I learned something new from the PowerChurch Plus forum the other day. The actual change in accounting law that requires non-profits to report their financial positions with respect to a “change in assets” rather than having a “fund balance” actually has a name – FASB 117.

Here is a summary of what the statue requires: http://powerchurch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5055

PowerChurch Plus makes it fairly easy to record donor-restricted donations. I have to admit, I used PowerChurch software for a long time without bothering to record our donor-restricted requests. Once I figured out the process, and what happens on the financial statements, I found it wasn’t so difficult. I try to explain it in simple terms on this sample tutorial: http://www.empoweryourchurch.com/using-the-donor-restrictions-wizard/