NT, but bookkeeping ??. Anyone involved w church receipting?

[schirallicpa]

In our little church, we take the collection to the back office right after church, record the donations, add up the cash, and drop the deposit at the bank on the way home. But we are pretty small.

I have a couple clients now that are churches and they are putting each and every receipt into quickbooks. Seems terribly cumbersome, and makes for a huge pile of data. I have another excel template that I am trying to get them to use. But excel can turn into a "dragon" that just gets too big too.

Also - they do not count the cash or record the donations until Tuesday. So after church, they are putting the collection in a fire-safe box in the church, then taking care of it Tuesday when they come in. They have activities after church and have a hard time finding a private area to count money. And they get a lot of donations. A ton of checks each Sunday. No one wants to take it home on Sunday. (A year ago when I started with these guys, they were putting it in the trunk of the treasurers car til Tuesday!)

I know there's a ton of internal control problems here. That's not entirely my concern.

I am curious as to any other methods of handling this situation each week. Whats the best way to collect donor's info? Is there a better program than QuickBooks, but as simple as?

Any thoughts or suggestions on this would be appreciated.

[JohnH]

Quickbooks does a terrible job of tracking contributions.

It's cumbersome and sloppy.

This is true even for the Non-Profit version.

Here are three possible choices - each has its strengths and weaknesses.

1) Elexio - my church uses this one

2) Fellowship One - my church is considering changing to this one

3) Power Church - I have limited experience with this one, but it seems to have lots of features.

[Jack from Ohio]

^{In our little church, we take the collection to the back office right after church, record the donations, add up the cash, and drop the deposit at the bank on the way home. But we are pretty small.}

^{I have a couple clients now that are churches and they are putting each and every receipt into quickbooks. Seems terribly cumbersome, and makes for a huge pile of data. I have another excel template that I am trying to get them to use. But excel can turn into a "dragon" that just gets too big too.}

^{Also - they do not count the cash or record the donations until Tuesday. So after church, they are putting the collection in a fire-safe box in the church, then taking care of it Tuesday when they come in. They have activities after church and have a hard time finding a private area to count money. And they get a lot of donations. A ton of checks each Sunday. No one wants to take it home on Sunday. (A year ago when I started with these guys, they were putting it in the trunk of the treasurers car til Tuesday!)}

^{I know there's a ton of internal control problems here. That's not entirely my concern.}

^{I am curious as to any other methods of handling this situation each week. Whats the best way to collect donor's info? Is there a better program than QuickBooks, but as simple as?}

^{Any thoughts or suggestions on this would be appreciated.}

Check your messages.

[Dave T]

Our church has used Power Church for a number of years and it works very well for tracking contributions.

It also has a number of other financial features but we use it primarily for donations. The posting source is the prenumbered offering envelopes we provide to our members.

Dave T

[Lion EA]

Our church (Episcopal) uses a software recommended by the national church that prepares reports needed for the Diocese, etc, by ACSTechnologies.. It's not especially user friendly, but has a monthly support/license fee so lots of good help available. Check with your national or regional church organization for recommendations.

[Margaret CPA in OH]

I set up our church on Powerchurch about 20 years ago the first time I became treasurer. We use the membership feature and full accounting as well as the contributions module. I really like nearly everything about it.

My church is also small but we 'religiously' have 2 people meet right after the service in the church office and count cash and add up the checks. Each signs the count sheet then they go together to make the deposit into the night depository. The recording of the contributions is done later in the week taking the amounts from the envelopes duly marked.

Just last week we began trying to record on a prefilled spreadsheet with names and numbers generated from Powerchurch. It lists all the names and envelope numbers. All we need to do is enter the amount and fund number. It's great to have the total at the bottom which we attach to the deposit ticket as have a copy ourselves. It seems fewer people are using envelopes these days so this way we don't need them for the recording after the deposit.

[Pacun]

1) Elexio - my church uses this one

2) Fellowship One - my church is considering changing to this one

3) Power Church - I have limited experience with this one, but it seems to have lots of features.

JohnH, this time you tricked me... I thought number 3 was going to read:

3) Power Church - my church used to use it.

[MAMalody]

I have found that many small churches are not able to afford some of the more sophisticated (read that expensive) softward for their contribution records. I have a small church that has developed a simple excel master form that will record the contributions of each member for the entire year. A small church may only have 20 or 30 records they need to keep. They do use contribution envelopes. The treasure simply, once a month, completes the member/family contribution record from the envelopes. Takes her about 30 minutes. They (two unrelated people) count the cash/checks on Sunday after services in a locked office and deposit the monies in the drop box at the bank on Sunday. The total offering is entered into their bookkeeping software, I think it is Quicken. and they are off to writiing checks on Wednesday. It takes them about 15 minutes on Sunday and the Treasurer 30 minutes once a month. Of course, this system would become unwieldly once church attendance was around 100 or so. Power church is a good system to use for churches in this range or larger.

[JohnH]

Mike: Maybe not so unwieldy at an attendance figure of around 100 or so. In some churches, that would still only work out to around 20-30 giving records they would have to keep. :(

[JohnH]

JohnH, this time you tricked me... I thought number 3 was going to read:

3) Power Church - my church used to use it.

Just keeping you on your toes.

We need to stay alert this time of year...

[MAMalody]

Mike: Maybe not so unwieldy at an attendance figure of around 100 or so. In some churches, that would still only work out to around 20-30 giving records they would have to keep.

If you think this might work in your situation, let me know and I can get a copy of the master form so you won't have to reinvent the wheel.

[Abby Normal]

My meeting was doing it by hand before I took over. Put it on QuickBooks and it worked like a charm for me. Yes, I did a Sales Receipt for every member for every donation. Quakers don't pass a collection plate so most members mail in a check quarterly, semiannually or annually so the volume was not that high.

[chadlonetree]

More than half of my clients are ministers or churches. For a small church, Aplos is the the best... Not even close. http://www.aplossoftware.com/