New Question Bank Account will not reconcile

[ASmith11]

I'm somewhat new to PC+, I started my job in early April. I've got a pretty good handle on it (I think) but have had quite a bit of cleanup work to do. My latest has been trying to reconcile the bank account to PC+, it has not been reconciled since December '08.

I have been trying to reconcile it chronologically from January-April, each month individually and that has not worked. I tried to reconcile it each month individually going backwards from April-January and that did not work. I then tried to reconcile all the months at once, using the most recent statement's ending balance. I got within $70 of balanced and I hit "done" instead of "postpone" which I'm afraid was a big mistake. It shows our balance is way, way in the hole which I know is not the case!

two questions:

1) can I "undo" a reconcile if I haven't closed the month
2) where do I find the opening balance for 2009- the account was perfectly reconciled in December and I can't understand how I could have this huge discrepancy now.

Please tell me I haven't completely messed up the entire system I'm so frustrated and worried!

Thank you,
Angie

[JohnDMeyers]

A couple of things.

If you were within $70 of being reconciled, then hit DONE, and now your balance is really in-the-hole - maybe you really are in-the-hole, and it's a good thing that you discovered it. (seriously!)

You are sure that you are not in-the-hole, probably because you still have a pretty good positive balance on your bank statement. But if you have more than one fund using that bank account, or if you have sub-accounts on that bank account, your reconciliation may be accurate. (let's just leave that out there as a possibility).

If there are no sub-accounts on this bank account, and no other funds sharing this account, then you are correct in saying that something isn't adding up, and you should try to go backwards on your reconciliation.

I am hoping that you have a fairly recent backup of PowerChurch. That is the best way to get out of a BIG mess.

If no recent backup, then, unfortunately, there is no UNDO button.

You can UNDO a reconciliation by selecting Include "All data" and deselecting exactly the items you previously had selected prior to hitting DONE. Without a recent backup, it may come to that. I have done it many times, if that's any help.

It shouldn't be too bad. Put in the date of that last good reconciliation, and the amount that was reconciled. Select to include ALL DATA.

Most of the items in late Jan through April should be easy to identify. Change the Y back to nothing. You will get a warning each time. Click on Yes to accept the change. As you get back into early January, you may have to go slowly. Eventually, you will arrive at zero again. Hit DONE, and you've undone your reconciliation.

[ASmith11]

thanks so much for your reply. you allowed me to breathe again

There are no sub-accounts on that bank account, but all the funds funnel into that bank account. I know "internally" there are corrections to be made, as far as have income & expenses gone into and out of the correct accounts.

One thing I'm unclear on: Does there need to be a starting balance entered for the year? When I use Quicken, there's always a starting balance which matches the previous statement's ending balance. Shouldn't an opening balance be somewhere on PC+?

When I copied the budget over from 2008, should I have entered a starting balance then in acct 01-1110, and would it be the ending/reconciled balance from December?

Thanks again and at least if worst comes to worst I can "undo" it as you've said. I'm pretty sure PC+ gets backed up every night though.

[JohnDMeyers]

When you say "All the funds funnel into that bank account", do you mean there are other two-digit accounting funds, like Fund 02?

If so, it is very possible that Fund 01 is negative, and all the money that appears on your bank statement is the money for Fund 02, 03... etc.

We have a dozen funds. Sometimes Fund 01 has a negative balance, like -$10,000, and fund 03 has a balance of $25,000. In this case, our bank statement shows we have $15,000, but our general fund is way in the red. We've inadvertently borrowed $10,000 from fund 03 to keep fund 01 going. This is the kind of thing that doesn't show up until you reconcile your accounts.

Before you do anything, run a consolidated balance sheet report (fund (blank) through fund (blank), and see what the checking account balance is. This will settle the issue of whether or not you have one fund way negative, and another fund way positive.

Also, Quicken allows you pick a day in the month and see what the balance was on that day. PowerChurch only allows you to see the last balance of the month on a closed month.

To see your Jan 1st balance, run a balance sheet for Dec of the previous year. That is your starting balance (in versions 9 and 10, specifically).

There is no other "opening balance".

If you have a backup from the night before you did the reconciliation, you're in good shape.

[ASmith11]

We do have other two-digit accounting funds- Funds 02, 03, etc. What you said makes a lot of sense. I've got some detective work to do when I get to work this morning.

One more question, if i need to go and restore from Friday's backup (or whenever the backup was last week) how do I do that?

Thx again for all your help. I'm doing two PC+ webinars this week and hoping that will help me too.

[JohnDMeyers]

Before you restore, you may want to do a backup - just in case!

To do a backup, go to Utilities, Backup and Restore Files, Backup Files, and then choose either All data files and pictures or All data files (I find no need to back up the system pictures, and it adds a lot of size to the backup file, so I select the second one down on the list).

Then, direct it to your backup file.

To restore, make sure your backup file or media is in place, and choose Restore Files. If there are more than one backup files in the directory, the latest file date will appear as the top choice.

Note: Once the restore is done, PowerChurch will close automatically. You get used to it after a while, but it should give a warning or something first.

Restart PowerChurch and you're ready to go.

[ASmith11]

So I'll want to choose a Restore date of last Friday, before I did the "Done" reconcile. How will it affect other users of PC+ if I restore it to that date?

I'm full of questions. And you're full of knowledge!

[JohnDMeyers]

You will lose any information typed in after the restore date.

Sometimes, I'm the bearer of not-so-good news, too!

[ASmith11]

Ok... I have gone and "undone" the reconciliation as described in the second post, and it is not getting back to ZERO. Argh. help! What next?

[JohnDMeyers]

I said, in my post, that you would eventually get back to zero. I guess I need to restate that, given your current condition. "You will eventually get back to where you started."

I assumed you started with a reconciliation of zero.

When I get to where you are, I ask myself these questions:
Is there one entry that equals the amount that I am off?
Are there a few entries that add up to the amount that I am off?
Are there a few entries that add up to amount close to a single item on the reconciliation?

The next step is to get it as close to zero as possible, or as close to one participular item as possible.

If you can't get it to zero, you can make an adjustment entry to get it to zero. Depending on how you are structured, you may have to get pre-approval from your board to make the entry, or simply make the entry and report on it to your board at your next meeting. If an item appears in the future that turns out to be the actual reason for the discrepancy, you can reverse the correction entry and enter the real transaction.

I usually use the following for a correction entry (if the dollar amount isn't HUGE)....
If I need to decrease the checking account:
CR checking account "correction entry for reconciliation"
DB misc expense "correction entry for reconciliation"

If I need to increase the checking account:
DB checking "correction entry for reconciliation"
CR misc income "correction entry for reconciliation"

We had a $11.51 error that appeared on our reconciliation for at least a year (always the same amount). Finally, I just went to the board and told them that I was tired of seeing $11.51 on my reports, and they gave me the nod to make an adjustment entry. It happens.

[ASmith11]

she did have it at zero as of 12/31/08 - it was someone else working here then.

I already did get approval to make the adjusting entry- I got as close as $68 or $69.00, but that was when I reconciled all 4 months at once. Hence why I "undid" it.

i think I am making my life more complicated than it needs to be, but- live & learn. I'll keep at it. Thank you!

[ASmith11]

ps. what do you define as a "huge" amount?

[JohnDMeyers]

I guess huge is relative.

Whether or not you're a paid employee, you can figure you're a stereotypical $20/hr employee. If you are tracking down a $20 discrepancy, then it would behove the organization to not have you spend more than one hour tracking it down.

Likewise, it would make sense to spend at least a day tracking down a $200 discrepancy.

If I had spent half-a-day on the $69 discrepancy, I probably would have thrown in the towel.

This is what I consider the nature of non-profit culture. We work off of voluntary dollars, and we have to be considerate of that and make decisions that honor the donors.

In a for-profit situation, I would be more likely to have an employee to track down every last cent.