A/R Monthly Reporting that accounts for in-transit moneys from a vendor

Lucas Lineback 2

Hello. Does anyone have a solution for reporting that accurately reflects actual A/R at the end of a month when there's a delay that spans into a new month from when a donations occurs and when the vendor releases those funds to us? For example, a donation occurs on 6/30, we record the donation in RE on 6/30, it's included in month-end reporting to accounting, but the actual money doesn't hit our accounts until 7/7. It's apparently causing issues for accounting and auditing, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!


Lucas

Christine Cooke 2

Lucas Lineback:

Hello. Does anyone have a solution for reporting that accurately reflects actual A/R at the end of a month when there's a delay that spans into a new month from when a donations occurs and when the vendor releases those funds to us? For example, a donation occurs on 6/30, we record the donation in RE on 6/30, it's included in month-end reporting to accounting, but the actual money doesn't hit our accounts until 7/7. It's apparently causing issues for accounting and auditing, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!


Lucas

That is SOP -- at least everywhere I have worked for the last 20 years.  Those are considered Funds in Transit and are noted as a pending item on Finance side.  You report it in the month received and they report it as pending -- the following month it gets recorded in Finance and so on.

Lucas Lineback 2

Christine Cooke:

Lucas Lineback:

Hello. Does anyone have a solution for reporting that accurately reflects actual A/R at the end of a month when there's a delay that spans into a new month from when a donations occurs and when the vendor releases those funds to us? For example, a donation occurs on 6/30, we record the donation in RE on 6/30, it's included in month-end reporting to accounting, but the actual money doesn't hit our accounts until 7/7. It's apparently causing issues for accounting and auditing, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!


Lucas

That is SOP -- at least everywhere I have worked for the last 20 years.  Those are considered Funds in Transit and are noted as a pending item on Finance side.  You report it in the month received and they report it as pending -- the following month it gets recorded in Finance and so on.

 

Thanks for the reply! So, we have a new CFO, and he wants me to add vendor records in RE, and enter a pledge on the vendor records for the expected amount of disbursement, for the final disbursement of the month. Then apply that amount to the outstanding vendor pledge when it comes in. I was a bit dubious, considering nobody's suggested that in the 10 years I've worked here, not even the auditors. Does that sound like overdoing it? It sounds like he wants us to treat RE as an accounting database... He said it needs to be that way because RE is the primary point of entry.

Heather MacKenzie

Lucas Lineback:

 

Christine Cooke:

Lucas Lineback:

Hello. Does anyone have a solution for reporting that accurately reflects actual A/R at the end of a month when there's a delay that spans into a new month from when a donations occurs and when the vendor releases those funds to us? For example, a donation occurs on 6/30, we record the donation in RE on 6/30, it's included in month-end reporting to accounting, but the actual money doesn't hit our accounts until 7/7. It's apparently causing issues for accounting and auditing, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!


Lucas

That is SOP -- at least everywhere I have worked for the last 20 years.  Those are considered Funds in Transit and are noted as a pending item on Finance side.  You report it in the month received and they report it as pending -- the following month it gets recorded in Finance and so on.

 

Thanks for the reply! So, we have a new CFO, and he wants me to add vendor records in RE, and enter a pledge on the vendor records for the expected amount of disbursement, for the final disbursement of the month. Then apply that amount to the outstanding vendor pledge when it comes in. I was a bit dubious, considering nobody's suggested that in the 10 years I've worked here, not even the auditors. Does that sound like overdoing it? It sounds like he wants us to treat RE as an accounting database... He said it needs to be that way because RE is the primary point of entry.

 

RE is NOT an accounting database, and should not be used in this manner unless your office has some need for tracking this as a receivable.  We're struggling with how to handle this best in our office now that it's happening more to us, but we just tell our accounting people that the donation(s) have/has happened and we're waiting for the money, and they do whatever they need to on their end.

Melissa S Graves

ya, it 's common. not a problem. a little extra work in reconciling but not much more. It is commonly known as a gift in transit and can count in the month it arrived. Many business offices kvetch over it but they all get used to it eventually.

Elaine Tucker

We actually have ALL our incoming revenue start in Raiser's Edge.  Event fees, vendor refunds, donations, memberships, in-kind. Yes.... ALL of them.  Raiser's Edge is our sub-ledger to our accounting system. (We are integrated with FE).  If we need a receivable to appear in FE we enter a Pledge in RE, with applicable RE Fund.  The RE Fund is coded in the GL tab to map to our AR account in FE.  When the payment comes in, the RE Fund is mapped accordingly to offset the original AR entry from FE. 


Our process is on entering checks is to :

1. Log in Check Log - Admin does this

2. Remotely deposit all checks received via a check scanner  - accounting does this.

3. Enter all checks received in RE - using the deposit slip & checks documentation from Accounting - this is done by our Gift Entry Person

4. Print the Batch report, attach to Deposit slip and return all documentation to accounting so they can archive for the time required by law.


At the end of the month, I run an outstanding pledge report in RE, and a query in RE to show pledge payments that have not yet been posted to FE (usually credit card payments because we're waiting for disbursement to our account from the CC Bank.)  I give these two items to accounting and they can reconcile where the AR Account details are coming from.  If our accounting department needs to see the actual RE entry, they just click on "go to source record" from FE and the RE gift Screen opens up.

Melissa S Graves

Elaine Tucker - as a side question. if you use RE as a subledger and enter all income this way, how do you manage in NXT with the Analysis overview including all of this $ and not allowing you to filter out non-gift revenue.