Fund balances and opening balances
How Psalmly computes each fund's real balance — opening balance plus everything given minus what you've spent — why setting opening balances on day one matters, the as-of date, the Unassigned bucket, and why a negative balance isn't an error.
The Fund balances card on your Finances page shows what each fund actually has on hand — not just what's moved through Psalmly, but a real balance you can read out at a board meeting. The math is one line, shown right on each row:
opening balance + everything given − what you've spent = balance
"Everything given" counts all giving to that fund — online gifts and any cash and checks you've recorded — and "spent" counts the expenses you've tagged to it. Both update the moment something is recorded.
Why opening balances matter
Here's the day-one problem: say your building fund has $8,000 sitting in the bank. If Psalmly only counted what's logged after you adopted Finances, the fund would show $0 plus whatever's happened since — which reads as broken, because it is, honestly, wrong.
Set opening balances fixes that. Click the button on the Fund balances card, pick the date your figures are true as of, and enter each fund's starting amount from your bank or your old spreadsheet. From that day forward, giving and expenses adjust the balances automatically — the one-time figure anchors everything to reality.
It's worth doing in your first sitting with Finances. Until you do, treat the balances as "logged since we started" rather than money on hand.
The as-of date
The Balances as of date does one simple thing: giving and expenses from that date onward count toward the balance, and anything earlier is considered part of the opening figure. So if you set balances as of June 1, a gift recorded in May doesn't double-count — it's already inside the number you typed.
You can come back and adjust opening balances later without touching anything you've logged — the entries stay exactly as they are; only the anchor moves.
The Unassigned / general bucket
Not every dollar belongs to a named fund, and that's fine. Giving that isn't designated and expenses you don't tag land in Unassigned / general, which gets its own row on the card. If most of your church's money is simply "the general budget", letting it live in Unassigned is a perfectly good way to run things.
Negative balances are normal
A fund can legitimately dip below zero — you spent from the building fund ahead of a pledge drive, or general expenses ran ahead of giving this month. Psalmly shows a negative balance plainly, without alarm colors or warnings, because for a small church it's a season, not an emergency. If a number genuinely surprises you, the expense ledger's fund filter shows you exactly what was spent from where; see Tracking expenses.
Balances on the page vs. the report
The card on your Finances page always shows balances as of today. The board report shows them as of the end of the reporting period you chose — so a report for June shows where each fund stood on June 30, even if you pull it in mid-July. Same math, different "as of". See The board report and exports.