Cash Management Report

[dennisestoll]

Which accounts are normally a part of the cash management report?

I have several equity accounts so I can track designated offerings, such as missions, and deacon's fund. The equity accounts will display the amount of money currently available in the account. Do I understand this correctly?

I have add all of my equity accounts to the cash management report. Is this a best practice? I have also added the unrestricted net assets on this report.

[Jeff]

The idea behind the cash management report is not all money currently in your checking account can be spent. Some boards see $10,000 is sitting in the checking account and think they can spend all of it. That is why we developed this is report, so you can show them how much of that $10,000 has already been spoken for.

Money in your checking account may be:

• Reserved to pay bills (payroll taxes withheld from paychecks)
• Restricted for use by the donor (Donor Restriction)
• May be for another non-profit organization (Pass through Contribution)

You should check the include in cash management report option for the following types of accounts:

• Any bank account that you use to pay bills from.
• Any liability account that you need to pay from funds in those bank accounts.
• Any equity accounts that you would need to pay from fund in those bank accounts as well.

Bank accounts
This will normally be your main checking account. If you have a money market account, that you move money in and out of to cover bills you might wish to include it as well.

Liability Accounts
Accounts like payroll tax withholdings or other liabilities that will have to be paid soon. You would not check liability accounts like you building mortgage, because that is paid off in a longer period of time. Typically these liability amounts would be paid very soon like within the next 30-90 days.

Equity Accounts:
Typically donor restricted accounts, but might not include all donor restricted accounts. Long term donor restrictions like a building fund usually would not be included. General rule if the money to pay that donor restriction is in the checking account, then it should be included. If the money for that donor restriction is in an investment account, then it probably wouldn't be included.

[JohnDMeyers]

I have played around with the cash management report to see if I could get it to be a "cash flow" report, otherwise called "sources and uses of cash".

I couldn't get it to do what I wanted, but here's how I describe this report:

With the assets and liabilities selected, it becomes a "net worth" statement.

With the assets and liabilities deselected it tells you how much free cash you have on hand after meeting all your obligations and honoring all your restrictions.

You can leave your assets and liabilities selected in the chart of accounts and choose whether or not to include them when you run the report.

[Eden Whitehead]

Jeff,

What a terrific explanation / summary! Thank you so much!!!!

Eden

[tborgal]

Maybe I am missing something here but I see no way to exclude assets and liabilities from the report when you run it.

Also what exactly is the priorities for the order in which the accounts are displayed in the report? When I run the report the accounts seem to have no logical order in which they are displayed. The Account numbers are in order but the Fund numbers are all over the place. The order they display in my report is as follows top to bottom: 10,12,13,09,02,08,14,03,01,07,04. I did a little checking and found the order to have been different in V9, but still not sequential. Version 11 displays the same as Version 10.4. Has it got something to do with the way the accounts are set up?

[Zorak]

Maybe I am missing something here but I see no way to exclude assets and liabilities from the report when you run it.

Each account in the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen has an "Include in Cash Management Report" check box option. If you don't want a specific asset/liability account to be included in the Cash Management Report, uncheck the box on that particular account.

[tborgal]

You can leave your assets and liabilities selected in the chart of accounts and choose whether or not to include them when you run the report.

I was referring to the above quote from John when questioning the exclusion of accounts.

[Zorak]

Sorry, I misunderstood.

You are right, Tom, there is not a way to exclude the accounts other than unchecking the box on the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen.

[tborgal]

Zorak,

Any ideas on why my report comes out in the order I listed in my original post?

[Zorak]

This seems to be a bug.

I have written it up for versions 9, 10, and 11.

[JohnDMeyers]

You can leave your assets and liabilities selected in the chart of accounts and choose whether or not to include them when you run the report.

Yeah, sorry about that. Shows you how much dust collects on my long term memory. It's been awhile since I used this report.

I see that you can include or exclude Accounts Payable open items. Must be that's what I was thinking of.

That means you have to go through the Chart of Accounts to turn off assets and liabilities after all.