How to Create Past Summary Entries for an Import

As mentioned in MonkeyPod's best practices for bringing over financial data, we recommend importing past transaction information as "summary entries" at the start of your fiscal year. The goal is to capture time-period totals for each income and expense account without affecting asset, liability, or net asset account balances.

What is a summary entry?

A "summary entry" refers to a specific type of journal entry that consolidates multiple individual transactions into a single entry. Summary entries are often used to simplify accounting records by combining multiple transactions into one entry, making it easier to review and manage the financial data. This can be very helpful when you're importing many legacy transactions into your MonkeyPod!

Which summary entries should I prepare?

We recommend migrating your accounting to MonkeyPod at the start of a fiscal year. So, let's say your fiscal year starts July 1 and you have decided to make your official MonkeyPod bookkeeping start date July 1, 2024. We recommend bringing in the last year's transactions as 12 monthly summary entries and any years prior to that as annual entries.

For example, you'd prepare monthly summary entries for all accounts as of:

• June 30, 2024
• May 31, 2024
• April 30, 2024
• March 31, 2024
• February 28, 2024
• January 31, 2024
• December 31, 2023
• November 30, 2023
• October 31, 2023
• September 30, 2023
• August 31, 2023
• July 31, 2023

And then create yearly summary entries for fiscal years prior to that.

What goes into each summary entry?

As described in the following section, MonkeyPod provides you with a template for your summary entries. When entering your summary data, take extra care to be sure you enter the account names exactly as they appear in your MonkeyPod chart of accounts.

Each summary entry should have only income and expense accounts. (If you are using trial balances from QuickBooks, you should remove all accounts that aren't income and expense accounts.) Use debits for expense lines and credits for income lines.

In addition to the debits and credits for each income and expense account, you can also designate Class, Grant, Tags, and Notes for each line of the summary entry.

Be sure to include a final line to balance out the summary entry: Enter either a credit or a debit for the "Legacy Transactions" account for whatever amount is necessary to make the transaction balance. This "Legacy Transactions" account is a virtual account that comes with MonkeyPod that allows you to input your summary entries without having any real accounting impact on your books

How do I create and upload my summary entries?

Follow these steps for each entry:

First, choose Finance > Enter Journal Entry from the main menu.

Enter the "Entry Date" as the first day of the relevant period and write "Summary Entry" in the memo line. If it's helpful for your record keeping, you may also add a reference number, attach a file, or link the transaction to a relationship here.

Next, select the option to "Import lines from CSV file".

The form changes to display a link to download the template, and an option to upload the completed file. Click "Download Template" and use that file to enter your transactions using the guidance provided above.

Once you have filled out your template using the income, expense, and legacy transaction accounts that are currently in your chart of accounts, then you can then upload the file here to create the journal entry.

As soon as you upload the file, the "Debits" and "Credits" sections at the bottom of the page will display the transactions to be imported. Double-check that everything looks correct, and click "Save" to save the journal entry

What if I'm changing my chart of accounts in MonkeyPod to be different from what was used before?

If you're changing your chart of accounts you'll need to make sure that the summary entries you import match the accounts that are currently in your MonkeyPod.

This means that you need to prepare a lookup table for your summary entries. For example, if your summary entry has an old account "4120: Advertising Expenses" and you've changed the account to be "4100: Marketing Expenses", then the account on your summary entries needs to be "4100: Marketing Expenses" even for those years where you had "4120: Advertising Expenses".

Frequently Asked Questions

Should we use our fiscal year or the calendar year?

You should use your fiscal year. Since we recommend making your financial transition happen at the end of a fiscal year, you'll be backfilling from there.

Should we take the monthly summary entries as cumulative or for that period?

You should take the monthly entries for that period only.

How do I enter a negative balance?

For negative values, use the opposite line type and the absolute value of the number

Can I pay someone to do this for me?

Yes! Email support@monkeypod.io for more information.

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