Closing Books

Giving has been down this year for our church and expenses are up, it is looking more and more like we will be over budget at the end of the year.

Since I have been here, we have always come in under budget and we move the excess money or spend the excess money and have a zero balance before closing the books.

What happens when we have a negative balance, do i still just run the year end closing procedures which zeroes out all the accounts?

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Comments for Closing Books

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Closing the Books a Necessity?
by: Anonymous

Is it a requirement to close the books? I use Quicken (along with BillPay and the automatic download from the bank) and it would be far easier to simply make a year-end backup and leave the books alone.

QuickBooks says that they give an option to either close the books or not to close the books? As long as all designated contributions are paid, etc., what is the advantage of closing the books? Is it required?
Closing at Year End
by: Marcus in Texas

Our church has the same situation and, yes, we will run the year end closing as we have in the past. I use QuickBooks for our church accounting and the system will automatically close all "actual" income and expenses to the retained earnings account which I am currently predicting will drop by about $12,000 which is my estimate of actual budgeted expenses over actual income from regular offerings. Hoping that 2011 will see this trend reversed. Thank the Good Lord for reserves from prior years' operations.

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