Transfer Question

I'm not sure what caused or how to resolve the following situation: Our reconciliation is off -$400 under missionary. The Income & Expense Detail Report for each of our ward missionaries balance, except for one. That missionary has a negative $400 ending balance. What is shown under "Donations" for each month equals that shown under "Expenses". However, a $400 deduction is also shown under transfers with the same reference no. as the deduction under "Expenses" for the same month.

gonzi wrote:I'm not sure what caused or how to resolve the following situation: Our reconciliation is off -$400 under missionary. The Income & Expense Detail Report for each of our ward missionaries balance, except for one. That missionary has a negative $400 ending balance. What is shown under "Donations" for each month equals that shown under "Expenses". However, a $400 deduction is also shown under transfers with the same reference no. as the deduction under "Expenses" for the same month.

I would have a couple of questions:

First, when you look at the transfer under View Transfers, what does the transfer look like? Specifically, does it have an amount on the left side, but no amount on the right side? If this is the case, then it was most likely not created as a transfer, but rather as an Other Item during the reconciliation process for some month. That seems to be the most likely scenario -- someone double entered this item as an Expense and also as an Other Item.

If the transfer record has an amount on both sides, then it is a normal transfer, created using the Enter Transfer screen. Then the question is where was the $400 transferred to? If this transfer was done in error, you can create another transfer in the opposite direction to reverse it.

In either case, the Transfer item should have a Comment field that would hopefully give you some clue as to why it was created.

That seems to be the most likely scenario -- someone double entered this item as an Expense and also as an Other Item.

I would agree with this, most likely there has been an Other Item and an Expense entered for the same payment.

You're good! No amount on the right side. Appears to be a double entry. How do I correct that? I've got a lot to learn.

gonzi wrote:You're good! No amount on the right side. Appears to be a double entry. How do I correct that? I've got a lot to learn.

If you typically enter your missionary expenses as MLS Expenses (which is indeed the best standard practice), then the Transfer that was entered via Other Items is the item you would want to fix. To do this:

1. Go to the Reconciliation screen for the month that you are trying to balance.
2. On the Other Items step, create a new entry (with the Add Item button) for the proper subcategory of Ward Missionary. Use the same Reference Number and date. But make sure the amount is a positive $400.
3. Save your changes to the Other Item screen.
4. Make sure you have done all the other reconciliation steps.
5. Now when you go to the final Report screen, you should see zeroes on the Unreconciled Differences line, which is good.

The above will have the effect of creating one more Transfer transaction, but this one will be in the opposite direction, and thus will effectively cancel out the first Transfer transaction. Then only the Expense transaction will affect the balance for the missionary, and all should be well.