My periodic financial report is showing incorrect numbers.  How do I find the problem?


The periodic financial report has many aspects. Below you will find different situations that will sometimes occur. These situations are designed to be a guide to help you find the error or understand why you see differences in the numbers. This is not an all-inclusive list so these examples may or may not apply to your situation.

The Detail Box is an easy way to find out more information on the numbers you see on the Periodic Financial Report. It will allow you to see how a number was generated. It sometimes referred to as drill down accounting.

For example, you have an internal account and you don't know why it is has a large paid out amount. Just double click on the paid out amount and a list of all the transactions that made up that number will appear.

Contributions do not equal Total Income

There are several reasons why your Total Contributions will not equal the income/deposits on your bank/internal sections of your periodic financial report. Income adjustment entries will affect total income but will not be reflected in the contributions. Interest entries will also increase income but not affect contributions. There may be times when someone will make a non-monetary contribution to the church. That should be entered in contributions so that they receive credit for tax purposes but will obviously not be entered into the checkbook as a deposit. Therefore, income would be less than the amount of contributions.

Expense Credit deposits also affect income. Expense credit deposits will show up as deposits on the bank account section, but will not reflect as income in the Internal Accounts. Since the effect of the expense credit is to reduce expenses, these deposits will be reflected in the Paid Out column.

Report shows too much Expense/Income

There are many reasons why your report will show too much Expense or Income, but usually occurs when transactions have been improperly posted. Sometimes large discrepancies are associated with the incorrect transfer of money from one bank account to another. For information on how to transfer money between bank accounts see: How do I transfer money between bank accounts?

Receiving money from a loan can be a cause in too much income or expense. When you deposit money received from a loan, it should be deposited as an expense credit deposit. For more information on this subject see: How do I handle money received from a loan?

Report shows too little Expense/Income

This can be caused if someone changes the fiscal year start or end date. The fiscal year start and end dates should never be changed in NTS unless your district changes the start and end dates. To check these dates, see: How do I change my fiscal year Start or End dates? You can also use the detail boxes described in the previous section to track down problems.

Bank Account and Internal Account balances are not equal

Bank accounts and internal accounts are two different ways of looking at the same money. Bank accounts and internal accounts can have the same balance. In order for this to happen, you must be careful about how you enter transactions into NTS. For a more information on Internal Accounts see: An in-depth look at Internal Accounts

If you need further assistance, feel free to contact us. Our contact information is below.