Using Previous Year excess as Budgeted Income this year

[garygaryj]

Scenario:
$10,000. income over expense from end-of-year 2011, still in Fund 01.
Desire to use that as Income for 2012, so it shows up in the Income/Expense report, as we have increased a staff position from part-time to full-time. Budget for 2012 has an income line of $10,000. coming from Reserves.

a. Can we and should we do that?
b. How do we do that without it appearing as double-income?
c. For instance, if we currently need $5,000. of that amount at end of 2Q, what would the accounting lines look like?

- Gary J.

[JohnDMeyers]

If it was income-over-expense at the end of 2011, it would go into net assets when you closed your last month (December, presumably), and it would also be in your checking account.

What we do is create a sub-account under checking to earmark the money. This is what we do:
CR 01-1110-000 checking $5000.
DB 01-1110-001 checking reserve $5000.

You could also put a restriction on it. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7609

[garygaryj]

Thanks, John.

So - to further clarify, having set-up a sub-account like that, what would you then do when you want to represent that reserved money as Income vs. the Budgeted income from Reserves for the current year?

Thanks again.

[JohnDMeyers]

Usually, our bookkeeper writes all of our checks, and I take care of moving money between accounts.

So the bookkeeper does this:
CR 01-1110-000 checking $500
DB 01-5180-000 expense $500

And I make this entry after the fact, with a description of something like "transfer for reserve purpose:
CR 01-1110-001 checking reserve $500
DB 01-1110-000 checking $500


You could simply write the check using the sub-account instead of the main account and save one step, like this:
CR 01-1110-001 checking reserve $500
DB 01-5180-000 expense $500