Negative Balance after restarting Fund Accounting

[NeilZ]

Question
I am new to this and I never had the proper training, I am picking up from another persons spot. We started the accounting system over( putting in account balances etc.) My question is when in putting things from the bank statement, am I suppose to in put things from the contribution module? I see where when things were posted in the contribution module they didn't send it to fund accounting.
-also by them not doing so will this make my balances be off?

When you start Accounting, the system will ask you for starting balances, this covers a lot of things, including the checking account. You should be using your checking account statement to fill in this data.

Normally this balance will already include previously deposited Contributions, so if you started using Funds Accounting in March, you should not post Contributions to Funds Accounting from January & February. These should only be posted to the Contributions module so that the donors records are updates to reflect contributions for those months.

Starting in March, however, Contributions should be posted Funds Accounting so that the proper Deposit Transactions are created.

Then when you reconcile with your bank statement, these deposits from March on should already be in the system, and there's no need to add them.

[covered]

Ok I got the part about putting the balance in from the bank statement. I did that. before I go on I am putting everything in from 2013. have not input things for 2014.
if I may explain what I did: I called the phone line and the young lady showed me how to restart accounting. so after restarting accounting I set up the accounts with the beginning balance that was on the bank statement(January 2013). after doing that I put all the deposits and the withdrawals that was listed on the bank statement. when I got to the month February or March 2013 I had a negative balance on my journal report. which I found weird because everything was balancing out. so my question is if the contribution were not sent over to the funding account will this be why my balance is different from what is in the actual account.

[NeilZ]

Ok I got the part about putting the balance in from the bank statement. I did that. before I go on I am putting everything in from 2013. have not input things for 2014.
if I may explain what I did: I called the phone line and the young lady showed me how to restart accounting. so after restarting accounting I set up the accounts with the beginning balance that was on the bank statement(January 2013). after doing that I put all the deposits and the withdrawals that was listed on the bank statement. when I got to the month February or March 2013 I had a negative balance on my journal report. which I found weird because everything was balancing out. so my question is if the contribution were not sent over to the funding account will this be why my balance is different from what is in the actual account.

OK... let me review here:

1. Restarted accounting, used January Statement's beginning balance.
2. Manually created entries for deposits and checks/other withdrawls
3. Reconciled January in Powerchurch, result: balanced.
4. Kept writing checks in February and March, did not see any corresponding deposits from Contributions?
5. Tried to reconcile in February, did not come out properly

If that is all correct, are you sure that someone posted from Contributions to Funds Accounting, or did they only post to Contributions? If someone posted from Contributions, you would find these posted transactions in the View Posted Transactions function of Funds Accounting. The system will create the transactions, and they will have a reference of CONTRIB.

If you're not finding any of these, and you find that Contributions has nothing to post, then logically what is happening is that someone is posting to Contributions only.

In this case you're going to have to manually create the deposit transaction, and you're going to have to run a FUNDS REPORT from the Contribution Report to determine how much was collected for each income account (assuming you have a few different income accounts for stuff like operating, building, and so on).

Then in future you're going to have to make sure that whomever posts Contributions uses the Post to Funds Accounting option when posting.

Just realized that you've been inputting all transactions from 2013. In which case you have no recourse but to manually create Contribution deposit transactions in Funds Accounting, as I'm assuming that any Contributions entered in 2013 have already been posted in some way.

[covered]

Ok if I am understanding you correctly , all I need to do is go to fund accounting - enter transaction - enter contributions, (tithes general offering, building fund etc) and post in the correct month?



I tried the post contributions to fund accounting in the contribution module, but when I posted the only thing showed up in fund accounting was Decembers amounts.

[NeilZ]

Ok if I am understanding you correctly , all I need to do is go to fund accounting - enter transaction - enter contributions, (tithes general offering, building fund etc) and post in the correct month?

I tried the post contributions to fund accounting in the contribution module, but when I posted the only thing showed up in fund accounting was Decembers amounts.

If you're sure there were Contributions entered into the system, then it appears that the other months were not posted to Funds Accounting, but only updated the contributions records/database.

In order to create the deposit transactions you're going to need to know what contributions were given to each Contribution Fund, then figure which Fund Accounting INCOME accounts those funds are to be deposited in.

I'd use the December Deposit transactions as a guide on how to create the manual transactions.

In the future, make sure that whomever Posts Contributions sets the update option to Update Fund Accounting, so this won't happen again.