Problem with linked account and prepare bank deposit

Question

I have a situation where due to not using Prepare bank deposit I havent noticed a problem but when I clicked into it on our accountright MYOB it has all the transactions for each month wether its from the sales or purchases and banking . So anything we paid for or recieved is noted in there. I have looked at the linked accounts and it's setup :

Cheque Account Bank  Bank account for undeposited funds. Does this mean that anything we have processed is just looking like its sitting inthe prepare banking. And if so how can I get rid of all the transactions including very old ones. Reconcilation and everything is working.

Do I just set up a new account called Undeposit funds (in assets) and link that to the undeposited funds and if so does this effect all the  transactions sitting there now once I unlink from the cheque account. Please note we never have undeposited funds generally speaking so that's why this hasnt been picked up. I took over from somebody else.

Also another question in linked accounts - should  historical balancing  be linked to an equity account for historical balancing? or should it be Retained earnings linked to the equity account for historical balancing. Sorry but this is another thing I'm not sure of and need clarification.

Steven_M · Accepted Answer

Hi @Hjones1

I think you are on the right track in checking those linked accounts - however, I did get a bit confused as to what the actual Bank Account for Undeposited Funds in your company file actually yes. I would take a guess that its the main bank account?

Generally speaking, you don't want to set your main bank account as the Bank Account for Undeposited Funds. The reason being is that you are indicating that all payments made through that account are to be shown and processed through the Prepare Bank Deposit window. Normally, you would have a separate account such as a clearing account or an Undeposited Funds account listed as the Bank Account for Undeposited Funds.

In your case, to clear out that Prepare Bank Deposit window so it can be used more appropriately would be as you have described. Generate a new account as the account type to be Bank and set that account as the Bank Account for Undeposited Funds. This clears the window as the system solely looks for transactions in that set linked account that haven't been processed for display - no transactions in that account equals no transaction in the window.

With respect to the Equity Account for Historical Balancing, this is commonly an account called Historical Balancing/its own specific account. In theory, you could set it to be the Retained Earnings account and I could see that being the case if you did set up that accounts unusually when you first started. In your case, my recommendation would to go to Setup>>Balances>>Account Opening Balances and view what is showing as the Amount left to be allocated. Whatever this value is set to be will be going to that Retained Earnings account now (due to that current setup). If you were to update that linked account that amount would go to that new account (and the amount will come off (or be added on) to the Retained Earnings. This is one of those we can advise what the software will do but you have to make the call as to what you would want to do. The only real impact here would be how the reports, like the Balance Sheet, will display that amount going forward. It would either be in the Retained Earnings or the Historical Balancing account. I doubt there will be any increase or decrease in that Historical Balancing Account over time as the file has already been set up.