New Fund Beginning Balance

[sinkingspringpres]

Hey all -

Is there any way to set up a beginning balance for a new (2nd) fund (not the general fund)? I have searched and searched the forum and can't find the answer. I have found a few that have asked and been told not to use a separate fund. Then I have found several instances of directing folks to use transfer accounts, which was something I had already tried. I am hoping to avoid this because I don't want to see all the transfer activity at the bottom of the Income/Expense sheet. It just looks messy.

When I run the "Accounting Fund Balances" report there is a column for beginning balance. There is an amount there for Fund 01. But no matter what I do I cannot get an amount there for Fund 10 (our 2nd fund I am trying to set up). I have moved funds using transfer accounts and it shows up under the transfer column. I have reversed that and then done it by creating an income called "opening balance" and that show up under income. I have reversed that and done it by crediting the "Unrestricted Net Assets" directly and that shows up under "Direct Transactions". All three give me the correct ending balance. But is there no way to get the amount to show up under "Beginning Balance"?

Thanks for the help.

Tim

[Zorak]

Beginning balances in new accounts are added by entering a transaction in Fund Accounting > Enter Transactions.

Asset and Liability balances are offset against the Equity (AKA Fund Balance, Net Assets) accounts.

The following would add $100 into the checking and equity accounts in the new fund, keeping it balanced and reporting properly.

Code: Select all

10-1110-000 Checking (Debit) $100.00
10-3110-000 Unrestricted Equity (Credit) $100.00

"Beginning Balance" on reports like Accounting Fund Balances, Account Activity, etc. indicates the ending balance of the prior month to the start of the report. Meaning, an August 2019 report will show the July 2019 ending balance as the "beginning balance" for the period.

Using that previous example, the beginning balance would still show $0 on an August 2019 report, until next month when you run the September 2019 report, it would be reported as $100 (or the actual August 2019 month end balance).

[sinkingspringpres]

Thanks! That's the transaction entry that made the most sense to me of the 3 I tried. Since it was a new fund I just thought maybe there was a place to enter the starting balance like I did when I originally set up the General Fund, but couldn't find it. Glad to know I'm not crazy. Thanks for the feedback!

Tim

[sinkingspringpres]

Sorry - I read through that quickly. That's not the only transaction, though - right? If the new fund shares the checking account with the general fund, I can't just enter the debit into the checking in the new fund without bringing it in from the general fund, can I? I would have to do it in 4 steps, no?

01-1120-000 Checking (credit) $100.00
01-3110-000 Unrestricted Equity (debit) $100.00
10-1120-000 Checking (debit) $100.00
10-3110-000 Unrestricted Equity (credit) $100

Am I missing something?

Sorry to be a pain...

Tim

[NeilZ]

Thanks! That's the transaction entry that made the most sense to me of the 3 I tried. Since it was a new fund I just thought maybe there was a place to enter the starting balance like I did when I originally set up the General Fund, but couldn't find it. Glad to know I'm not crazy. Thanks for the feedback!

Tim

The initial setup does a lot of things for you, however, once Accounting is setup, adding balances like this is a manual entry.

[NeilZ]

Sorry - I read through that quickly. That's not the only transaction, though - right? If the new fund shares the checking account with the general fund, I can't just enter the debit into the checking in the new fund without bringing it in from the general fund, can I? I would have to do it in 4 steps, no?

01-1120-000 Checking (credit) $100.00
01-3110-000 Unrestricted Equity (debit) $100.00
10-1120-000 Checking (debit) $100.00
10-3110-000 Unrestricted Equity (credit) $100

Am I missing something?

Sorry to be a pain...

Tim

OK .. your initial post left out that you're transferring funds from the Operations fund to the new accounting fund.


Do a backup of Accounting and enter the following transaction, you should have the transfer accounts setup. If not, go into the User Manual and setup using the instructions under 'Simple Transfer" .. you won't need much more than that.

01-1110-000 Checking Account 750.00 CR
01-9100-000 Transfer to Other Funds 750.00 DB
02-1110-000 Checking Account 750.00 DB
02-9200-000 Transfer from Other Funds 750.00 CR

When you post this transaction, the system 'should' update the Unrestricted Net Assets in Operations as well as the new Accounting Fund. If it doesn't look right, restore the backup. Let us know either way.

[sinkingspringpres]

Thanks. That was the first thing that I tried. It worked well for getting the balance of the fund correct, it just looked messy on the Income and Expense Statement because of the transfer that shows up at the end. That's what led me to this forum - I was trying to see if there was a way to do it without using the 9000's.

Appreciate the help!

[NeilZ]

Thanks. That was the first thing that I tried. It worked well for getting the balance of the fund correct, it just looked messy on the Income and Expense Statement because of the transfer that shows up at the end. That's what led me to this forum - I was trying to see if there was a way to do it without using the 9000's.

Appreciate the help!

Since you're moving funds from another fund, you really want the audit trail to show where the money went in the Operations Fund