Export Accounting Data bug?

[andyi]

I am trying to use the 9.0 "Export Accounting Data" operation to extract account budget and total data. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time matching the numbers exported up with what the built-in reports are telling me.

In particular, I am trying to get beginning fund balance, receipts, disbursements and ending fund balance. Exporting the accounting data appears to show that a particular fund has a "yrstbal" of $10. The receipts are listed as $1000 and no disbursements are shown. My mental math shows the starting balance to be $10 and the ending balance to be $1010.

When I generate a Statement of Activities report, it shows the beginning fund balance to be $27. The Change in Fund Balance is $1000 and the Ending Fund Balance is $1027.

Can you explain why the exported fund data appears to show the beginning balance to be $10 and the report shows it to be $27? I believe I could be missing something since the export file format isn't really described anywhere (that I can find, at least).

Andy

[Jeff]

Equity or Fund Balance accounts totals get changed by income or expense accounts closing to them. Your transactions usually do not directly modify those accounts, but rather the total income and expense is then "closed" to the appropriate equity accounts. The export does not close balances for the period you are exporting. So in your spreadsheet you will have to close the income, expense, and transfer accounts yourself to the right equity accounts.

[andyi]

So (correct me if I'm wrong) you are saying that I apparently have "open" months during the export data report period with transactions that affect these funds. Further, if these months are closed prior to running the export data process, the data would should up in the fund that I expect?

Is there anything in the (export data) fadata file that indicates there are outstanding transactions that affect a particular fund? How would I look at this file and "close" the accounts myself?

Does this also mean that the process of generating the standard Statement of Activities report does this (closing the expense and income accounts when generating fund balances)?

Andy

[Jeff]

So (correct me if I'm wrong) you are saying that I apparently have "open" months during the export data report period with transactions that affect these funds. Further, if these months are closed prior to running the export data process, the data would should up in the fund that I expect?

No you are exporting data for a period, for example March 2006. Closing the month in PC+ does not post the closing entry to equity accounts.

Is there anything in the (export data) fadata file that indicates there are outstanding transactions that affect a particular fund? How would I look at this file and "close" the accounts myself?

There is really no outstanding transactions. This is an accounting concept that 'nominal accounts' (Income, Expense, and Transfer accounts) close to retained earnings (an equity account)

Does this also mean that the process of generating the standard Statement of Activities report does this (closing the expense and income accounts when generating fund balances)?

Depending on the accounting report you run, the report decides if it needs closed or unclosed amounts. For example, when you run the Account Activity Report there is an entry that should look like the following:

Code: Select all

[SYSTEM GENERATED] GE 12/31/2005 December 2005 Total of accounts set to - close to this account           3,000.00

This line shows the 'Net Income' you don't make that transaction and it does not exist in your accounting records, the system creates it when it needs to for reporting purposes.

Other reports like the Trial Balance don't do this because of the nature of the report. Other reports like the changes in equity and fund balance report break this total number down further and give you the figures for income, expense, and transfers.