General Ledger

Investments Management (module?)

John McBride — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:04:40 GMT

what is the best way to manage investments in FE? Right now we use the GL & the allocation module. However, this is not a very good solution. I would imagine that a software dedicated to non-profits would have a pretty sophisticated investments management tool. Something like the Fixed Assets module where you would put in the purchase date/price info for each security, and then when you get your statement each month, update each security. The system would calculate unrealized gain/loss, realized gain/loss, and make all the entries for you. Please tell me this exists!

How Do You Use Transaction Codes?

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:11:47 GMT

If you have the Project, Grants, and Endowments optional module, you can use Transaction codes (also called T-codes) to track transactions and maintain fund balances by and across fiscal years. They are similar to attributes, but the information is carried over to the General Ledger. In GL, you can filter reports by the transaction code to view the activity. What types of activity do you track using T-codes?

Knowledgebase Polls

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:13:45 GMT

How often does Knowledgebase provide you with the answers you need? Vote now!

If you can't find the answer to your question in Knowledgebase, do you use Case Central or do you call? Vote now!

Is there a way to run a chart of accounts by project? I don't see where I can use a standard report to get this or create a format in the visual organizer.

Jerry Brown — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:47:49 GMT

Chart of Accounts for two separate companies/databases

Dana Jones — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:53:23 GMT

I feel like I should know the answer to this, however...

I have recently set up another database/company within Blackbaud Financial Edge. Our main company is a 501c6, and we also run a 501c3. Do I want to use the same account numbers from our main company for our c3 when accounts repeat? For example, should my cash account, accounts receivable, interest income, etc. in my c3 be the same account numbers as I have set up in my main company? Then when I run consolidated statements, my assumption is FE would pull the separate companies based on column filters by company?

Or do I need a unique account structure for those accounts that are similar?

Knowledgebase Videos

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:00:48 GMT

We've added video demos to Knowledgebase solutions for our most frequently asked questions. These demos take you step-by-step through specific processes, such as adding accounts to a Visual Chart Organizer (BB64859) and making check corrections (BB134966). You can find all available demos by searching "(includes demo)". Check out some videos and let us know what you think on the Knowledgebase Videos thread.

GL Hierarchy

Karen Martyn — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:52:10 GMT

When running the monthly departmental income reports, I'm having to pull the college/division from an attribute defined in the project. This means the report pulls very slowly. The reason I'm pulling from the attribute is because our budget is in the unrestricted fund, but the donations are booked in the various restricted/permanent funds, and we need to be able to show the income from the donations. Does anyone know of a quicker way to pull by college/division? I've thought of adding that definition to the first tab "Project" under "Division" might work --

Any ideas on this?

Forum Usage Poll

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:53:31 GMT

We want to know how you use the Forums - please take our poll in Forums Feedback.

Merrill Lynch- Endowment Advantage

Danny Elmer — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:10:36 GMT

Not sure which forum to post this on- Merrill Lynch's reporting system Endowment Advantage- Anyone using it? Is it worth the money ?

Thanks

Unrestricted vs. Temp. Restricted when using Projects

Gina Staskal — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:58:43 GMT

General Ledger Report

Jerry Brown — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:10:23 GMT

Is there a way to run a general ledger report for several periods and get the transaction amount and the running balance per period (i.e. a 3 month GL with transactions and the account balance after each month)?

Transferring between funds

Olive Coke — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:33:28 GMT

Hi,

In Dec. 08 we transferred an amount from Unrestricted to Endowment. However, we found out that only part of the entries was done and so even though the funds balances was changed the batch itself was not posted as validation failed.

How do we correct this error now as the period is closed and trying to correct the error in 09 by doing the other entries also has the message 'validation failed'? Thanks

Olive

Cash-Basis Reporting

Pam Bamberger — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:25:15 GMT

Has anyone discovered a way to produce a cash-basis statement of sources and uses of revenue, in addition to the usual accrual-based financial statements?

Custom Financial Report

Lisa Nicoletti — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:45:14 GMT

Is there any way to export the parameters for an income statement in order to create a custom report? We want to create an income statement that includes an asset account, even though income statements don't actually include asset accounts. It's for one specific instance but it would be incredibly helpful to us.

Allocation Module GL Entries

Linda Moczygemba@sa-academy.org — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:50:43 GMT

We are currently using the allocation module to allocate income and expenses to endowments at the donor level. We have a problem with large GL entries. With 300 plus donors per endowment a single income or expense entry is 600 lines long. At the current time the GL entries do not post in summary and take up a large part of our GL. In addition, if we want to view income or expense entries for the year we will have approximately 4000 pages of entries by year end. When we allocate we have the allocation report to provide information about the allocation of income to the projects. We can also run project detail reports to verify income and expense to each project, so the additional information in the GL seems redundant. We can print the Batch Detail report in summary, but that is not the way it posts to the GL. It is similar to having the student billing generate an entry in detail for each student. I am wondering if anyone else is having this issue with the allocation module. We wanted to use the allocation module for other applications, but with this short comming we are hesitant to use it for anything else.

adjusting fund balance

Karen Martyn — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:11:23 GMT

I will need to reclass some projects from temporarily restricted to unrestricted. I've read solution BB375476 but remain a bit confused. The solution says to create new transfer accounts to use for the release of the funds, but to stay within the same GL fund. Can you have both restricted and unrestricted in the same fund? The solution indicates it is as simple as debiting and crediting accounts within the same fund and changing the designation on the project. Does anything need to be done on the RE side ?

Who is applying a management fee to their projects in FE? How are you doing it?

Rick Whiten — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:32:09 GMT

Are there any organizations applying a management fee to their funds or projects in order to generate operating income? We would be interested in knowing if others are doing this and how they are accomplishing it through Financial Edge. Maybe someone is doing this in Razor's Edge instead. If so, please let us hear from you.

Thanks

Rick

Chart of Accounts setup

Juanita McManus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:15:11 GMT

I'm interested to see how other organizations set up their chart of accounts. I'm fairly new to this position and inherited a COA the size of Texas (I'm in Ohio!). We want to capture income/expense by department. We have appoximately 15 departments and the COA is set up so each account (e.g., Printing) appears 15 times...once for each department. It's crazy, but I can't find a better solution. Any suggestions?

Shari Gibbs

Finance Manager

Cleveland Animal Protective League

Balancing entries by project

Candy Sakarapanee — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:22:24 GMT

We have just implemented Financial Edge and are having issues with the system requiring entries to balance by project. I am considering removing the requirement. For those of you whose systems are required to balance by project, how is this beneficial for you, and how would your processing be adversely affected if it were not required?

Endowed Scholarships - Pools

Mary Ryberg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:45:15 GMT

I want to set up my endowed scholarships on FE and be able to allocate the pool of interest to each. Only 80% can be awarded. How are other schools setting this up.

How to easily list what reports use what VCO?

Peter Farnsworth — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:30:54 GMT

Does anyone know of a simple way to list the reports that use a partcilar VCO?

Why? I recently deleted one by mistake, and have re-created it. Now I want to change each of the reports taht might have used it, so that they now use the new one.

Thanks.

The Ledger Poll

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:34:18 GMT

We are revamping The Ledger, your newsletter about The Financial Edge, to make sure we're giving you the information you want and need.

Let us know if you read non-product specific articles in The Ledger poll.

Easy Way to print activity from Projects

Sean Elliott — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:57:11 GMT

When looking at the activity tab in the "Projects" section of General Ledger is there an "easy" way of printing the activity information the user is looking at. The most logical way would be a File >> Print, but evidently my logic, and the logic of many of my users, doesn't match the financial edge's logic. Is it really more complicated than a simple File >> Print?

Reverse prior year's entry

Xia Chen — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:50:17 GMT

Hey,

I have a situation here:

Last fiscal year, we accrued the balance of the multi-year grant: Debit - unconditional promise to give Credit--foundation specific request

This fiscal year, we found that partial accrual should be reversed. what should the journal entry be, then....Debit: revenue ( current year), credit: unconditional promise to give

OR,

Just take this out as: Debit-- restricted fund; Credit -- unconditional promise to give

thanks!

990 Policies

Kristine Hull — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:17:26 GMT

We are in the process of updating our policies (conflict of interest, annual BOD disclosures, etc.) for the new revised 990. Since we are all creating these, would anyone like to create a group that shares each other's policies so everyone can get some samples, examples, and whatnot?