Balance Sheet

[JGraves]

We are Power Church 11.5 users. We are working our way through the Online Training and have just recently begin to use the accounting module. We set it up in July last year but have been using the Contribution side since 2011. Yesterday we took a look at our Balance sheet. The checking accounts balance on it shows a huge negative balance, but everything else balances. We don't know where to begin to fix this. Help please!

[JohnDMeyers]

It's hard to say.

What is your current working month?

To find out, click on Accounting and at the bottom of the menu, it will tell you what the "Working Month" is.

I presume all of your entries have been made in that month.

Run this report:
Accounting / Fund Accounting / Reports / Account Activity
Fund 01 to 01
Major accounts 1110 to 1110
Sub accounts (leave blanks)
Months:
(whatever month you are in) to
(whatever month you are in).

That report will show the
1) beginning balance
2) additions and subtractions
3) ending balance

Let us know what you find for 1), 2)(summarize), and 3)

[Matt]

Have you been doing the bank reconciliation in PowerChurch for the checking account? If not, I would start with doing the bank reconciliations, starting with the one for July of last year when you set up the accounting module. Doing the bank reconciliations will help you identify the cause of the negative balance.

[JGraves]

I look forward to trying out your recommendations. Thank you, I will be in touch regarding the end results.
Thanks again

[JGraves]

John,
You asked us to let you know our findings. Here goes:
Our working month March 2013
We ran the Account activity report and this is what we found
1) beginning balance is -$247,482.49
2) additions and subtractions (debits and credits) $16,227.14
3) ending balance is $25,128.62

[JohnDMeyers]

It looks like you may have made an incorrect entry for the beginning balance.

Normally it is something like this:
DB 01-1110-000 checking $247,482.49
CR 01-3110-000 unrestricted net assets $247,482.49

You may have done this:
CR 01-1110-000 checking $247,482.49
DB 01-3110-000 unrestricted net assets $247,482.49

If that is the case, go to Fund Accounting / View Posted Transactions, locate this transaction, REVERSE it, post it, and make the correct entry.

[JGraves]

I am not sure of how that balance got there, I don't believe it was any transaction done, so there won't be anything to reverse. We only began to look at the accounting side of power church because of a call to tech support back last spring. We were to set up accounting. it was nearly two years after we began to use the software. We set up accounting in the mid 2013. Keyed manually all the prior deposits that had only posted to the contribution module. It was when we set up sub accounts that we were first made aware of the balance sheet. So how will we correct the beginning balance, once zeroed out? Where do we go from here?

[JohnDMeyers]

Without seeing everything, to suggest anything is a shot in the dark.

If you inherited a problem, then my recommendation would be to start over.

Make backups, then use File / Preferences / Accounting Setup / RESTART ACCOUNTING.

You will need your current bank balances, and outstanding checks and deposits.

The way I see it, making any entry to correct things will be just as desperate, and might not catch all the problems.

I did a RESTART ACCOUNTING in 2009, to re-architect our chart-of-accounts, and again in 2010, to correct my mistakes. So, it can be done!

[Matt]

Did you try doing the bank reconciliations?

[JGraves]

we have not done a reconciliation but we will. Thanks!
We do tend to have lots of questions, we are working through the Accounting Video Training Series,

Thank you for you help!

[JGraves]

We did the reconciliation for 2013, it looks weird. We didn't continue but hit postpone because we need over $219,000 to balance. Any suggestions? Something went wrong. Regardless of the bank statement date that we entered, it still is pulling data from as far back as 2012.

[NeilZ]

We did the reconciliation for 2013, it looks weird. We didn't continue but hit postpone because we need over $219,000 to balance. Any suggestions? Something went wrong. Regardless of the bank statement date that we entered, it still is pulling data from as far back as 2012.

Do you have accounting data from 2012 in the system ?? Were you actually USING accounting in 2012?? From your first post, evidently not, but when you started using Accounting, did you start it using the Accounting Setup module, or did someone set up 'something' in 2011, and people have been posting contributions to it since them?

What you may want to do is just use the Remove old data function and delete everything in accounting prior to the date you started using Accounting.

[JGraves]

We have two situations here that we are attempting to correct .......... But first to answer your question, Yes we have some accounting data already in the system. But from the very beginning we just worked in the Contributions and Membership modules. We began using the accounts payable module to track our expenses around mid 2012, posting to fund accounting. We didn't actually setup accounting until last year. But of course by then what was posting to income side didn't sync with what was posted to the contribution side. We were than advised by Tech Support to post 2013 contributions to accounting manually.

The difference between our end of year bank statement, contribution report and the income/expense report is over $20,000.00.
That $20,000 is the amount of the 3 manual deposits that entered twice, plus some entry we have not pinpointed as of yet. Because we need an accurate end of year finance report, we haven't closed 2013.

We were wondering, if we delete old data back to the time we setup accounting (July )would that only leave us with 5 months of data? Wouldn't that just enhance our problems? What if we zeroed out the $20,000 from 2013 and then deleted old data up to January 2014, could that possibly work? And then set our account balances to zero or should we leave them at current balance?