8.6 Finance Set-up

This article covers the managing of Finance Accounts and Finance Categories. These areas of Beacon are generally only available to the Site Administrator and Treasurer. The Treasurer is key to how these are set up so they need to be involved at the outset and have rights to these areas of the system and guide how they are set.

1. Finance Accounts
Click Finance accounts on the Home Page to view, create or edit Accounts. Each Finance Account should correspond to a financial bank account. Beacon finance is set by each u3a to suit their way of working so there are many variations.  Some set up a Beacon Account for each or some of the following a bank account, PayPal account, Cash, un-banked or promised membership fees etc.. Each Finance Account can then be reconciled.

Note: Some u3a's have found it helpful to create an additional account called Membership which is used to store unbanked membership payments before they are transferred to the current or deposit account. Beacon sites created since 2020 will have been initially setup this way.
Of course it is down to each individual u3a to decide what works best for them.

A tick box at the bottom of the page enables the creation of Group Brought Forward (B/F) transactions for all Groups that have Transactions associated with them in the previous Financial Year (see 7.10.6.)

a) Adding a new Account
Enter the Account name in the Add new account box and press the Save button.

b) Changing an Account Status and Name

Tick or untick the Active checkbox for an Account and confirm the change according to whether or not the Account is currently being used. Inactive Accounts do not appear in the current ledger.

Note: Some accounts are locked. You are not allowed to change these.

Click configure next to the Account name to change the name, if required.

c) Setting Account Defaults

When viewing the list of Accounts an option at the top and bottom of the screen opens a new screen:

Using this you can set the default destination overall and also for each type of payment:

d) Pending Transactions

Each Account may be configured with the option to show Transactions as Pending:

• When Disable is selected, there is no Pending tick box on Transaction Records.
• When Transactions can be marked as Pending is selected, the 'Pending' tick box is initially unchecked when adding a Transaction Record, but can be checked to make the Transaction Pending.
• When Select Transactions to be Pending is selected, the form opens up tick boxes for each type of Transaction.
  
  When one of the checked Transaction types is selected in a Transaction Record, the 'Pending' tick box is initially checked, but can be unchecked to make the Transaction not Pending.        

Press the Save button to commit the Account Configuration changes.

You should discuss which options are required for each Account with your Treasurer. For more information  refer to 7.10.5. Pending Transactions.

e) Refunds

Each Account may be configured with the option to enable Refunds so that they don't show as income/expenditure in the Financial Statement. It also avoids the need to create separate refund Transactions.

For more information refer to 7.10.7. Refunds.

f) Creating an Opening Balance
When using an Account for the first time it is likely that a starting balance will need to be set up e.g. a bank balance. Do this by adding a transaction as described in 7.2 Transaction Record.

Note that if you intend to use Beacon to produce a 7.6 Financial Statement then the starting balance will need to be dated in the previous financial year and the balance brought forward. This will stop the balance appearing in the statement as income.

g) Removing an Account
Click delete next to the Account name. You will not be allowed to delete an Account if there are Transactions recorded against it in any year. In which case, consider making it non-Active instead.

2. Finance Categories
All Financial Transactions are assigned to one or more Finance Categories in order to group together similar expenditure and income for analysis and reporting.

Click Finance categories on the Home page to view, create or edit categories.

Adding a Finance Category
Enter the category name in the Add new category box and press the Save button.

 

Changing a Finance Category
Click edit next to the category name and change the name, if required.

Tick or untick the Active checkbox for the Category according to whether or not the Category is currently being used. Inactive categories do not appear in new transactions.

Press the Save button to commit the changes.

Note: Some categories are locked. You are not allowed to change these.

Removing a Finance Category
Click delete next to the category name. You will not be allowed to delete a category if there are transactions recorded against it in any year. In which case, consider making it non-active instead.

Note: Some categories are locked. You are not allowed to delete these.

Revision History

v1	2020	Graeme Bunting	First version
v2	2021-02-18	Graham Tigg	Added how to create an opening balance
v3	2021-05-16	Lyn Bossons	Added 'in any year' to 'Removing accounts/categories' sections.
v4	2024-04-09	Graeme Bunting	Pending Transactions configuration added
v5	2024-04-30	John Alexander	Additional Pending information
v6	2024-06-02	Graeme Bunting	Group B/F tick box added
v7	2024-09-01	Graeme Bunting	Refunds configuration added. Pending Transactions updated ('New transactions to be pending' drop-down pick replaced by 'Select transactions to be pending')
v8	2024-09-26	John Alexander	Update images for Membership Defaults
v9	2024-10-30	Graeme Bunting	Granting individual access to an account added
v10	2024-12-01	Graeme Bunting	Granting individual access to an account removed
v11	2025-08-25	John Alexander	Expand description of bank account