How do I account for events that make a surplus / loss or that are subsidised?

How to account for self-funding events

The Projects functionality in ExpensePlus helps you account for self-funding events, and keep track of their balance over time.

Some activities or events operated by your charity or church may generate the funds needed to cover their costs. They may even generate a profit - for example, a youth weekend away costing £2,000 to run, with 25 attendees paying £100 each will generate a £500 profit.

For each event, ensure that it has at least one income category and one expenditure category. (You can have more income and expenditure categories if you wish).

You can then link the categories that relate to that event together as a Project, and use the Projects report to view and drill into the income and expenditure and view the project balance at any given time.

Within the Projects settings screen you can manage linked Project categories and can assign access 'per project' to the project report, so the person leading the project can see exactly what they need all in one place.

The Projects functionality removes the need to set up a separate fund for each event you run. Typically the categories of your projects would either be within your General Fund or a specific segregated 'Projects and Events fund'.

If using the general fund, we recommend you create an Income category group called 'Events' and an expenditure category group called 'Events' where you list any categories associated with the specific events.

Some organisations operate a segregated and unrestricted 'Projects and Events' fund (purely for self-funding events), in which all event-specific categories are kept, to exclude them from the General Fund Income and Expenditure report.

How to record a subsidy or cross-charge expenditure

Where you wish to subsidise an event, for example with money from your general fund, typically this is done via a transfer between categories. You can do this one of two ways with both methods having the same effect on the Project balance.

Method 1:

An Income Category Transfer reduces the level of income from one category and instead applies it to another income category. In the example below, we are subsidising the Weekend Away Event with income from the general Youth Events category. You will see the subsidy reflected in the Project report below.

Method 2 (recommended):

You can accomplish the same net effect by using an Expenditure category transfer. In the same example, you would leave the income for youth events with 'youth events' and instead reduce your expenditure on the weekend away by subsidising it from general youth expenditure.

The effect on the Project balance (shown in the report screenshot below) will be the same, but you will have intentionally decided to account for the change as an increase in youth expenditure as opposed to a decrease in youth income. This is arguably the preferred method as it maintains greater transparency.

How to cross-charge expenditure

Similarly, you may wish to cross-charge expenditure, for example where your employed staff members are also attending the event or conference you are organising, and your organisation itself will cover the cost for these people (for example from your training budget). This can be done via an Expenditure category transfer.

Closing the event with a zero balance

Unless an event is recurring and a surplus has been made that you wish to carry over to the next event, then at the end of each financial year, typically you would zero-out the surplus or loss, to or from your general fund.

To do this, use the 'category transfers' option within the Adjustments screen to do a category transfer as above.

If the project has a shortfall, follow the subsidy guidance above.

If you have a surplus (positive balance) to transfer, you can complete an income category transfer to account for the surplus within another category - for example, 'General Income: Income (other)'.

For projects you no longer need, these can be deactivated within the Project Settings screen.

To help you better understand the Adjustments module as a whole, please visit the module overview page here.