Equity accounts contain funds that your church doesn't need to repay like it would a liability.
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; however, users will generally use (Equity-backed) Funds to track these restrictions, instead.
If you decide to create additional equity accounts, we suggest consulting with a CPA to discuss special steps to take at the end of each year to properly transfer equity from the Book Equity balance to your equity account(s).
Since equity accounts take a book's overall equity calculation into account, a separate transaction will be required to establish a beginning balance.
To add a new equity 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 in the account name, and account number, if applicable.
- Under "Create account under", use the drop-down menu to select either the Equity account type, or a parent account under the Equity heading further down the list.
- Click "Save" to confirm the creation of the account.