Sub Accounts

[DebbieR]

We have a team of people that go on a yearly mission trip. In order to better track their contributions, each member has a subaccount. It is time to expense those contributions. In the past we have divided up each person's share and expensed their sub account. I.e., 630 airfare, 320 meds, 1100 daily expense, etc. But that has proved time consuming and doesn't give us the best overall expense of the trip details. Is there a better way to expense the subaccounts?

[Matt]

Can you provide some more details on the current procedure that is being used, starting with the tracking of the contributions? Examples of the debit and credit entries that are being done for each step in the process would really help. Also, are there separate equity accounts set up for each sub account?

[DebbieR]

Can you provide some more details on the current procedure that is being used, starting with the tracking of the contributions? Examples of the debit and credit entries that are being done for each step in the process would really help. Also, are there separate equity accounts set up for each sub account?

My account will be the example.

05-1110-511 Main Checking (where checks are written)
05-1230-511 Savings account (where contributions are placed. When money is needed it is moved to the checking account)
05-4100-511 INCOME. Designated.Haiti Trip - Bruce
05-6016-511 EXPENSE. Mission Trips. Haiti Trip-Bruce

When money is turned in it goes into 05-1230-511 as a debit and 05-4100-511 as a credit.
In the past we have then transferred from 05-1230-511 to 05-1110-511
The we divide each expense by the number of people and write a check 05-1110-511 Credit and 05-6016-511 as a debit.
It is these last two steps I am hoping to change.

There are a number of people on any given trip. Some are family so their account is double or triple. And some come up a little short or go a little over which makes the dividing up each subaccount challenging. There are also -000 accounts which are not designated to any person and are recorded similarly.

I hope this answers the question

[Matt]

Thank you Bruce. This helps a lot to better understand the situation. This is a good example of where one has to weigh the benefit of tracking income and expenses at this level of detail vs. the cost in terms of time and complexity. If it is important to track the income, expenses, and cash balance for each individual person for these trips in two different bank accounts in the accounting records then I don't know of any way to do this other than the way you are currently doing it. Streamlining the process will require combining the income, expenses, and cash and posting them to fewer accounts, e.g. only use one bank account instead of two. One alternative you may want to consider is to post the income, expenses, and cash to summary level accounts in Powerchurch and then maintain the breakdown by person on a spreadsheet.