Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting            $-100.00

However, going forward, you'd likely never enter anything the ledger

**until** you had real proof via an Invoice, Receipt or Statement that showed

the Expense did/should occur.  This use of `NEVER CHARGED` in the payee is

thus deprecated.

Analysis of the Data

--------------------

If this methodology is followed, Ledger can be used to analyze the financial

data for the organization.

### Testing Program Success

If you use the [`Program`](#program-tag) tag effectively, you can easily test

the successes of various fundraising programs with a command like this:

    $ ledger -f accounts/books.ledger --pivot Program bal '/^Income/'

Meanwhile, using the  [`Program`](#program-tag) tag for Expenses can help

track what programs are costing with commands like hese:

    $ ledger -f accounts/books.ledger --group-by 'tag("Program")' reg '/^Expense/'

FIXME: example output

Copyright and License of This File

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This specific document, the README.md file for npo-ledger-cli, is copyrighted:

  Copyright © 2013, Bradley M. Kuhn

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