Another edit posted transaction question

[GFBCUser]

Person bought some vinyl flooring from Menards, which was part of a $402 bill for various items. We wrote a reimbursement check through AP for the full amount and debited the "Property Improvement" fund. The vinyl flooring was returned ($185.43 refund) and the purchaser wrote a check to the church for $185.43 to compensate us for the refund (they had originally charged it on their personal debit card).
For some reason I am at a loss at what to do in this situation. Can you help. Thanks.

[NeilZ]

Person bought some vinyl flooring from Menards, which was part of a $402 bill for various items. We wrote a reimbursement check through AP for the full amount and debited the "Property Improvement" fund. The vinyl flooring was returned ($185.43 refund) and the purchaser wrote a check to the church for $185.43 to compensate us for the refund (they had originally charged it on their personal debit card).
For some reason I am at a loss at what to do in this situation. Can you help. Thanks.

OK ... so now you have a check for $185.43 and no flooring

Here's what I usually do, since this is a reimbursement to the church. As usual, I advise doing a backup using the Powerchurch backup before doing anything so that you can restore back to the starting point if the results don't turn out as expected.

In Fund Accounting do the following (I'm going to assume that the checking account is 1110-000, the expense is 5510-000, and the fund number is PI (property improvement):

Create a transaction with the following lines:

PI-1110-000 Checking DB 185.43 -- this returns the funds to the checking account and the PI fund
PI-5510-000 Expense CR 185.43 -- this negates the original expense showing that the money was not spent.

I would then enter the following in the note block:

Transaction to reimburse the church for materials purchased with check number 2222, then returned to the dealer for refund by Mr. John Smith. Personal Check from Mr. Smith for refund amount deposited on 2017-10-16 and expense account credited to reflect that money was not spent from the budget.

Then I would deposit the check separately (use a separate deposit slip) from the normal Sunday collection.

[GFBCUser]

Thanks so much for the quick and perfect response. I was trying to figure it out going through contributions - but going through Fund Accounting now makes perfect sense. Again - thank you much!!!

[NeilZ]

Thanks so much for the quick and perfect response. I was trying to figure it out going through contributions - but going through Fund Accounting now makes perfect sense. Again - thank you much!!!

Yes, this is a refund of money that was originally classified as INCOME, so you need to return it to the checking and remove the expense. Going through Contributions, even with a Contribution Fund setup to debit an expense, and credit the checking tends to make more problems that make it easier. At least I've found it so.

Usually the expense account you have setup in that contribution fund is often never the one you're trying to remove the expense from.