Changes in Equity Report

[SMSMART]

We have just recently started using the changes in equity report. We print this at the end of the month so our individual groups within the church can see their income and expense during the month. The first month I printed it - the report showed beginning balance, income, expenses, and ending balance. This last month an extra column appeared that shows "direct transactions". I do not understand why something would appear in this column when the accounts involved seemed to be set up exactly like others accounts whose income shows in the income column. Can anyone help me....? Thanks!

[NeilZ]

We have just recently started using the changes in equity report. We print this at the end of the month so our individual groups within the church can see their income and expense during the month. The first month I printed it - the report showed beginning balance, income, expenses, and ending balance. This last month an extra column appeared that shows "direct transactions". I do not understand why something would appear in this column when the accounts involved seemed to be set up exactly like others accounts whose income shows in the income column. Can anyone help me....? Thanks!

Did you enter any transactions directly against the equity account ?? If so, this is what is reflected in that column.

FWIW ... what we do is use the Income/Expense report, and segregate it by account numbers. Each ministry has its own range, and we then create the report, save the report for later use, and print this out to give to the ministry heads.

You can have columns for last month's inc/exp, Year to Date, Budgeted amounts, etc. Or you can show the month & ytd, and add last year's numbers in a column so they can compare.

[SMSMART]

Thanks for the reply. I did not realize it at the time if I did enter something directly into the fund balance! What I am concerned about is why some things are appearing as direct transactions and should they....? I have printed an account close to report and also fund descriptions that shows what account is debited and what account is credited to make sure the accounts are set up properly. I was not handling the accounting when PowerChurch was originally set up and want to be sure funds that I have set up are working correctly. I have tracked down some items that show up as direct transactions that were refunds and I believe that this is correct(?) There are other items that I know were income and yet are showing up in the direct transaction column and not as income. I am still looking at the two reports that I printed in an attempt to see something that explains this.

[JohnDMeyers]

When you directly transact an equity account, your transaction will only appear on the Balance Sheet.

By using Income and Expense accounts that close-to an equity account, the transaction appears partly on the Balance Sheet,and partly on the Income-and-Expense Statement for the duration of that year.

At the end of the year, the accounts on the Income and Expense Statement close-to equity, and they end up entirely on the Balance Sheet, anyway.

So, if you can follow this reasoning, the only thing you lose out on is information in the current year. After the current year ends, it doesn't matter if you transacted Income and Expense accounts, or if you directly transacted the equity account.

If you can find all the transactions that directly transact equity, and change them to transact an Income or Expense account, you should be all set at the end of this year to begin doing things correctly next year.

Then, you can decide if it is worth it to move things around in the middle of this year or not.