Fund accounting as a technical term is quite specific. It means that for every transaction there are four entries made, as opposed to traditional bookkeeping where there are only two made (double entry). For example, in traditional acctg, when a check is written, an expense category is debited and cash is credited. In fund accounting, that same transaction would involve the same debit and credit to expense and cash, with an additional pair of balancing entries to a fund balance and a "due to/due from" account. The only reason I mention this is to show that actual Fund Accounting software will work quite differently from normal business accounting software. Depending on how your organization is funded (ie lots of restricted program grants or more general revenue) normal cost-center based accounting can be adequate. In a 2 million dollar nfp in which I used to be responsible for finances (along with most everything else), we actually used a manual system that was essentially a cost-center based accounting system. Do you know the expression "MEGO" it stands for "my eyes glaze over" which is what I think happens when anyone discusses accounting... Eric Siegel [log in to unmask]