Sub Account Question

[DebbieR]

We do mission trips and I have sub accounts for each person who is part of the team. This example will use my numbers. Currently, when money comes in we enter the debit account 05-1230-512 and the credit account 05-4100-512. Then when we spend, we move out of 05-1230-512 to 05-1230-000 which is a savings account. We then move from 05-1230-000 to 05-1110-000 to spend it (our checking account). My qustion is, can I skip a several steps (or one really) so that when money comes in the debit account is 01-1230-000 and the credit account is 01-4100-512? Will that create issues that I am not seeing?

[NeilZ]

We do mission trips and I have sub accounts for each person who is part of the team. This example will use my numbers. Currently, when money comes in we enter the debit account 05-1230-512 and the credit account 05-4100-512. Then when we spend, we move out of 05-1230-512 to 05-1230-000 which is a savings account. We then move from 05-1230-000 to 05-1110-000 to spend it (our checking account). My qustion is, can I skip a several steps (or one really) so that when money comes in the debit account is 01-1230-000 and the credit account is 01-4100-512? Will that create issues that I am not seeing?

Yes ... as that's a completely different fund account, you'd put both fund accounts out of balance.

If you're paying expenses out of the 01 fund, but tracking expenses in the 05 fund, that puts both funds out of balance. You should always be writing checks for expenses in the fund where the expense is tracked.

I don't understand why you would move funds to a savings account first, unless its going to stay there for a more than a year. Such accounts rarely make more than a few dollars a year, less if the money is in and out within a few months.

I have based my remarks on what you entered originally, if your question should have used 05-1230-000 and 05-4100-512 than there's a different answer.

[DebbieR]

I didn't proof read well. Yes it all stays in 05- fund. The reason we put in a savings account to protect it. At an earlier time dollars were really tight and we wanted to protect the money from being spent accidently. And some is there for a significant time ad people regularly put in money but miss a trip.

[NeilZ]

I didn't proof read well. Yes it all stays in 05- fund. The reason we put in a savings account to protect it. At an earlier time dollars were really tight and we wanted to protect the money from being spent accidently. And some is there for a significant time ad people regularly put in money but miss a trip.

OK ... that makes more sense.

I don't know how many people you're tracking with the subaccounts, however, I would have made all those income accounts temporarily restricted income accounts. Then you could just deposit into the regular checking instead of having to move between asset accounts (savings to checking), which is what I assume you're doing at the bank.

Then when you write a check to cover for a specific person, you would release the funds from the restriction, which would then move funds from a restricted net assets account to the unrestricted net assets account. Thus providing a full audit trail.

However, in your case here, you can deposit directly into the 1230-000 account, but then you loose the ability to track the funds using the Subaccount report. That said, the way you're currently doing things does make it overly complicated, and trying to properly reconcile many different asset accounts must be a nightmare. I'd seriously think about doing the temp restricted accounts.