Contribution posted to an inactive account

[digndoug]

Help! By mistake I posted a contribution to an account that is no longer active. As a result, when I went to post to Fund Accounting, it won't let me post anything at all from the entire group of transactions I am trying to post. Instead, on the "Fund Accounting Posting Report" it says that none of the transactions can be posted because there is an error. The error reads, "Account xxxxx is not active." OK, easy enough, I think. I reverse the posted contribution thinking that will solve the problem. Nope. Instead, the reverse posting created yet another error message while trying to post to Fund Accounting. Ugh! How can I fix this?!

[NeilZ]

Help! By mistake I posted a contribution to an account that is no longer active. As a result, when I went to post to Fund Accounting, it won't let me post anything at all from the entire group of transactions I am trying to post. Instead, on the "Fund Accounting Posting Report" it says that none of the transactions can be posted because there is an error. The error reads, "Account xxxxx is not active." OK, easy enough, I think. I reverse the posted contribution thinking that will solve the problem. Nope. Instead, the reverse posting created yet another error message while trying to post to Fund Accounting. Ugh! How can I fix this?!

The issue is not that the Contributions Transaction is wrong, just that the account is no longer valid. From what I see in your post, nothing posted from Contributions and that all the Contributions are still sitting in Contributions. Everything that follows is based on this assumption; this example is based on v11.1 or 11.5, but v10.4 is similar.

To fix this:

1. Go find the 'reverse' Contribution in the "Modify Unposted Contributions" function and delete it.
2. Open the "Maintain List of Contribution Funds" and find the Contribution Fund that the contribution was assigned to.
3. Click on the 'Accounting' tab of that fund, then click on the Hourglass icon next to the incorrect income account. This will allow you to find the correct account to post the income to.
4. Save this change.
5. Post to Funds Accounting


Again, I'm assuming nothing posted over to Funds Accounting. If this is not correct, let us know.

[digndoug]

Thank you. I should have explained that I did actually post to contributions. As a result, I am unable to use your solution (which would have been great, by the way!).

(P.S. I'm using PowerChurch Plus 11.5)

[NeilZ]

Thank you. I should have explained that I did actually post to contributions. As a result, I am unable to use your solution (which would have been great, by the way!).

(P.S. I'm using PowerChurch Plus 11.5)

OK .. in that case.

1. Delete any extraneous Contribution entries, such as the 'reverse'.
2. Fix the Contribution fund setup so that in the future such a problem will not occur again.
3. Manually create the Contribution Income transactions in Funds Accounting to show the income going to the correct accounts. You can use a previous Contribution Funds Account posting as an example of how to do this.

[digndoug]

Thanks. I'm new to PowerChurch and have been unable to identify how to complete step #1 that you have so kindly provided. I would love to know how to delete such a transaction, as I would have done that earlier rather than create the "reverse" in the first place.

[NeilZ]

Thanks. I'm new to PowerChurch and have been unable to identify how to complete step #1 that you have so kindly provided. I would love to know how to delete such a transaction, as I would have done that earlier rather than create the "reverse" in the first place.

OK ... what I need to know is:

How did you create the 'Reverse' transaction ?? That would give me a baseline to work with. I'm assuming that you went into View Posted Contributions under the Contributions menu. If I'm wrong, please list step by step what you did.

[digndoug]

Here's what I did:

Contributions; View Posted Contributions; then I selected the contribution and clicked "Reverse."

[NeilZ]

Here's what I did:

Contributions; View Posted Contributions; then I selected the contribution and clicked "Reverse."

OK .. then check Modify Unposted Contributions to see if there's anything there. If that 'reversal' is there, then delete it.

If there are any other unposted Contributions there, before you post, make sure you updated that one Contribution Fund with the proper Funds Accounting income account number.

[digndoug]

The contribution and the reversal had already been posted, so they will not show up under "Modify Unposted Contributions." If you don't hear back from me for a while, I'll be leaving for my son's soccer game across state. I'll check back in though from time to time so I don't leave you hangin' and so that I can get this resolved! I really appreciate your help!

[NeilZ]

The contribution and the reversal had already been posted, so they will not show up under "Modify Unposted Contributions." If you don't hear back from me for a while, I'll be leaving for my son's soccer game across state. I'll check back in though from time to time so I don't leave you hangin' and so that I can get this resolved! I really appreciate your help!

OK .. in that case, as long as you corrected the Contribution Fund to point to a correct Income Account in Funds Accounting.

1. You'll need to enter a Contribution for that envelope using the corrected Contribution Fund.
2. Then post to Funds Accounting.

This should update FA properly, and then reflect the contribution for the envelope.

[digndoug]

I guess I didn't explain things very well in my initial question in this forum (it may help to re-read it). The whole trouble is that I cannot post to Funds Accounting because I cannot delete the posts to Contributions. Even though I reversed the post to Contributions, and re-entered the contribution to the corrected account, Funds Accounting gives me an error message, "Account xxxxx is not active." In fact, it gives me two error messages because it is rejecting the reversal as well because it too is using an inactive account. What makes things worse is that I cannot post ANY transactions made on the day that the inactive account was used. They are all held captive to the error (using an account that is no longer active).

[NeilZ]

I guess I didn't explain things very well in my initial question in this forum (it may help to re-read it). The whole trouble is that I cannot post to Funds Accounting because I cannot delete the posts to Contributions. Even though I reversed the post to Contributions, and re-entered the contribution to the corrected account, Funds Accounting gives me an error message, "Account xxxxx is not active." In fact, it gives me two error messages because it is rejecting the reversal as well because it too is using an inactive account. What makes things worse is that I cannot post ANY transactions made on the day that the inactive account was used. They are all held captive to the error (using an account that is no longer active).

OK .. there are two different postings that need to be done:
A) A post of Contributions to update the Contribution Module and to create the Funds Accounting Transaction.
B) A post within Funds Accounting to actually update Accounting with the deposit.

If I'm now reading this right, I now see that this is more an Accounting issue than a Contributions issue. The error you're getting is when you post transactions in Funds Accounting. Is this correct ??

So, let me lay this out:

1. You posted Contributions to Funds Accounting.
2. There are no Contributions sitting in the unposted Contributions queue.
This means that the Contributions Deposit transaction was created and is sitting in the Funds Accounting unposted transaction queue. Again, am I correct so far ???

3. In this case, you need to go into Modify Unposted Transactions in Funds Accounting and update the transaction to point to the correct income (or checking) account.
4. Then you need to update the Contributions Fund under Contributions to use the correct account.

[digndoug]

Hi. You were correct on all accounts. However... I seem to have messed up again.

I went to "Modify Unposted Transactions" and highlighted the specific transaction that had the inactive account number. I then deleted it. In doing so, it wiped out ALL of the other transactions along with it - even though I hadn't highlighted them all!!! Now nothing was posted as income for that day in Fund Accounting. Ugh. In Contributions it shows all of the activity posted for the day but in Fund Accounting there is nothing there for that day and I cannot find a way to retrieve it. Fund Accounting show nothing unposted.

[NeilZ]

Hi. You were correct on all accounts. However... I seem to have messed up again.

I went to "Modify Unposted Transactions" and highlighted the specific transaction that had the inactive account number. I then deleted it. In doing so, it wiped out ALL of the other transactions along with it - even though I hadn't highlighted them all!!! Now nothing was posted as income for that day in Fund Accounting. Ugh. In Contributions it shows all of the activity posted for the day but in Fund Accounting there is nothing there for that day and I cannot find a way to retrieve it. Fund Accounting show nothing unposted.

Um .. when was the last backup ?? FWIW .. my usual rule for the Law of Unintended Consequences, if I'm going to be doing something like a deletion, do a backup first.

That said, you can probably create the Funds Accounting transaction needed from the Contribution Fund report. Just run it for that day, then using a previous Contributions deposit in Funds Accounting as a template, you can create the transaction in Funds Accounting directly.

[NeilZ]

Hi. You were correct on all accounts. However... I seem to have messed up again.

I went to "Modify Unposted Transactions" and highlighted the specific transaction that had the inactive account number. I then deleted it. In doing so, it wiped out ALL of the other transactions along with it - even though I hadn't highlighted them all!!! Now nothing was posted as income for that day in Fund Accounting. Ugh. In Contributions it shows all of the activity posted for the day but in Fund Accounting there is nothing there for that day and I cannot find a way to retrieve it. Fund Accounting show nothing unposted.

OK .. revised post.

Yes, you deleted the transaction and all other stuff is gone. This is because Contributions when posting will create one transaction to cover all the deposit.

What you should do is recreate the Funds Accounting transaction using the Contribution Funds Report for the day in question. Use a previously posted contribution deposit transaction as a template, you should be able to create it properly.