Liability accounts contain a church's short-term and long-term debt.
Short-term or current liabilities can include credit card debt, payroll taxes that have been withheld but not submitted, offerings received for other organizations that have not been remitted, or other debts that are to be paid back typically within the current fiscal year.
Long-term liabilities are obligations and debts that are to be paid back beyond the current fiscal year such as a mortgage.
To add a new liability account,
- Go into Ledger from the Navigation bar. If your site has multiple books, you'll want to make sure you have the correct book selected in the upper right corner.
- Click the Chart of Accounts tab to view all of your current accounts.
- Click "Add to chart" to open a creation window to the right.
- Enter the account name, and account number, if applicable.
- Under "Create account under", use the drop-down menu to select either the Liability account type or a parent account under the Liability heading further down the list.
- Choose a starting date for your account. You can choose either the beginning of the current year, the beginning of the current month, today's date, or a custom date that you can select.
- Enter the beginning balance for the account as of the beginning date, if applicable. If this account is meant to have sub-accounts, do not add a beginning balance.
- If this account is going to be used to make payments, check the appropriate box.
- If this account is going to be used to reconcile against a credit card statement, check the appropriate box.
- Click "Save" to confirm the creation of the account.