User Support Forum

Have used PowerChurch for a year so still learning. We have a special group that we want to track monies in/out a their account as opposed to entering it in the expense account. Understand the pros and cons from reading the past postings of doing it this way. There is only one bank account for all income. An Income account is set up in COA with corresponding expense account separate from the budgeted account. Will someone give me a behind the scenes view of what happens during transactions affecting these accounts. I understand how the money is deposited/debited to bank account and credited to special income fund and I understand how a check is written crediting bank account and debiting the special expense account. The rest is what I don't understand. When/how is the money deducted from the special income account to reflect the check written; and when will the current correct amount be shown to reflect what the check was written for. Am I supposed to link the income and expense account some way.

bjsbrown65 wrote:Have used PowerChurch for a year so still learning. We have a special group that we want to track monies in/out a their account as opposed to entering it in the expense account. Understand the pros and cons from reading the past postings of doing it this way. There is only one bank account for all income. An Income account is set up in COA with corresponding expense account separate from the budgeted account. Will someone give me a behind the scenes view of what happens during transactions affecting these accounts. I understand how the money is deposited/debited to bank account and credited to special income fund and I understand how a check is written crediting bank account and debiting the special expense account. The rest is what I don't understand. When/how is the money deducted from the special income account to reflect the check written; and when will the current correct amount be shown to reflect what the check was written for. Am I supposed to link the income and expense account some way.

It sounds like this special income account should have been setup as a Temporarily Restricted Account as these funds are only to be used for this one activity, and as such, should be kept outside the standard tithes/offerings income.

In this way, when you write a check to use for this activity, you have to release the funds from the Temporarily Restricted Income Account.

Not exactly sure what you mean by when will the current correct amount be shown to reflect what the check was written for. When you write the check in Accounts Payable, you click the Release Restricted Funds button, enter the amount being released, along with some audit data for why you're releasing funds. This adds two lines to the check transactions, one to debit the restricted income account, and one to credit the release account (or vice versa - I'm not at my normal computer to verify, ).

This transaction, when sent over to Funds Accounting, will move the money from restriction, and reflect that amount in the Income/Expense reports.

Does that help ??

It's not a contribution; it' s for our women's group to show income from the many ways they put money into their account. Didn't want mixed up with budgeted account. It won't be included in regular tithes or offerings or any other contribution.

bjsbrown65 wrote:It's not a contribution; it' s for our women's group to show income from the many ways they put money into their account. Didn't want mixed up with budgeted account. It won't be included in regular tithes or offerings or any other contribution.

Still, its income of some type, its all going into the one checking account used for operations, etc, right ??

If so, then it should be setup as I recommended above. Setting up the restricted account will allow you to also create a separate equity account where this will the close to, so it wouldn't show up in the general equity account.