User Guide — AutoFund Accounting

1. The dashboard

The dashboard is your at-a-glance view of every fund. The fund-activity matrix lists each fund down the side and recent months across the top, so you can see how each fund moved over the year.

Reading the matrix

Beginning balance — where each fund stood at the start of the window.
Monthly columns — each fund's net activity that month.
Ending balance — the projected balance after the activity shown.
Use the "Show" selector to widen or narrow how many months appear; beginning and ending balances move with it.

Drill down

Click any fund to open its sub-ledger — the individual transactions behind a month's figure, straight from QuickBooks.

The dashboard is fast because it reads from a saved snapshot rather than calling QuickBooks every time. When the data is being refreshed in the background you'll see a quiet "Updating from QuickBooks…" badge — the table stays visible and updates itself when the refresh finishes.

Illustrative figures — The fund-activity matrix

Illustrative figures — Drilling into a fund's transactions

2. Structuring your funds

Before mapping anything, it helps to know what a correct structure looks like. These are the rules your fund mapping should satisfy — AutoFund checks the ones it can see and warns you right in the mapping editor (a class shared by two funds, a class on your General Fund, a fund left without a class), but your chart of accounts and classes are yours to set up in QuickBooks.

R1 — Map each fund's activity class to its net asset balance account

When mapping a class, map the class that tracks each individual restricted fund's activity to that fund's net asset balance account on the balance sheet.

R2 — One class per fund, always

There must be a separate class for each and every fund. A Cemetery fund requires a Cemetery class tracking all cemetery activity; a Capital Improvement fund requires a Capital Improvement class.

R3 — Designated funds follow the same rules as restricted funds

Restricted means the donor imposed the restriction; designated means your finance council or governing board (a parish finance council, for example) set money aside for a purpose. Each designated fund needs its own class tracking its activity, exactly like a restricted fund.

R4 — Unrestricted funds need no adjustment

Anything not restricted or designated does not need its fund balance adjusted. QuickBooks, Online and Desktop alike, closes it into retained earnings and the general fund by default.

R5 — Never assign a class to unrestricted fund net assets

Do not assign a class to unrestricted fund net assets or fund balances. Unrestricted activity closes naturally to retained earnings and the general fund, and mapping it would double-count.

Restricted or designated? The difference is who imposed the restriction: a restricted fund was restricted by the donor; a designated fund was set aside by your finance council or governing board. Both kinds get their own class and their own equity account — only truly unrestricted money needs neither.

The next section covers the mechanics — where the mapping editor lives, who can change it, and what happens when you do.

3. Editing your fund mapping

Your fund mapping tells AutoFund which QuickBooks class belongs to which fund-balance equity account. You set it during onboarding, and you can edit it any time from the Fund Mapping tab owner only. For what a correct mapping looks like — which funds need a class, and which must not have one — see Structuring your funds.

What the mapping needs in QuickBooks

Every Designated or Restricted fund needs its own equity account in your chart of accounts, alongside the class that tracks its activity. That account is what each month's adjustment moves the fund's net income into — without one, there is nothing for the class to be mapped to, and setup can't be finished. AutoFund maps to those accounts; it can't create them, so add any missing ones in QuickBooks and they appear here after your next chart sync.

The equalizer account

One account is your equalizer — usually your general or unrestricted fund. Each month's adjustment moves every restricted fund's activity out of the equalizer and into that fund, so the equalizer is where the "leftover" general activity naturally stays. You choose it here.

Unmapped funds

Any class you haven't mapped to an equity account simply isn't adjusted — its activity stays in the general fund until you map it. Map a new fund by matching its class to its equity account and saving; the change takes effect on your next adjustment.

Members can view the mapping but can't change it. Ask an owner to update the mapping if a fund is missing or pointed at the wrong account.

Illustrative figures — Editing your fund mapping

4. Your monthly adjustments

The Adjustments tab is where AutoFund earns its keep. Each month you build one balanced journal entry that moves every fund's net activity into its own equity account, review it, and post it to QuickBooks.

Building a run

Pick the month and AutoFund pulls your Profit & Loss by class and lays out, fund by fund, how each one reconciles:

ending balance = prior-month ending + net income

Capital purchases & debt repayment

Two optional inputs let you move cash transfers that don't show up in the P&L: Debt repayment (principal a fund paid down) and, for organizations that depreciate, Capital purchases (fixed assets a fund bought). Enter a figure and the entry moves that amount with the fund.

The Capital purchases input only appears if your organization is set to depreciate fixed assets (Settings). If you expense purchases instead, it's hidden — there's nothing to transfer. Changing that setting shows or hides the column on new runs; a past run that already carried capital purchases keeps showing them so its math still reconciles.

Preview, post, and drafts

Preview the journal entry — debits and credits, with the single netted general-fund offset — before anything leaves the app.
Post to QuickBooks owner only pushes the entry into your books. AutoFund refuses to post an entry that doesn't balance.
An entry you haven't posted stays a draft you can revise.
Export to Excel to download exactly what's on screen for your records.

The guided tour

The first time you open an adjustment, a short welcome tour walks the table column by column — where each fund's beginning balance comes from, what Income and Expenses cover, and worked examples for the two amounts above that you enter yourself. It runs once; afterwards the Take the tour button beside the page title replays it whenever you want. It is fully keyboard-operable: Tab cycles the card's buttons and Escape closes it.

Illustrative figures — Building the monthly adjustment

Illustrative figures — Reviewing before posting to QuickBooks

5. Fund ledgers & exports

Select a fund on an adjustment run to review its transaction detail. Switch between a grouped P&L view and a date-sorted Ledger view, or export the active view to Excel. Refresh reads the connector again; it does not write.

An amber tie-out message means live detail differs from the run's saved snapshot. Rebuild an unpushed run before posting. Owners may move a supported transaction to another fund Class after accepting the warning; that changes the transaction in QuickBooks and AutoFund cannot undo it. Members remain read-only.

This page carries its own short welcome tour, separate from the adjustment page's: the two views, the freshness stamp, the export, and exactly what the Class dropdown does to your books. It runs on your first visit here and stays available from the Take the tour button beside the page title.

Illustrative figures — Fund transaction detail and export

6. Reports

The Reports tab gives you fund-oriented views of your books — for a board packet, an audit, or your own review — reading the same QuickBooks data behind your adjustments.

Fund Profit & Loss and Fund Ledger for a single fund over a period you choose.
An All-Funds Summary and a Statement of Activity across every fund.
Flexible periods — this month, last month, a fiscal quarter or year, or a custom date range.
Export to Excel for any report, and save a report's settings to re-run later.

Every report is read-only — running or exporting one never changes your books — so every member of your organization can use them.

7. Automation

When your connector supports automated runs, an owner can enable Automation in Settings and choose a day from 1 through 28. Each month AutoFund prepares the prior month's run.

Hold for review waits for capital-purchase and debt-principal inputs.
Treat missing inputs as zero lets an otherwise eligible balanced run continue.

Connection, subscription, mapping, balance, duplicate-push, and stale-data safeguards still apply. A scheduled run is not proof that a provider write completed; check its status in Adjustments.

8. Roles & access

The role model is under review. Owner/member behavior below is the current observed implementation, not an approved long-term capability contract.

Owner — full access. Owners connect and disconnect QuickBooks, edit the fund mapping, post adjustments, manage billing, configure automation, and control support access.
Member — the same screens, read-only. Members can view the dashboard, mapping, adjustments, and reports, but can't change the books or settings.

There is no self-service invitation or team-management workflow today. Contact support for an explicitly reviewed account request and never share credentials.

9. Settings

The Settings tab is home to everything about your organization and your account.

Organization

Your organization's name, time zone, and fiscal-year start owner only.
Whether you depreciate or expense fixed assets — this controls the Capital purchases input on adjustments (see "Your monthly adjustments") owner only.

QuickBooks connection

See whether QuickBooks is connected, sync your chart and classes on demand, or disconnect owner only.

Automation & support access

When your connector supports automated runs, an owner chooses the monthly posting day and whether missing inputs hold for review or count as zero. Owners can also grant support full access for seven days and revoke it sooner; without a grant, support remains read-only.

Your profile & appearance

Update your own name, email, and password from your profile. You can switch between light and dark mode any time using the toggle in the navigation bar — your choice is remembered.

Illustrative figures — Organization, automation, connection, and support settings

10. Help & account

Help contains this printable guide, the fund-accounting guide, a support-request form, and a feature-request form. Include the screen, period, expected result, and visible error. Never include passwords, connector tokens, payment details, or signed support URLs.

Your profile controls your own name, email, password, appearance, and account deletion. Password and deletion actions require confirmation. Export anything you must retain and contact support before deletion when ownership or retention is uncertain.

11. Billing

The Billing tab shows your current plan and subscription status, and it's how you make any billing change.

Switch plans between monthly and annual owner only.
Update your payment method through Stripe's secure billing portal owner only — your card details stay with Stripe.
Download your invoices and receipts.

Live billing is not yet release-certified. The app's Billing status is the current source of truth; outbound billing email is also not yet certified. Billing stays reachable when access is lapsed so an owner can use the available recovery action.

Illustrative figures — Managing your subscription

12. Canceling

You can cancel any time from Billing owner only. There's no cancellation fee and no lock-in.

Your grace period

When you cancel, your subscription stays active through the end of the period you've already paid for — you keep full access until then. After that, the app locks to your Billing page (where you can resubscribe) but your data isn't deleted.

What happens to your QuickBooks data

Nothing changes in QuickBooks. Every journal entry AutoFund posted is a normal entry in your books — canceling doesn't remove or alter them. Your funds stay exactly as they were the last time you posted an adjustment.

Coming back

Resubscribe from Billing when that provider flow is certified. The application does not delete the organization or fund mapping merely because a subscription lapses; connector credentials may still need reauthorization before work resumes.

Still have a question this guide didn't answer? Head to Help → Contact support in the app and send us a message — we're glad to help.

Illustrative figures — Canceling and resubscribing

13. Failure & recovery

For a stalled connection, use the displayed check/retry action once; sign in again if the session expired.
For stale dashboard, report, or ledger data, preserve the timestamp and use one read-only Refresh.
Rebuild a stale adjustment; never bypass the stale guard.
After a failed or ambiguous push/reclassification, do not repeat the write. Reconcile in QuickBooks and contact support first.
Use Billing for payment-due or lapsed access; do not create a replacement organization.

Backup and restore are not yet release-certified. Do not rely on an unstated recovery point until the disaster-recovery rehearsal is accepted.

14. Release limitations

A visible screen is not the same as release certification. Live connector operations, Stripe billing, outbound email, and disaster recovery remain subject to the current release evidence. QuickBooks Desktop/Web Connector is not available for public use. Referrals are deferred and intentionally absent from this guide.

Use the latest release notice from AutoFund support before connecting real books, entering a real card, or relying on email or recovery behavior.