Tracking Fund Balances

by Anne Laechel
(Brainerd, MN)

I'm setting up my Chart of Account in Aplos and have A LOT of restricted funds.

I don't want to set them all up as separate funds, but I'm not sure how I would know the current balance of the fund otherwise.

My current software uses a single account for each fund which records both income and expense.

Would I create a single income account and a single expense account within my new "Restricted Fund" fund, and then redirect my historical data to those accounts and tag each transaction to the appropriate purpose?

I might need to create a new transaction to account for any older transactions we are not importing.

Comments for Tracking Fund Balances

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Tag Balance in Aplos
by: Anne Laechel

I have set up all our designated fund accounts as Tags within a Fund called "Dedicated Funds," with one "Restricted income" and one "Restricted Expense" account. At this point, the only way for me to find out the balance of each Tag is to run a Tag Statement Custom account, with a date range that includes all the data in the database (July 1, 2017-present). Is that the way it is supposed to be or is there another way?
Tracking Restricted and Designated Funds
by: Vickey

Michelle Brown of "The Church Finance Training Network" does an awesome job of explaining the difference between "designated" and "restricted" funds on her FAQ page:

https://www.churchfinances.org/faqs

As far as tracking "restricted" and "designated" funds, there are several options on how to do that effectively, but how you do it depends on your accounting software and what "version" you are using.

You said you were using Aplos. In Aplos, I like to limit the number of "funds" I use. I use Aplos funds for tracking 990 categories for nonprofits, but for my church clients in Aplos, I use the funds to track the ones I want to appear on the Balance Sheet.

Not all "funds" need to show on the Balance Sheet, so I use "tags" to track those ministries, programs, events, etc.

Just keep in mind that you do not want to "double" track "stuff" by setting up income and expense accounts AND fund accounts to track one fund. For example, you would not want to set up an income, expense, and fund account all to track the "Children's Ministry".

If you are using a "fund" titled "Children's Ministry", you can use an income account (Designated Donations) to record donations to the CM and use "normal" expense accounts such as ministry supplies, events, food, etc. and "assign" the CM fund account to "track" the income and expenses and create a report for that fund.

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