How to record restricted donations and net assets
Updating restricted net assets and issuing proper donor receipts requires setting up specific fund-accounting tracking so that restricted contributions do not throw off the general books. Without a clear procedure, bookkeepers struggle to record donations correctly, which ultimately prevents donors from receiving the receipts they need for their contributions.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1setting up restrictions as separate projects in accounting software
- 2tracking restricted funds manually using an Excel spreadsheet
- 3making monthly journal entries to move funds between restricted and unrestricted net assets
- 4Asking the parent organization to provide receipts or create a unique fundraising page
- 5Donating the money during match days to double the donation via an employer match
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
r/nonprofit2 people · September 2026
Where this came up
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