Best Practices for Deferred Income

This article covers recommended practices for processing, sequencing, and reconciling deferred income in iMIS. Following these guidelines will minimize timing discrepancies in your GL Exports and ensure your deferred income balances remain accurate and reconcilable at month end.

For background on how iMIS calculates transfer entries and how backdated GL Export runs affect transfer timing, see Processing Deferred Income Transactions. For an explanation of what the Deferred Income Audit Trail report does and does not show, see Deferred Income Reports.

Understanding how to reconcile Deferred Income at Month End

The Deferred Income Audit Trail report is not the recommended primary reconciliation tool (see its limitations in Deferred Income Reports). Instead, compare the Remaining subtotal for each Deferred Income Account on the Deferred Income Matrix Summary report to the corresponding General Ledger control account balance for the same deferred income account at month end. These two amounts should always match.

If they do not match, the first thing to investigate is whether any manual journal entries were posted directly to a deferred income account from outside of iMIS. This is the most common cause of discrepancies and should be avoided.

Saving a month-end PDF

Since there is no way to run the Deferred Income Matrix Summary report for a prior period, it is important to save a copy immediately after processing the last GL Export for the month.

Do the following

After completing the last GL Export for the month, run the Deferred Income Matrix Summary report (Reports > Accounting reports).
Save the report as a PDF.
Rename the file to include the month, year, and GL Export Run number.

Example: DeferredIncomeMatrix_Feb2026_Run415.pdf.

Once the GL Export file has been imported and posted to your General Ledger, compare the Remaining subtotals for each deferred income account to the corresponding GL control account balances.
If the amounts do not match, investigate before closing the month.

Best Practice 1: Never run a GL Export spanning more than one month

When deferred income is involved, transfer entries are calculated and dated according to the GL Export's End Date. If a single export spans two or more months, for example, February 15 through March 15, only one set of transfer entries will be created, all dated at the end of the export period. This means February's deferred income transfers will be dated in March rather than February, making your month-end balances harder to reconcile.

Instead, split any multi-month date range into separate runs: one run through the last day of the earlier month, and a separate run starting the first day of the next month. This keeps each month's deferred income transfer entries cleanly dated within the correct period.

Example

To export transactions from February 15 through March 15, 2026, create two separate GL Export runs:

Run 1: February 15, 2026 through February 28, 2026
Run 2: March 1, 2026 through March 15, 2026

With this approach, February deferred income transfers are dated February 28 and March deferred income transfers are dated March 15, exactly as intended.

Best Practice 2: Minimize backdating GL Export runs

Backdated GL Export runs, which are runs with an End Date earlier than the most recently processed GL Export's End Date, have their transfer entries blocked to prevent reversals of already-posted entries. This is correct and expected behavior, but it means the transfers for those runs will not appear until the next eligible forward-dated export runs in catch-up mode.

While backdated exports are sometimes unavoidable (for example, picking up a few late-posted batches from the prior month), try to process as many of the prior month's GL Exports as possible before running the first GL Export for the new month. The fewer backdated runs there are, the smaller and less frequent your catch-up entries will be, and the easier your Deferred Income Audit Trail report will be to interpret.

Best Practice 3: Avoid manual journal entries to Deferred Income Accounts

Posting manual journal entries directly to a deferred income GL account (from outside of iMIS) will cause the Deferred Income Matrix balances to fall out of sync with the corresponding GL control account balances. The Deferred Income Matrix has no way of knowing about entries posted outside of iMIS, so the Remaining subtotals on the Matrix Summary report will no longer match your GL.

If an adjustment to a deferred income balance is needed, work with your iMIS administrator to determine the correct method within iMIS, such as processing a cancellation, reversal, or adjustment transaction with the appropriate begin date and term ( rather than posting directly to the GL account).

Tip: A common scenario that causes this issue: running a new month's GL Export before all the previous month's batches have been posted and exported. If you know late batches are expected, wait until they are posted before running the first export for the new month whenever feasible.

GL Export sequencing and transfer timing

Scenario	What happens to transfer entries
GL Export run for current or future month	Transfer entries calculated and created normally
GL Export run for a prior month (backdated)	Transfer entries blocked — no entries created for that run
Next GL Export run with End Date matching or exceeding the latest End Date	Transfer entries created in catch-up mode — covers all blocked periods
Audit Trail report shows transfers that did not appear in a given month	Likely explained by backdated exports; check the following month's export for a larger-than-usual transfer amount