Answers to the setup and migration questions our support team hears most often. For other topics, browse the rest of the Troubleshooting section, or see Getting Help.

I imported from MyPTEZ and my balances don’t match. What happened?

The most common causes are historical transactions from before your intended start date coming along with the import, and imported transactions still sitting in the Needs Review queue — they don’t affect your books until you accept them.

Next, look for an opening balance you added after the import. If you left the opening balances blank when you reviewed your MyPTEZ import, then entered one later (often dated the first day of your fiscal year), that balance gets counted twice. Your imported history already adds up to it. Delete the later opening balance entry from the account’s transaction list, and the account goes back to matching your MyPTEZ report. You can delete it as long as it isn’t part of a reconciliation.

If an import went wrong, you don’t have to fix it by hand. File imports can be undone from Actions > Import History. See Data Import & Export. To run the MyPTEZ import again, ask our support team to turn it back on for your organization. Running it again erases your organization’s books (accounts, transactions, checks, budgets and reconciliations) and replaces them with the new import.

Also check the opening balance itself. If your imported history ends before your bank feed was connected, see Why doesn’t my beginning balance match my bank statement? below.

Old transactions from my MyPTEZ import keep showing up when I reconcile. Why?

When BeeKeeper imports your MyPTEZ history, it files a transaction as History when either of these is true:

• It was marked cleared (an “X” in the Clr column) in MyPTEZ.
• It is dated on or before the “reconciled through” date, if you entered one during the import.

History transactions have a small H next to them (“Historical — reconciled before BeeKeeper”) and are left out of your reconciliations.

Everything else comes over as Pending and shows up every time you reconcile that account. Usually that’s right: a check you wrote that never cleared should stay on the list until it does. But old corrections or adjustments that were never marked cleared in MyPTEZ will show up too, even if they’re years old.

To clear out an old transaction the bank already handled before you started using BeeKeeper:

1. Open the bank account and set the Status filter to Pending.
2. Find the old transaction and open the menu on its row.
3. Click File as History, then confirm.

The transaction stops appearing when you reconcile. Your balances don’t change. If you file the wrong one, open the same menu and click Move Out of History.

After my MyPTEZ import, a category I used before is missing when I write a check or categorize a transaction. Where did it go?

When a MyPTEZ import finishes, BeeKeeper archives every account that has no transactions in the last 12 months, so your chart of accounts only shows what you’re using now. If your import only covered a few months, that can be most of your categories. The import’s results screen tells you how many accounts were archived.

Archived accounts are left out of dropdown menus, including the category list when you write a check. Nothing is deleted, and their history stays put. Bank accounts and other balance sheet accounts that still hold a balance are never archived.

To bring a category back:

1. Go to Bookkeeping > Chart of Accounts, click Actions, then Show Archived Accounts.
2. Click the pencil next to the account. Archived accounts have an Archived label.
3. Uncheck Archive and click Save.

Restore categories one at a time as you need them. Don’t use Add Account to make a new one with the same name; restoring the old one keeps its history together. See Chart of Accounts.

After my MyPTEZ import, some old categories still have balances and Carry Over Funds is negative. How do I clean them up?

Old accounts that still have a balance. Archiving an account doesn’t change its balance. The Balance Sheet hides an archived account only when its balance is $0.00, so an old account with money still on it keeps showing. To clear one:

1. Unarchive it. Go to Bookkeeping > Chart of Accounts, click Actions, then Show Archived Accounts. Click the pencil next to the account, uncheck Archive, and click Save.
2. Move its balance:
   • To another account of the same kind, like an old bank account into your current one: go to Bookkeeping > Banking and click Transfer Funds. Choose the old account as the From Account and where the money belongs as the To Account. Enter the Date, Amount, and a Description, then click Save. You can also transfer between a bank (asset) account and a liability account.
   • Into your equity, for a balance that should simply be written off: on the Banking page, open your equity account (such as Carry Over Funds) and click New Transaction. Choose Money Out (“Decreases this fund”) to clear an old asset account, or Money In (“Increases this fund”) to clear an old liability account. If the old account’s balance is negative, choose the other one. Pick the old account as the Category, enter the Amount, and click Save.
3. Check that the old account now shows $0.00, then archive it again: click its pencil, check Archive, and click Save.

A negative Carry Over Funds. This is expected after an import until your past years are closed. Until then, each past year’s surplus isn’t in Carry Over Funds yet. The Balance Sheet shows it on its own line, Prior Years’ Net Surplus/(Deficit), so your Total Equity is still right. When you close each past year with Close the Books, oldest first, BeeKeeper moves that year’s surplus into your carry-over equity account (Carry Over Funds at code 3000). See Financial Reports for how the Balance Sheet shows equity.

If Carry Over Funds is archived after your import, Close the Books can’t find an account to carry the surplus into and won’t let you close. Unarchive it the same way as any other category (steps above). See Close the Books.

Do I have to import my old transaction history?

No. You only need history from the start of your current fiscal year — most organizations start there with an opening balance and go forward. Importing prior years is welcome but entirely optional. See Getting Started.

How do I set my opening balance when checks from last year haven’t cleared?

If you are starting fresh, with no imported history: enter the bank’s balance as of your start date as the opening balance, then record each outstanding check as its own transaction dated on or before your start date. When those checks clear, your first reconciliation ties them out.

If you imported history from MyPTEZ or a file: do not use the bank’s balance. Your import almost certainly already contains those outstanding checks, and entering the bank balance on top of them counts each one twice. Use your book balance instead — the ending balance your previous accounting system reported for the day before your imported history begins. On a MyPTEZ Treasurer’s Report that is the “Balance On Hand” figure.

The two numbers differ by exactly the checks you’d written that hadn’t cleared the bank yet:

bank statement balance − checks written but not yet cleared = opening balance

The full walkthrough is in Getting Started, and the background is in Book Balance vs. Bank Balance.

Why doesn’t my beginning balance match my bank statement?

Usually it shouldn’t. Your books drop below your bank balance the moment you write a check, and stay there until the check clears — so at any month boundary the two differ by whatever hasn’t cleared yet. That difference is what a bank reconciliation explains. A book balance that matches the bank exactly, while checks are still outstanding, is the thing worth a second look.

If the difference is larger than your outstanding checks, the likeliest cause is the opening balance. Two things to check:

• Your bank feed only covers transactions from the day it was connected. Anything that happened at the bank between the end of your imported history and that connection date was never downloaded. BeeKeeper flags this on the account and won’t suggest an amount when it applies.
• An opening balance worked backwards from today’s bank balance will be wrong if any check is still outstanding, because that method assumes everything has cleared. Always confirm against your previous system’s ending balance or a bank statement from the period.

I entered the wrong opening balance. Can I change it?

Yes. You can edit the opening balance like any other transaction:

1. Go to Bookkeeping > Banking and open the account
2. Find the Opening Balance row in the transaction list
3. Open the row’s three-dot menu (⋮) and click Edit
4. Change the Amount (or the Date)
5. Click Save

Two things can stop you. If the opening balance is dated in a fiscal year you’ve closed with Close the Books, Edit doesn’t appear. And if the opening balance has already been included in a reconciliation, the amount shows as a figure you can read but not change. In either case, contact support and we’ll help.

If your bank account is connected, BeeKeeper suggests an opening balance computed from the bank’s reported balance. That suggestion is withheld when BeeKeeper can tell it hasn’t seen everything your bank has — in that case work the number out from your own records rather than the bank’s current balance.

BeeKeeper says my email is already registered.

FutureFund products share one sign-in. If you already have a FutureFund, Connect, or HelpOut account, sign in with those same credentials — you don’t need (and can’t create) a separate BeeKeeper login for the same email.