Making a Restricted Equity Account Unrestricted

[jkgerst]

I am coming in as Treasurer for a church with an existing PowerChurch set-up, and the Chart of Accounts/Balance Sheet needs some work. (As an example, our Endowment Fund was shown only as an Asset group, so there were no Donor Restrictions in place and the funds were included in our Unrestricted Net Assets.)

I am making good progress overall but want to check in on one problem. We have two equity accounts that were incorrectly classified as Donor Restricted (and set up with corresponding Release Accounts).

If I change one of these accounts to be an Unrestricted Equity Account, the balance is incorrect when I run historical Changes in Equity and Balance Sheet reports (by the Release amounts, accumulating over time).

What is the correct way to make these changes? For obvious reasons, I don't want to mess around with this.

Thanks!
Julie

[NeilZ]

I am coming in as Treasurer for a church with an existing PowerChurch set-up, and the Chart of Accounts/Balance Sheet needs some work. (As an example, our Endowment Fund was shown only as an Asset group, so there were no Donor Restrictions in place and the funds were included in our Unrestricted Net Assets.)

I am making good progress overall but want to check in on one problem. We have two equity accounts that were incorrectly classified as Donor Restricted (and set up with corresponding Release Accounts).

If I change one of these accounts to be an Unrestricted Equity Account, the balance is incorrect when I run historical Changes in Equity and Balance Sheet reports (by the Release amounts, accumulating over time).

What is the correct way to make these changes? For obvious reasons, I don't want to mess around with this.

Thanks!
Julie

What I would do is this:
1. Make a Powerchurch Backup of the Accounting Files.
2. Create a new unrestricted fund balance (equity) account, then move the funds from the old restricted account to the new unrestricted account by creating the transaction in Funds Accounting. Post that transaction, run the report.
3. If it works (and I think it should) the balance sheet should be correct
4. If not, just restore the backup made in item 1, and let us know exactly what you saw.

[jkgerst]

Thanks for your help! Since I had another question, I contacted PowerChurch support and we got everything figured out. (Based on their advice, I ended up leaving the accounts as Restricted, even though they are not Donor Restricted.)