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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: HANDLING BANK DEPOSITS > Importing Bank Deposits into ACCOUNTS |
ACCOUNTS is a simple and affordable bookkeeping program for churches and charities, also from Software4Nonprofits. It includes simple and automatic fund accounting.
Once you have exported a summary bank deposit transaction from DONATION's Maintenance ⇒ Create Bank Deposit window, or the Maintenance ⇒ Create Bank Deposit ⇒ Abundant Donations window if you are using the Abundant online donation system, there are a couple of different ways to import it into ACCOUNTS.
If you have configured that you are using the ACCOUNTS program, and the ACCOUNTS program is installed on the same computer on which you are running DONATION, the export file will be put into the Import subdirectory of the ACCOUNT's program's data directory. (It is like DONATION's data directory, but ending in "Cooperstock Software\Accounts" instead of "Cooperstock Software\Donation".)
Also, in this case, after the export has completed, you will be given an option to run ACCOUNTS and have it automatically prompt to import the file. Answer Yes to the question about that, and as long as ACCOUNTS isn't already running, it will start up and prompt you about whether to import the file. Answer Yes, and it will be imported.
DONATION will also always give you an option to email the exported bank transaction file (as an attachment) to someone else. So, if ACCOUNTS isn't on the same computer, answer Yes to the question about that, fill in the desired recipient of the email, and send it. Of course, you can also transfer the file in any other way that wish, for instance copying it to a USB memory key and bringing that to the other computer. (The exported file, in the case when ACCOUNTS isn't on the same computer, will be in the Export subdirectory of DONATION's data directory.)
The exported file name is always BankDeposit-YYYY-MM-DD.DB.S4AIF, where YYYY-MM-DD is the bank deposit date you entered when creating the bank deposit or for Abundant donations, the date you exported the file. (The ".DB" part will change if this is for an additional database created with the Database ⇒ Switch Databases menu option.)
In ACCOUNTS, please see the help topic on "Importing Transactions" for details on importing the file.
In brief, if ACCOUNTS wasn't on the same computer, so you didn't have it automatically imported, you have a few options. The first is to save the file on the other computer, right-click on it in Computer or My Computer, and pick "Import into ACCOUNTS" from the popup menu. You can alternatively just double-click the file to have it imported. Or, you can use the Database ⇒ Import Transactions menu option.
Everything Must Match
ACCOUNTS takes a cautious approach to importing transactions. Every account name used in the import file (the export file from DONATION) must already exist in ACCOUNTS; the accounts must not have sub-accounts (because you are not allowed to post transactions to accounts that have sub-accounts); and the accounts must have the correct account classes (asset, liability, income or expense).
If anything doesn't match perfectly (except perhaps for different capitalization of account names) you will be given a detailed error message and the import will be canceled. You can then make appropriate fixes, and try the export from DONATION and import into ACCOUNTS again. (Possible fixes include correcting the account names associated with donation categories in DONATION, or adding missing accounts into ACCOUNTS.)
Important: One common error is if you included the ACCOUNTS account number at the start of the Account that you matched to a donation category when you were configuring the bank deposits. That will never match properly, and will cause your import to fail.
This is unlike QuickBooks Desktop, which unfortunately will create a new bank account for any mismatching account name, whether that account is supposed to be a bank or an income account, without even telling you it is doing so!
Issues about Importing Twice
If you import the same file into ACCOUNTS twice by mistake, it will notice that fact, and give you some options about what to do about it. The options are to replace the previously imported transaction, import it twice anyways (causing a duplicate), or cancel the import.
Please note, however, that if you export a bank deposit for the same date twice from DONATION, and import the two generated files into ACCOUNTS, you will still get a duplicate transaction. That is because the checking is based on a unique transaction ID that DONATION puts into the import file, but each time you do an export, a different unique transaction ID is generated.
Correcting Imported Transactions
In some cases, the transaction you export from DONATION may not actually represent your entire bank deposit. (One example would be if there were amounts included in your actual bank deposit that you had chosen not to enter into DONATION, such as grants, because they aren't actual "donations", so they don't have to be there.)
In that case, just open up the imported transaction in ACCOUNTS and adjust it as required.