Hello Chris, If you are taking over from someone else's accounting work in the church it would be better if you get a trial balance from them and set up a new file in Gnucash following the structure they had set up previously. If you need an Opening balance when you are creating the accounts there is a tab where you can enter details about those opening balances [image: image.png] If you do not have a trial balance and only information about the items you talked about in your email, first you need to create a Chart of Accounts somehow and create some kind of simple Trial Balance that you can enter into the program. Lets just say that you have a regular account, a building society account for the building, there is still some money owed by people or donors for this year's building contribution and you know the balance that should be in that building fund, the trial balance should look something like this (this is a very simplified example) [image: image.png] When the donors lodge the money into the Bank for the Building for those 1,000 still pending for the year plus other general donations (Unrestricted funds), you would have something like this [image: image.png] General activities from the church would be financed by the Unrestricted funds kept in the general bank account and the funds in the Building Fund will be used solely for the aim of the fund (let's say repairs of the building). If you need to do repairs for instance to the roof of the building (if that is the intention of the fund) of for example 3,000, you would do an entry like the one below [image: image.png] This is a very, very simplified example that might apply to your situation. It might be a good idea to check the Gnucash documentation for more entries and if you are a charitable organization maybe check with an accountant that might provide better advice. Also noticed that it might be more appropriate to call the Building fund a Reserve more than a Liability. Proper advice from an accountant that has all the information would be the best.
I hope this helps, Thank you Regards, Inma de la Torre On Sun, 10 Nov 2024 at 13:46, Chris Green <c...@isbd.net> wrote: > On Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 12:31:26PM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > > When opening a new set of accounts where does one put a liability that > > exists when the accounts are started? > > > > I guess they are a sub-account of Liabilities but I'm not quite clear > > where they transfer from/to and whether they should be +ve or -ve. > > > Going on from this where do liabilities accrued during the year go? > > This is for a church where money goes in and out of the bank account > but some is destined for the 'building fund' which is kept in a > separate (building society, interest bearing) account. > > So, at the start of the year some money is owing to the building fund > so it's an 'opening liability', how is that entered? (That was my > first question above) > > Then, during the year there is income to the bank account which is > destined for the building fund. So it is 'income' but also needs > to be recorded as a liability as it's owed to the building fund. How > do I enter this? > > -- > Chris Green > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. >
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