Year end transfer transactions

[UUUSOffice]

Hello. I have some oddball balances in our passthrough funds for committees that the treasurer and I want to zero out.

Facilities Fund Balance: ($34)

I have transfer accounts set up between Fund 01-Operating and Fund 02-Designated/Passthrough.

Here's what I would like to do:

Fund 01-Operating:
DB Transfer OUT from 01 to 02
CR Bank Cash Fund 01

Fund 02-Designated
DB Bank Cash Fund 02
CR Transfer IN from 01 to 02

But this, so far, doesn't zero out that facilities account!
So does this make sense as a third set of entries?
DB ??? Use the same "transfer IN" account I used above, which would show the source of funds for this credit entry below?
CR Facilities Expense (to lower the expenses, rather than show income) This zeroes out the account

What am I missing? Thank you so much in advance!
-- Sandy

[NeilZ]

Hello. I have some oddball balances in our passthrough funds for committees that the treasurer and I want to zero out.

Facilities Fund Balance: ($34)

I have transfer accounts set up between Fund 01-Operating and Fund 02-Designated/Passthrough.

Here's what I would like to do:

Fund 01-Operating:
DB Transfer OUT from 01 to 02
CR Bank Cash Fund 01

Fund 02-Designated
DB Bank Cash Fund 02
CR Transfer IN from 01 to 02

But this, so far, doesn't zero out that facilities account!
So does this make sense as a third set of entries?
DB ??? Use the same "transfer IN" account I used above, which would show the source of funds for this credit entry below?
CR Facilities Expense (to lower the expenses, rather than show income) This zeroes out the account

What am I missing? Thank you so much in advance!
-- Sandy

I'm assuming that the 'bank' fund is a checking account that's shared between the two Accounting Funds?
I'm also going to assume that you've backed up the accounting files using the Powerchurch backup utiity, right?

Have you tried this:

01-1110-000 DB 34.00
02-1110-000 CR 34.00

This should move the funds. When posted it should also update the unrestricted net assets. However, the original transfer transaction should have done that too, that's assuming that there are NO donor restricted income accounts setup in that 02 fund.

Its hard to give more advice than this not knowing how the fund was setup.

In future, you may want to create a set of liability accounts in Fund 01 for all your pass-through funds instead of a separate accounting fund.

[UUUSOffice]

Several aspects to this so I am going to have to finish answering tomorrow. But I thank you so much for your understanding of what I'm trying to ask!

My first question is, wouldn't a transaction with a debit in fund 01 and a credit in fund 02 leave both funds out of balance?

Also, I can see in the inactive funds in the chart of accounts that there are old liability accounts for these pass through items. It is my suspicion that at some point someone told the person doing the books that they should put these things in a separate fund, because I can't imagine how they would have thought of it themselves. Are there some Powerchurch consultants who would advise such a thing? I would like to go back to one fund and use the liability method. It really seems unnecessary to have these two funds (plus a separate fund for Capital and a separate fund for endowment). Wonder what would be a reason not to consolidate 1 and 2.

More later. Thank you so much!

[NeilZ]

Several aspects to this so I am going to have to finish answering tomorrow. But I thank you so much for your understanding of what I'm trying to ask!

My first question is, wouldn't a transaction with a debit in fund 01 and a credit in fund 02 leave both funds out of balance?

I'm glad you caught that. It would, I usually test everything but I was away from my normal computer and was trying to answer from memory, which is not a good thing. You also need to move funds from the Unrestricted Fund Balance in 02 and move that to 01.

So the entire procedure would be:

02-1110-000 CR 34.00
01-1110-000 DB 34.00
02-3110-000 DB 34.00
01-3110-000 CR 34.00

This balances both funds, and will probably clear out what remains in the fund balance. If not, there are other issues at work. Always include as much explanation of what you're doing in the note section of the transaction. And always backup before you try anything.

Also, I can see in the inactive funds in the chart of accounts that there are old liability accounts for these pass through items. It is my suspicion that at some point someone told the person doing the books that they should put these things in a separate fund, because I can't imagine how they would have thought of it themselves. Are there some Powerchurch consultants who would advise such a thing? I would like to go back to one fund and use the liability method. It really seems unnecessary to have these two funds (plus a separate fund for Capital and a separate fund for endowment). Wonder what would be a reason not to consolidate 1 and 2.

More later. Thank you so much!

Evidently someone wanted to see the Income and Expense of these 'pass through' items. Why, I cannot figure out because the funds that are collected in these are basically liabilities to the church, they are not church income the are just collected to 'pass through' another organization. Liability accounts never show up as income or expense, you can see how much is in a liability account using the Cash Management Report however.

I really cannot imaging a Powerchurch consultant recommending a separate Accounting Fund for pass throughs.