User Support Forum

Is it necessary to go through the release restricted funds to pay a portion of a bill or can I do a direct transition? I am the only one who uses the program and we only have one bank account.
Here is what my transaction looked like to pay a credit card with a manual check:
1110-000 bank account...................................579.64
5003-304 maintenance.........................295.29
5004-401 educa mat..............................10.22

Then I released restricted funds to pay the rest and this is what showed up...

4925-105 bene.. release...............274.13
4999-000 release... release.........................274.13

but this leaves the transaction unbalanced. What should go next or do I just do it as a direct transaction from the equity account?

Your transaction must balance before you do the release. The release part of the transaction just tells the system that you used restricted money for a part or all the transaction.

In your example you credit the bank for 579.64. You should have an equal amount of debits for what you spent the money for. Then you would apply the release for the part of the 579.64 that was restricted amounts.

Put another way. The release part doesn't say what you spent the restricted money, just that restricted money was used in the transaction. You have to look at the rest of the transaction to determine what the restricted money was used for.

Thank you for your help. I want to pay the 274.13 out of what our church has called "designated funds". I set up the chart of accounts with this as permanently restricted because once the money is designated for that purpose it can only be used for that purpose. Maybe, I should have set it up different. When I look at my chart of accounts, I have a benevolence equity account and 2 income accounts. I attempted to pay the 274.13 out of the equity then do the release for the same amount. The transaction balances but now it shows the 274.13 taken twice out of the equity account for benevolence, once as a release and once as a direct transaction.

The equity account keeps track of the balance. Because the release accounts close to that equity account, when you do the release transaction they will change the balance in the equity account. You most likely need an expense account to track what you are spending the money on.

A normal transaction when you use restricted money should look like:

Credit bank for total amount
Debit (expense/liability/asset) accounts for total amount
Debit restriction release for amount of restricted money used
Credit unrestricted release for amount of restricted money used

Note: the total debits & credits will be more than the amount the check was written for.

You record the accounting transaction first as if you did not use donor restricted money, then you add the release entry to tell the system that part or all of transaction used restricted money. You can actually record these a two separate transactions, but it is usually easier to record it as one.

Keep in mind equity accounts track balances not what you spent the money on. It should be a rare transaction that you need to directly post an amount to an equity account.

You might want to read the accounting for contributions paper that can be found on your version 10 cd, or online at http://www.powerchurch.com/support/answ ... icle_id=58