What Received Funds Is For

Money doesn’t arrive at your group in neat, single amounts. It arrives as a shoebox of checks from the membership table, an envelope of cash from the bake sale, and a check somebody handed the principal last Tuesday. Eventually all of it goes to the bank in one trip — and the bank records one deposit, not thirty.

Received Funds is where you log each item as it comes in, and then batch those items into the deposit you actually take to the bank. BeeKeeper writes the journal entry for you and produces a Cash Verification Form — the counting sheet with two signature lines that most PTA bylaws require.

The two-step shape is the whole point:

Because the entry is created at deposit time, your books show a single deposit for the exact amount your bank shows — which is what makes reconciliation work.

Finding Received Funds

1. Go to Bookkeeping > Banking
2. Click the account the money will be deposited into (your checking account, for example)
3. Click the Received Funds tab

The tab appears on any balance sheet account, so you can also use it for a savings account or a petty cash account.

The page shows your Pending count and Pending Total at the top, then every item waiting to be deposited.

Recording an Item

Click Receive Funds and fill in the form.

Click Save and the item joins the pending list.

Enter items one at a time as they arrive, or sit down with the whole shoebox and enter them in one session — either way works.

Emailed Receipts

If you enter an email address, BeeKeeper sends that person a receipt showing who it was received from, the amount, the date, the memo, and the check number. It’s a nice touch for donations, and it’s proof of payment for anyone who asks.

The receipt goes out once, when you first save the item. Editing the item afterward does not send an updated receipt, and adding an email address to an item you already saved won’t trigger one either. If you need to correct a receipt someone already got, delete the item and re-enter it.

Splitting One Item Across Income Categories

If one check covers two different things — say a $100 car wash deposit that was $60 for Fundraisers and $40 for Donations — you don’t need to enter it twice. Click Split across categories, the same way you would on Write Check.

1. Add a line for each income category and enter the amount that belongs to it.
2. If your organization uses teams or projects, each line can have its own team or project.
3. Watch for the Adds up badge. It shows when your lines add up to the item’s amount.
4. Click Save.

The item still deposits as one check or cash item, and the deposit still matches your bank. Membership receipts (anything with a Purpose of membership) can’t be split, because BeeKeeper already divides those for you. See Collecting Membership Dues.

Changing or Removing a Pending Item

Click any row in the pending list to edit it, or use the ⋮ menu on the right to edit or delete.

Pending items are completely yours to fix — nothing has hit your books yet. Once an item is part of a deposit, it locks: BeeKeeper won’t let you edit or delete it, because the journal entry has already been written. Review the list before you deposit.

Creating a Deposit

When you’re ready to take the money to the bank, click Create Deposit.

1. Set the Deposit Date — the date the money goes to the bank
2. Check off the items going in this deposit. Select All grabs everything; Deselect All clears it
3. Watch the running Cash Total, Check Total, and Grand Total on the right as you select
4. Confirm the Grand Total matches what you’re physically taking to the bank
5. Click Create Deposit

Checks and cash are listed in separate sections so you can count each stack against the screen.

You don’t have to deposit everything at once. Select just the items in this trip and leave the rest pending for next time.

What BeeKeeper Creates

Submitting the deposit does three things:

• Writes one journal entry dated your deposit date, with a payee of “Deposit” and a description like Deposit: 12 checks, 3 cash items. Your bank account is debited for the grand total, and each income account is credited for its share — amounts to the same account are combined onto one line
• Attaches a Cash Verification Form PDF to that journal entry
• Marks the selected items as deposited, removing them from the pending list

You’ll land on the deposit detail page showing everything that went in.

The Cash Verification Form

The attached PDF is the counting sheet. It includes:

• Your organization name, the deposit date, and the deposit account
• Every check, listed by check number and amount, with a check total
• The cash total
• A grand total
• Breakdown by Account — how the deposit splits across your income accounts
• FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY with two signature and date lines

Most PTA and booster club bylaws require two people to count money together. Print the form, have both counters sign it, and file it with your treasurer’s records. Download it any time from the deposit detail page with Download PDF — it’s also attached to the journal entry itself.

Collecting Those Signatures Electronically

Instead of printing the form for a wet signature, you can send the deposit out for sign-off right inside BeeKeeper: open the deposit’s journal entry, scroll to the Sign-Off section, and click Request Review. Once your reviewers sign off, their names, decisions, and timestamps print automatically on the Cash Verification Form in place of the blank signature lines — download it again and the signatures are there. See Electronic Sign-Off for the full walkthrough.

Viewing Past Deposits

Click View Deposits on the Received Funds page for a list of every deposit made from this account, newest first, with date, description, and amount.

Click any deposit to see the items that made it up and to download its Cash Verification Form.

How Deposits Reconcile

This is where the two-step workflow pays off. Your bank statement shows one line: DEPOSIT $1,842.50. Your books show one journal entry: Deposit: 12 checks, 3 cash items — $1,842.50. They match, and the deposit clears in one click during reconciliation.

If your account has a bank connection, the deposit will also show up in your bank feed a day or two later. Don’t accept it as a new transaction — that would record the same money twice. Match it to the deposit entry BeeKeeper already created. See Imported Transactions for how matching works.

When the Bank Line Arrives First

Sometimes the deposit shows up in your bank feed before you’ve entered it in Received Funds. A received fund doesn’t post anything to your books until you click Create Deposit, so there is nothing for the bank line to match yet.

1. Leave the bank line in Needs Review. Don’t add it as a new transaction.
2. Record each check and cash item in Received Funds.
3. Click Create Deposit. Set the Deposit Date to the date on the bank line, and select the items that add up to the same total.
4. Go back to Needs Review. The bank line now has a Match tab showing your deposit. Click Match.

A deposit only appears under Match when it’s in the same account, for the exact same amount, and dated within 30 days of the bank line.

If you already added the bank line as a new transaction:

1. Go to the account’s Transactions tab.
2. Click the ⋮ menu on that transaction’s row, then click Delete. The bank line goes back to Needs Review.
3. Follow the steps above, then match the bank line to your deposit.

A Caution About Deposit Entries

The journal entry BeeKeeper creates is an ordinary journal entry. Someone with access can edit, void, or delete it from the ⋮ menu on its row in the account’s Transactions tab.

Delete and Void do different things:

• Delete removes the entry and sends every item in the deposit back to the pending list, where you can edit or delete them again. The deposit drops off View Deposits. If the deposit was matched to a line from your bank, that line goes back to Needs Review.
• Void keeps the entry and adds a reversing entry. The items stay marked as deposited.

Delete is only offered when none of the entry’s lines are reconciled or cleared, and the entry isn’t dated in a closed fiscal year.

Fixing a Wrong Deposit

• Not reconciled yet: Delete the deposit entry. Fix the items in the pending list, then click Create Deposit again.
• Already reconciled: The entry can’t be deleted. Record the correction as a normal journal entry.

Best Practices

• Log items as they arrive. A check sitting in a drawer with no record is how money goes missing from the books
• Count with two people and both sign the form. It protects your volunteers as much as your organization
• Deposit in batches that match your bank trips. One deposit in BeeKeeper should equal one deposit slip
• Check the Grand Total against your deposit slip before submitting — it’s much easier to fix a pending list than a posted entry
• Use Received From consistently. “Smith Family” beats “check from a parent” when you’re looking something up in March

Common Questions

Does recording a received fund change my account balance? No. Nothing posts to your books until you create the deposit. That’s deliberate — the money isn’t in the bank yet, so your books shouldn’t say it is.

Can I edit an item after it’s been deposited? No. Deposited items are locked because their journal entry already exists. Review the pending list before depositing. If the deposit hasn’t been reconciled yet, you can delete the deposit entry to send its items back to the pending list. See A Caution About Deposit Entries above.

Can I use this for money that never touches a deposit slip — like a card payment or an online donation? It’s built for physical checks and cash. Electronic money that lands in your bank directly is better handled through your bank feed or, for FutureFund sales, FutureFund Payouts.

One check covers two different fundraisers. What do I do? Click Split across categories on the item, add a line for each income account, and make sure the Adds up badge shows. You can also record it as two received funds with the same check number if you prefer. Either way the check total on the deposit will be right.

Can I split a membership receipt? No. Membership receipts aren’t split by hand, since BeeKeeper already divides dues for you. See Collecting Membership Dues.

Part of a check is pass-through money we hold for someone else. How do I record it? A received fund only goes to income accounts, so the pass-through part can’t go straight to a liability account. How you handle it depends on what the money is.

• Membership dues: Set Purpose to Membership and enter the Number of Memberships. If you’ve set a Withholding per Membership and a Withholding Liability Account in Settings > Update Settings > Memberships, BeeKeeper puts the withheld part in that liability account for you. If the check is only partly dues, enter it as two received funds with the same check number: a Membership item for the dues and a General item for the rest. The deposit and the Cash Verification Form still show it as one check. See Collecting Membership Dues.
• Other pass-through money: Record it on an income account and create the deposit as usual. Then move it to the liability account with the steps below.

1. Go to Bookkeeping > Banking and click the liability account that holds the money. It’s listed under Liabilities.
2. Click New Transaction, then click Money In.
3. Enter the date and amount. Set Category to the income account you used on the received fund.
4. Click Save.

This takes the amount back out of income and adds it to the liability account. Transfer Funds can’t do this, because it doesn’t move amounts between an income account and a liability account.

Where’s the team or project picker? It only shows if your organization uses teams or projects. If your group has the setting that warns you about transactions with no team, it applies to deposits too. See Team Edition.

Do I have to email a receipt? No, the email field is optional. Leave it blank and no receipt is sent.

Someone’s receipt had a typo. Can I resend it? Not directly. Receipts send once, at the moment you save the item. If it’s still pending, delete it and re-enter it with the correct information to trigger a new receipt.

Can I deposit into savings instead of checking? Yes. Received Funds is available on any balance sheet account — open the account you’re depositing into and use its Received Funds tab.

What if I deposited cash and checks together but the bank split them into two deposits? Create two deposits in BeeKeeper to match, selecting the cash items in one and the checks in the other. Your books should mirror what your bank actually recorded.

Why doesn’t my deposit show a Purpose or Membership option? Membership tracking is off until an admin sets a Membership Income Account in Settings > Update Settings > Memberships. See Collecting Membership Dues.

Do I still need to print the Cash Verification Form for a wet signature? Only if you want to. If you request the sign-off electronically through Sign-Off, your reviewers’ signatures print on the form automatically once they respond — no printing or physical signing required. See Electronic Sign-Off.