Reversing income entries from last year

[santoheath]

I have entered income from a fundraiser improperly and need to reverse the transaction. However this was done in the 2012 year. When I go to Accounting - Fund Accounting - View Posted Transactions - all I see is 2013 entries. How do I get to 2012 entries?

[JohnDMeyers]

I never noticed this before, but apparently you can only view the posted transaction in the current period.

That makes sense, because if you closed Dec 2012, you won't be able to post a REVERSE transaction in Dec 2012, anymore, unless you restore a backup from that period. However, you will lose all of your work from that point on.

[santoheath]

Please give me confirmation: will I lose the information from December 31, 2012 going forward to January 2013 or the reverse from December 2012 and back?

[JohnDMeyers]

If you restore a backup from Dec 2012, you will lose any work that you have done from then until now.

The only reason I suggest this action is because I don't know your level of activity. If you only make a dozen transactions a month, then redoing January is a possibility.

We would never do that unless the sky fell in (and it has about three times in the past twenty years). We have 100s of transactions per month.

[Jeff]

By default the view posted transactions shows the current year based on your working month. If you need to see a transaction from the prior year, select the filter button on the bottom left hand corner of the window and adjust which months to display.

[santoheath]

OK, so we have decided that we are going to delete the old data for the 2012 fiscal year. After backing everything up, we deleted everything prior to Janaury 2013, which brought us to a zero balance. Good! Except that now we are trying to re-enter the financials for 2012 and it won't let us post to 2012 because the month has already been closed.
How do we get it to post for 2012 after the month had been previously closed, and we deleted the old data?

[JohnDMeyers]

I don't think you can.

If you really want to, you can start over using the RESET ACCOUNTING. You will lose all of your 2013 entries, however.

[santoheath]

Will I lose the start-up information; such as the opening bank balances and designated funds?

[JohnDMeyers]

With respect to Accounting, it will be very much like reinstalling PowerChurch. You will lose your accounting history information.

[Jeff]

There might be an easier answer to all of this. Back in the original post you asked

I have entered income from a fundraiser improperly and need to reverse the transaction. However this was done in the 2012 year.

What is the last month you have open? Go to Accounting then click on the working month. It will say accounting has been closed through: and give a month.

[santoheath]

I closed December 2012, we are working in January 2013 now.

[santoheath]

If I delete the old data and restart the accounting I know I will lose everything. If at some point we decide that we want to restore old data from a backup, will it bring back everything, including opening balances?

[JohnDMeyers]

When you RESET ACCOUNTING, you lose all the information that you have entered, and all the history.

Restoring a backup brings back all the information you backed up. (I usually choose "All data files" when I do a backup, which restores all the modules).

If you do these things in this order:
1) make a backup
2) RESET ACCOUNTING
3) do some entering of data
4) restore backup

You will lose any data you entered in step 3) when you restore the backup data.

[NeilZ]

This also gives you an idea why its often a good idea NOT to close a month unless needed. You can keep open up to 18 months in Powerchurch. You can adjust this in the Accounting Preferences.

[santoheath]

Our church treasurer wanted to close each month as we completed the month bank reconciliation. I have learned a valuable lesson about why not to close a month, at least until after quarterly reports are done and reviewed by our Stewardship Team. Thanks for all the help and advise