Entering Beginning Balances into Power Church

[yochanah]

At our church, the clerk was using ONLY the Contributions module from Jan 1 through September.

We did not begin using the Fund Accounting module until October 1.

So, our Advisor said that we needed to enter Contribution totals through a General Journal entry, so that a total of all the contributions that had been recorded in the Contributions module from Jan 1 thru Sept 30 would be recorded in the Fund Accounting module.

I need to know if this was the correct entry to do this:

Credit the income accounts by the totals for what was received from Jan 1 thru Sept 30.
Debit the Equity / Net Assets account by the total of those income credits.

This has resulted in an Equity balance of $-323,000.

Admittedly, as our Advisor pointed out, our financial reports will be meaningless unless & until we enter beginning balances for ALL account types. So far we have only entered beginning balances for our checking account and the above General Journal entry to try to record the contribution totals for what was received in the 1st 3 quarters of 2013. Also, I have been entering the October activity.

Someone who understands accounting concepts, PLEASE let me know if the above transaction was correct: to credit income accounts AND debit the equity account by the total.

If it is incorrect, HOW do we properly record the contributions we received PRIOR TO the utilization of the Fund Account module?

[Matt]

The entry your Advisor gave you to record the year to date contributions in Fund Accounting is correct. However, if you are going to enter the year to date income, then you must also enter the year to date expenses. When you enter the year to date expenses you will debit the expense accounts and credit the Equity/Net Assets accounts. These credits will have the effect of offsetting the negative $323,000 equity balance you are currently seeing.

And your Advisor is right--the financial reports produced from PowerChurch will not be correct until you have input the beginning balances for ALL accounts.

[covered]

Help please!!!
When I started PC I entered the wrong dollar amount for beginning balance. I didn't notice this error until after I posted funds. How can I input the correct amount or the miss dollar amount so that the account balances.
Example I put 2700.00 as the beginning balance for savings
Entered transactions
Posted
After posting the balance is off by 294.92

Please explain how I can enter that amount in so that everything is balanced

[JohnDMeyers]

I want to check this out with Matt:

Matt, I would have made this entry for the beginning contributions:
DB 01-1110-000 checking $323,000
CR 01-3110-000 equity $323,000

covered made this entry:
CR 01-4110-000 income $323,000 (closes to 01-3110-000)
DB 01-3110-000 equity $323,000

When you close the end-of-year, wouldn't the equity from this entry be $0.00?

[covered]

Who is Matt? You lost me.
All I need to know is how can I enter the "294.00" into the savings account to make it balance out. Remember I mentioned I put the wrong dollar amount at the beginning of setting up accounting. Can you please help with just this matter.

[JohnDMeyers]

Sorry covered. Matt is the other guy who has been helping you on this issue. If you look at the author of the posts, you will see his name there.

I am not convinced that you made the correct entry. Matt thought is was correct. I wanted to ask him about that.

[JohnDMeyers]

Covered, you say that you put $2,700 in the beginning balance for savings.

What were the two accounts that you used in the transaction? One was savings. What was the other account?

[covered]

I'm not quiet sure I understand what u are talking about.
This is what I did:
At the start/set up of accounting. SAVINGS ACCOUNT I inserted a beginning balance as 2700.00
On my statements I entered what was deposited, what was with drawed and the interest that was payed.
So if I deposited 1000 to savings I used : my bank debit 1000 and savings credit 1000
So after doing the transaction I posted the transaction and ran a report. That's when I noticed I put the wrong amount for my beginning balance. And that's why my balance is off. Soooo my question is..... How do I put the amount that's missing ( the 294 ) ?
I just want to correct the error.

[covered]

Matt was helping someone from a few years ago.

[jwdick]

If all of your other beginning balances are correct (i.e. income, expenses etc.) then you would:

DB 01-1210 (savings) $294.00 increasing the amount in savings and
CR 01-3110 (net assets) $294.00

[covered]

Ok so I should not do an OOB????

[NeilZ]

Matt was helping someone from a few years ago.

This is why its always a good idea to start a new topic instead of entering a question on an old one, especially if the topic is over 6 months old.

That said ... NO .. do not do an Out of Balance transaction on this .