Government Edition (GASB Fund Accounting)

Everything you need to keep GASB-compliant books in Kantivo: fund structure setup, GASB 54 fund balance categories, the government statement suite, and adopted-budget-to-actual comparisons.

What Government Edition Does

Setting a company's reporting standard to GASB (the standard governing US state and local government accounting) changes how Kantivo thinks about your books. Instead of one business with one ledger, your organization becomes a collection of funds — separate self-balancing ledgers, each with legal limits on how its money may be used. Kantivo is aimed at the small-government segment:

• Water boards, fire districts, cemetery districts, and other special-purpose districts
• Villages and small towns whose finance office is one clerk and a part-time treasurer
• Community associations that separate an operating fund from a bylaw-restricted reserve
• Any public body that wants proper GASB statements without buying a municipal ERP

Configuring Your GASB Entity

1. Add a new company and enter your entity's legal name and EIN
2. Under Reporting Standard, select Government / Special District (GASB)
3. Leave the default chart of accounts option enabled — Kantivo installs the governmental chart automatically (five fund balance accounts, revenue sources, expenditures by function)
4. After saving, open the new Funds page in the sidebar and choose Set Up Fund Structure

Your first company becomes the primary fund — for most governments, that's the General Fund. Additional funds attach to the same fund group.

Fund Types Explained

When you create a fund you assign it one of nine GASB fund types, in three families. The family drives the accounting:

A typical two-fund water district illustrates the difference: its General Fund (governmental) collects property taxes and reports Fund Balance, while its Water Enterprise Fund (proprietary) bills ratepayers and reports Net Position. Kantivo seeds a different chart of accounts for each family so both come out formatted correctly.

Creating a Fund

1. Sidebar → Funds → + New Fund
2. Give it a name your board will recognize ("Streets Fund," "Sewer Enterprise Fund")
3. Select the fund type — this picks the chart of accounts template
4. Create

The fund arrives as a complete, independent ledger already joined to your fund group, with fiscal-year settings inherited from the primary fund so all funds close on the same calendar.

Moving Between Funds

Kantivo's company picker understands funds: each one carries a 🏛️ badge naming its GASB type, and a View Combined — All Funds shortcut opens the government-wide reports. Inside a fund, everything works the way Kantivo always works — registers, reconciliation, reports — scoped to that fund's ledger.

The Five Fund Balance Categories

GASB Statement 54 requires governmental-fund equity to be reported by spendability constraint rather than as one lump:

When you add equity accounts of your own, the account form shows a Fund Balance Classification selector so each account lands in the right category on the disclosure report. Proprietary funds show the three Net Position choices instead.

Single-Fund Balance Sheet

On the Funds page, every fund row has a Balance Sheet button. Governmental funds get a Balance Sheet ending in Fund Balance; proprietary funds get a Statement of Net Position. Mid-year surplus that hasn't been through year-end close appears as its own "Excess of Revenues Over Expenditures" line, so the statement always balances.

All Funds, Side by Side

Government Reports → Balance Sheet by Fund lays every fund out in columns with a total at the right — the classic combined presentation from municipal audit reports. Rows line up across funds by account number.

Revenues & Expenditures Statement

Formally the Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balance — the governmental answer to an income statement. Pick a fund and period; Kantivo lists revenues by source and expenditures by function, computes the excess or deficiency, and reconciles beginning fund balance to ending.

Government-Wide Rollup

Government Reports → Combined Statement — All Funds runs the revenues-and-expenditures statement across the entire government, one column per fund plus a total. This is the monthly board-packet report: every fund's activity, one page, and its beginning/ending balances tie back to the Balance Sheet by Fund.

GASB 54 Disclosure Report

Government Reports → Fund Balance by Classification produces the matrix your auditor needs for the fund balance footnote: the five categories as rows, your funds as columns. Unclosed current-year activity is broken out on its own line so totals reconcile exactly.

Comparing Budget to Actuals

Because a government's budget is legally adopted, the comparison against actuals is a core statement:

1. In the fund, open Budgets and enter the adopted amounts by account for the fiscal year
2. Run Government Reports → Budget vs Actual for the fund and period

Every line reports Budgeted, Actual, Variance, and Variance %, plus a color status: expenditure accounts turn 🟡 at 90% consumed and 🔴 past 100%; revenue accounts turn 🔴 when collections lag budget by more than 10%. One click exports the whole table to CSV for the board packet.

What Enterprise Will Add

The Government Pro tier ships today's feature set. A Government Enterprise tier is under construction for entities that need the complete GASB-34 audit toolchain:

• Purchase-order encumbrances that reserve appropriation the day the PO is cut
• Journalized budgets — Estimated Revenues and Appropriations posted to the GL, amendments tracked
• Modified accrual revenue recognition for governmental funds
• Accrual-converted government-wide statements with the fund-balance-to-net-position reconciliation schedule

Ask to be notified when Enterprise releases.