Accounting Maintenance: Records Retained
  • 08 Feb 2024
  • 2 Minutes to read

Accounting Maintenance: Records Retained


Article Summary

Explains why some Ledger Card Entries cannot be removed when using the Maintenance Utility called Account Ledger (Balance Forward).

Purpose

The maintenance utility named Account Ledger (Balance Forward) is designed to permanently remove old entries from past years that are no longer needed. Although the history is removed, a Balance Forward is automatically recorded for families who still owed money (or had a credit balance) as of the date you select.

What records are removed?

All entries posted on or before the date you specify, that can be removed, are deleted from Family (account) Ledger Cards and Agency Ledger Cards. Deposit Reports that contained only old entries are also removed.

Some entries are not removed. Why?

In order to maintain the integrity of your financial data certain types of entries must not be removed, even though they are dated in the past. This is because they are connected to at least one other item that is either:

a. Dated in the future (for example, after Dec. 31st), or
b. Connected to an agency charge that has not been paid in full (for example DHS made a partial payment).

Example 1: Deposit closed or payment made on a future date
If a Deposit Report is closed in the future, or if any payment within the deposit is dated in the future (say Jan. 1st or later) then the deposit cannot be deleted. That means all payments that made up the deposit (even those dated Dec. 31st and earlier) must be kept so the integrity of the deposit remains intact.

Image: Deposit made (closed) in January
image

Image: Payment within a deposit dated in January
image

Example 2: Agency payment in future
If a payment from a third party agency (like DHS) is made in the future (Jan. 1st or later in our example), then any charges or adjustments (agency share of tuition, agency credit, transfer to parent, etc.) associated with that payment cannot be deleted. This maintains the integrity of agency balances. If that payment is also part of a closed deposit report then all payments that made up the deposit (even those dated Dec. 31st and earlier) must be kept so the integrity of the deposit remains intact.

Image: Agency payment in January
image

Example 3: Partial agency payment, regardless of date
If an agency (like DHS) makes a partial payment so that as of Jan. 1st (in our example) they still owe money on an old item, then any charges or adjustments (agency share of tuition, agency credit, transfer to parent, etc.) associated with the original partial payment cannot be deleted. This maintains the integrity of agency balances so a payment eventually can be applied to the outstanding item(s). If that payment is also part of a closed deposit report then all payments that made up the deposit (even those dated Dec. 31st and earlier) must be kept so the integrity of the deposit remains intact.

Image: Partial agency payment – never adjusted or paid off

image

Cascading affect of partial payments
It’s possible the next agency payment pays off the amount previously owed, however, a partial payment is then made on some other item within the new Agency Payment Posting. If that happens, entries connected to the new payment cannot be removed and therefore items from the previous payment also cannot be removed. In summary, it is not uncommon to have a large number of agency related items remain on ledger cards, even though the individual items may be dated Dec. 31st and earlier (in our example).

Image: Original item paid in full, partial payment on new item
image


Was this article helpful?