Equity for non-profits typically represents the church's retained earnings (the amount of money the church has left over after paying all of its costs).
Equity accounts can also be used to track fund balances from year to year or track a special reserve to declare restrictions on how the congregation’s assets may be used (note: users will generally use Dedicated accounts to track these restrictions).
If you create your own equity accounts, we suggest consulting with a CPA and discuss special steps to take at the end of each year to properly transfer equity from the system fund balance to the equity account.
The Equity View
The Equity accounts view presents all of your equity accounts in a grid format, providing information beyond just the name and account number. This view is helpful for getting a detailed overview of your equity accounts. The Equity view also allows you to add, edit and delete accounts as well as see account activity.
- The Equity view can be accessed within the Finance Module under the Accounts tab, by clicking on "Equity".
- You can search the accounts grid using the standard search conventions in the search view.
- You can select which book's chart of accounts you're viewing in the "Book" drop list.
- The "Filter" field will let you filter to show "Active accounts", "Inactive accounts" or if you want to view all equity accounts, choose (none).
The Equity grid shows columns for each account number, account name, beginning balance (as of the start of the fiscal year), Change (the amount the account balance has changed by so far within the fiscal year), Current (Current balance of the account), Major Group, Minor Group, Inactive? (indicates if an account is marked as inactive), Responsibility (Responsibility Code), Church Body, and Note (indicates whether there is a note on the account).
- To add a new account from this view, click the "Add" button in the bottom left.
- To edit an account, click on the account you'd like to make changes to, and then click "Edit" at the bottom of the grid.
- To delete an account, click on the account you want to get rid of and then click the "Delete" button at the bottom of the grid. Only accounts with no activity or balance can be deleted, however.
- To view the activity on an account, either double click the account you want to view, or click on it and then click the "Activity" button at the bottom of the grid.
- The "Print" button will print out your equity accounts as you see it on the Equity view.