Help with an Explanation

[TMeadows]

Hi,

I am the bookkeeper at a smaller church and we just switched from doing everything in manual ledgers to PowerChurch. I am in the process of introducing the financial reports from PowerChurch to the congregation. I have run across a question and I am hoping you can help me with an explanation to help our church members understand. This is in reference to the formatting of the income and expense reports specifically the Annual Budget Difference column. The question is why does the remaining annual budget balance show up as a negative number. For example for Missions we have an annual budget of 13,670.78 our year to date disbursements are $5,214.76 which leaves the remaining annual budget of $8,456.02 - this number ($8,456.02) shows as a negative. Can anyone help me formulate an explanation that is easily understandable to the congregation? I hope I gave enough information for my question to be clear. Please let me know if you need any further clarification. Thanks in advance for your help!

[NeilZ]

Hi,

I am the bookkeeper at a smaller church and we just switched from doing everything in manual ledgers to PowerChurch. I am in the process of introducing the financial reports from PowerChurch to the congregation. I have run across a question and I am hoping you can help me with an explanation to help our church members understand. This is in reference to the formatting of the income and expense reports specifically the Annual Budget Difference column. The question is why does the remaining annual budget balance show up as a negative number. For example for Missions we have an annual budget of 13,670.78 our year to date disbursements are $5,214.76 which leaves the remaining annual budget of $8,456.02 - this number ($8,456.02) shows as a negative. Can anyone help me formulate an explanation that is easily understandable to the congregation? I hope I gave enough information for my question to be clear. Please let me know if you need any further clarification. Thanks in advance for your help!

Are you running the report for the full year (Jan to Dec) or only part-year (Jan to May) ??

The reason I ask is that the question came up last week, and in this thread, look for what John Meyers says about this report:

https://www.powerchurch.com/forum/viewt ... =3&t=10363

[TMeadows]

The report itself is actually for the current month we are looking at (which is May), but it includes the columns "Current Period", "Year to Date Actual", "Year to Date Budget", "Annual Budget", and "Annual Budget Difference". I don't want to set the report to January to May because the main purpose of the report is to look at income and disbursements for the current month. Also, I ran the report using January to current and also January to December and it still shows the remaining budget balance as a negative.

I know that I can export it and change it manually to show them as positives, it just seemed like it'd be easier to just explain to them (if possible) how the system works and why it is calculated that way instead of having to change it manually every month. Maybe not?

[NeilZ]

The report itself is actually for the current month we are looking at (which is May), but it includes the columns "Current Period", "Year to Date Actual", "Year to Date Budget", "Annual Budget", and "Annual Budget Difference". I don't want to set the report to January to May because the main purpose of the report is to look at income and disbursements for the current month. Also, I ran the report using January to current and also January to December and it still shows the remaining budget balance as a negative.

I know that I can export it and change it manually to show them as positives, it just seemed like it'd be easier to just explain to them (if possible) how the system works and why it is calculated that way instead of having to change it manually every month. Maybe not?

Explain it to them this way:

Have they ever gotten a credit card bill, where they overpaid the balance?? In many cases the credit card statement will show a negative amount. Same here ... its money that is put against the 'bill' so to speak, but its over and above what the expenses are to date.

[TMeadows]

Thank you! I think this will work.