Add/Edit Accounts

The foundation of a church's accounting is a chart of accounts, and in order to create a chart of accounts, you must create various accounts that help you track the church's money. The steps below walk through the creation of an account in Shepherd's Staff:

1. You can add new accounts from multiple places in the Finance module.
   • Within the Accounts tree, click on the account type of the account you want to add, and then click the "Add" button
   • On the "All Accounts" view, pressing the "Add" button will prompt you to choose what type of account you want to create. Click the account type you want to create, and then click "Select"
   • In each of the account type views (Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, Expense, Dedicated), you can simply click the "Add" button.
2. In the window that appears, you will need to name your account in the "Name" field.
3. The "Account Status" section will let you select if this account is considered "Active" or "Inactive". Inactive accounts cannot be used in transactions, and are filtered out of most reporting by default.
4. The "Major Group", "Minor Group" and "Sequence" fields are also required fields. These fields determine where your accounts fall within your chart of accounts and reporting. These fields also comprise the account number.
5. The Beginning Balance field will appear on all account types, except income and expense. This field represents the balance of this account at the beginning of the current fiscal year. This field can only be edited up until the first transaction has been entered  against this account.
6. For Asset Accounts, you'll see a "This is a bank account" box. This applies a special designation on the account that allows it to be used as the Asset account within Checks, Payments and Receipts.  For Asset accounts that are designated as bank accounts, you can also override the numbering for the next EFT, Check or Deposit. By checking the box next to one of these options, and entering a number, this number will be filled in for the next EFT, Check or Deposit, respectively in place of whatever was set to come next.
7. For Liability Accounts, you'll see a "This is a charge account" box. This applies a special designation on the account that allows it to be written against within a charge account payment.
8. In the Other groupings section, you can assign a "Church Body" and/or a "Responsibility" code. These are additional levels of account groupings that can be used to organize your accounts.
9. If you're adding more than one account of this type, check the "Add multiple?" box.
10. If you have any notes to add to this account, click the "Note" button, and enter any notes you have for this account.
11. Click Save to create your account.

You may need to make changes to an account after it's been created. Editing an account will allow you to make several kinds of changes to accounts, including changing an accounts name, numbering and a few other options.

1. To edit an account in the Finance module, you have a couple of different options:
   • Within the Accounts tree click on the account you want to make changes to and click "Edit" near the bottom right corner of the window
   • Within the All Accounts or any of the account type views, click on the account you want to make changes to and then click Edit at the bottom of the grid.
2. When you click edit, you'll be able to make changes to the Account Name, Major group, Minor group, Sequence number, Bank account status (for Asset accounts), Charge account status (for Liability accounts), Church Body, Responsibility Code, whether an account is Active or Inactive, and - if there have been no transactions entered against this account - the beginning balance of the account.
3. In addition to the above changes, for Asset accounts that are designated as bank accounts, you can also override the numbering for the next EFT, Check or Deposit. By checking the box next to one of these options, and entering a number, this number will be filled in for the next EFT, Check or Deposit, respectively in place of whatever was set to come next.
4. Click Save to save any changes you've made.