Paying Vendor From a Temp Restricted Account

[mccauleyjean]

I have set up a Temporarily Restricted Account for new Choir Books. I set up an Equity Account 3270-114, an Income Account 4270-114 and Temp Restricted Release Account 4870-114 and an Expense Account 5270-114. I set up several Temporarily Restricted Accounts this same way at the same time. But when I am in the Maintain Manual Checks screen and I click on the box for “Release Restricted Funds” the Choir Books account is not listed there. There is also another Temporarily Restricted Account that does not show up. All the other ones I set up do show up. Yet the missing accounts are listed on my Chart of Accounts and do show up in the Account Activity Report.

What do I do to release these restricted funds since they are not in the drop down box?

[Jeff]

Did you set these accounts up manually, or did you set them up through the maintain donor restrictions assistant?

[mccauleyjean]

The two accounts that don’t show up in the drop down box for “Release Restricted Funds” were set up manually. But a couple of other accounts that do show up in the drop down box were also set up manually. The two that don’t show up were the last two that I set up.

I couldn’t use the Maintain Donor Restrictions Assistant because I already had the Equity Accounts (3200s) and the Income Accounts (4200s) in the system. But I did set up a few other Temp Restricted Accounts when I set up the Chart of Accounts originally using the Accounting Setup Assistant. So I went into the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen to see how those were set up and followed the same pattern.

I set up the Temp Restricted Release Accounts and the Expense Accounts following a posting in response to a question I posted here on the forum back in December:

Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:36 am Post subject: Re: Reconciling Bank Accts & Temp Restricted Accts

Is there a limit on the number of Temporarily Restricted Accounts I can have? If I mark some of the Temporarily Restricted Accounts that I am currently not using as “Inactive” will that help?

P.S. When I originally used the Accounting Setup Assistant to set up Fund Accounting it did not automatically set up Expense Accounts for each Temporarily Restricted Account. But according to the posting on Dec 26 there should be an Expense Account associated with each Temp Restricted Account. Maybe this should be part of the Accounting Setup Assistant?

[Jeff]

Only accounts setup through the Add New Donor Restriction Assistant will show in the Release Restricted funds buttons when entering a transaction.

Even if you manually created the accounts you can still add the donor restriction in Maintain Donor Restrictions. As you go through the assistant, there is a check box that says use existing account. Make sure the checkbox is selected and pick the account you manually added.

Is there a limit on the number of Temporarily Restricted Accounts I can have?

There really is no limit to the number of donor restrictions you could have.

P.S. When I originally used the Accounting Setup Assistant to set up Fund Accounting it did not automatically set up Expense Accounts for each Temporarily Restricted Account. But according to the posting on Dec 26 there should be an Expense Account associated with each Temp Restricted Account.

There doesn't necessarily have to be an expense account for each donor restriction. For example, if someone gave money to make an additional pricipal payment on the mortgage, that would not be a reduction in a liability. Other donor restrictions could be used to purchase an asset. The Add Donor Restriction Assistant gives you an option to create an expense account if you need one, but it is not a required step.

[mccauleyjean]

That worked!! Whew! Thanks