'Transactions exist with dates prior to the present cycle' when running the FACTS edit Report

What the warning message means:
This message occurs due to transactions being in in the transactions tab under reconciliation having a FACTS Confirm date that is prior to the beginning date of the current cycle.
This means that those old transactions were not posted in a FACTS cycle and are still sitting in transactions.
For reconciliation purposes, FACTS will only consider transactions whose dates fall within the cycle begin and end dates you are reconciling.

What you should do about this warning:
You should investigate and fix this issue before you post FACTS. There are different reasons why this may occur, and as a result, different methods for rectifying.  

It is important that you investigate and fix the issue because FACTS allocates the earnings based on the FACTS balance records for each Fund (not GL balances). If there are Transactions with dates prior to the current cycle, FACTS balance records have not been updated and as a result, the current cycle allocations and possibly even prior allocations could be inaccurate.  

Finding all old transactions:
You need to find these old Transactions and determine what action should be taken. To find old transactions, click on the Transactions tab and change the Sort By to Confirm Date.  The oldest Transactions will appear on the top of the data grid.  Look at the Transactions to determine what they are and why they are there.

Analyze old transactions:
To easily analyze a lot of Transactions at once, click on Reports and run the Transaction Entry Listing. Select the Pool or Invest Account ID along with Confirm Dates from the oldest through the end of February in our example.   Then on the Sorting tab sort and subtotal based on Confirm Date or Description, whichever is more helpful for analysis.  You can then check each subtotal and/or check the grand total at the bottom.  

If the subtotal(s) and grand total is $0, Transactions are of the type described above, and from the prior month, it is probably safe to change the Confirm Dates on all the transactions to the first day of the current cycle (March 1st in our example as outlined below). You can use the utility under File Maintenance called Change Confirm Dates to mass change all the dates at once being careful to select only those old transactions.

How do I change the FACTS confirm date for multiple transactions all at once?

What to do with old transactions:

Example:
For purposes of this discussion, assume that the cycle you are reconciling runs from March 1st to March 31st . The Transactions mentioned in the warning message are transactions that have Confirm Dates prior to March 1st .

Depending on the situation, you might do one or more of the following below:
  

1. Change the FACTS confirm dates of these old transactions to a date in the current cycle
 

• Many times, the Transactions are created from posting routine entries with a date before the current cycle (in this example, perhaps a date in February). Transactions of this type might be Admin Fees, Gift Adjustments, check voids, Transfers, Cash Calls, or from running Asset Rebalancing.  For most of these categories, the balances of individual Funds are changing, but the impact to the total Pool is $0.  For these you typically just need to push the Confirm Date into the current cycle so the Transactions will be included in the allocations for the current cycle.  

2. Change the FACTS confirm dates of these old transactions to the first day of the next cycle
 

• There are some instances where the Transactions may need to be changed to the first day of the next cycle.   For example, if the checking account is part of the pool, some of the unreconciled Transactions might be outstanding checks. Following our example, the Confirm Dates should be moved to April 1st and be considered again in the reconciliation of next month's cycle. Another example of Transactions that might remain unreconciled for more than a month might be Transactions associated with bank errors. It's possible it could take multiple cycles before the bank corrects the error.  

3. Un-post FACTS
 

• If you feel that the Transactions should have been included in a prior cycle, you may need to un-post FACTS, re-reconcile (so the missing Transactions are included this time), re-allocate, and re-post.  Un-posting FACTS is very easy to do since it creates all the reversing journal entries for you.  If you need to un-post more than one cycle, you have to un-post each cycle starting with the most recent and work backwards in time.  You can un-post multiple cycles within the same year all at once.  But there are usually practical limits as to how far back you should un-post.  Typically, you would not un-post any further back than the last time Fund Statements were sent.

    How to un-post a FACTS Cycle

4. Create adjusting journal entries
 

• In some instances, instead of un-posting FACTS, adjusting journal entries can be done to rectify the inaccurate allocations.  An example of this might be a Gift adjustment between two Funds in the Pool.  The net effect to the Pool is zero, but if one Fund received more earnings than the other, adjusting entries could be made to give the proper Fund the earnings and remove them from the Fund that should not have received them.  In this case, the Confirm Date on the Transactions created from the Gift Adjustment should be changed to be included in the current cycle.  

How to prevent this issue going forward:
Journal entries: When creating routine journal entries that impact FACTS and are dated in the same month for which FACTS has already been posted, you can set a FACTS Confirm Date before posting so you will not run into this issue in the future.

Admin fees: Continuing with our example, FACTS has been posted for February, but you calculate Admin Fees after posting FACTS and post them with a February GL Apply Date.  For these admin fees you can set March 1st as the Confirm Date on the entries in the set-up screen for the admin fee entries.