Missing Accounts After Converting?

Back in 2004, PowerChurch Plus Version 9 changed how accounts are defined. As a side effect of this change, it may appear that accounts have disappeared after converting accounting data from Versions 8.5 and prior of PowerChurch Plus. But don't worry, the information is still there, it's just been renamed.

Why the account gets renamed

Let's say that you have two different funds in an old version of PowerChurch Plus, 01 General Fund and 02 Building Fund. In the General Fund, let's say you have an expense account 01-5105-000 for Electricity, and in the Building Fund you have an expense account 02-5105-000 for Building Maintenance. Notice that the account numbers are the same for both, except for the first two digits and the description.

When you upgrade that data to Versions 9 or higher, in the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen you would only see account number 5105-000 listed once and it would be assigned to both the 01 Fund and the 02 Fund. The name on the account will be Electricity (since that is the lowest fund it is assigned to), so it will appear that your Building Maintenance account is gone. It's still there, it's just been renamed.

This will happen because in PowerChurch if you have the same major account number (the middle 4-digits of the account number), regardless of the fund number, PowerChurch sees it as the same account spread across multiple funds. This is why, in your previous version of PowerChurch if you ran a consolidated report, the accounts with the same major account number would consolidate together. (So really, they should have had different account numbers to begin with, since they were representing two different types of expenses.) This was a source of confusion for some users so it is being handled differently in Versions 9 and higher. If this does happen, and PowerChurch renames the account, it will automatically put a note on the account record with the account number and the name of the account or accounts that have been renamed.

How to recover the account

So now that you know why it happened, let's look at how to fix it. You will need to create a new expense account in the 02 Building Fund for Building Maintenance, but it will need a new number (something other than 02-5105-000). Then you would need to move the account in the 02 fund that got renamed as Electricity to the newly created Building Maintenance account. This can all be done using the Move Account feature in PowerChurch. Before moving and creating accounts, it's always a good idea to make a backup.

To create a new account and move the existing one into it:

1. From the Accounting menu choose Fund Accounting, then select Maintain Chart of Accounts.
2. Find the account number you want to move.
   To see a list of accounts to choose from, click on the Locate button. For the example above, you would find the 5105-000 account.
3. Select the fund for the account you want to move.
   Here, select the Building Fund since the Building Maintenance account is the one that needs to be moved. Notice that the account or accounts that have been renamed are listed in the Notes section at the bottom of the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen.
   
4. Click on the Details button beside the Fund Name.
   When you click on Details you will see the Account Detail window. In this example, you would click the Details button next to the 02 Building Fund.
   
5. Click on Move Account.
   The Move Account window will now show.
   
6. Uncheck the Use existing account check box.
   Since you want to create a new account for the Building Maintenance account in the 02 Fund, you would not need to use an existing account.
7. Type in the New Account Number, Description and Level and click Next.
   Be sure that you choose an account number that is not already being used.
8. Confirm the move and click Finish.
9. Click Done and Close to exit.

You will want to repeat this process for any accounts that have been merged and renamed during the conversion process.