The contribution is then transferred, VIA AN INTERNET TRANSFER to the 03 - Savings Account as a debit and the 01 - General Account as a credit. That money is deposited into the 01 - General account as a debit, and the Handicap Bathroom as a credit. Let's follow a $100.00 contribution designated to the handicap bathroom. It requires that you have internet access to ALL the accounts. There is one "trick" to this that is outside of Powerchurch. Most of our designated items are long term, anyway, and I see nothing wrong with making interest on the monies before spending them. In the Maintain Chart of Accounts Menu item, I created a Temporarily Restricted detail account named "Handicap Bathroom," and assigned that account to be used in both the 01 - General and the 03 - Savings Accounts. What about the funds that are designated for a special project - for example, converting a large, unused janitor's closet into a handicap bathroom? Here's how I handled it: Unrestricted offerings are deposited to the General Fund. If money is designated for the Communion Fund, it is deposited to the Communion Fund. We use three bank accounts, all in one commercial bank:Ĭhecks are written out of the General Fund and the Communion Fund ONLY. That can get to be a monster - and in short order, too. I can certainly understand why you would cringe when you get specific "designated" donations for anything. Of course, you also would not use it for a Building Fund or some other big activity that you are specifically trying to raise funds for.Īt first, I was a little apprehensive about this approach, but it works beautifully! It saves a lot of time and recordkeeping. This does not apply to Missions or In and Out Contributions. If budget is depleted, then that is brought before the congregation to contribute for that cause, if it's laid on their hearts to do so. I am careful to record in PowerChurch a description, person's name, etc. If it's something that I need to track, if a lot of people are giving and we want to make sure that the individual receives full benefit of what is being given for them, I keep an excel file of who has given and how much, then also record what is paid out to them. When the person is assisted, it comes from the Member Care line item budgeted amount. The funds are recorded as a contribution and goes into the budget. A church member says they would like to help that person. Then, when you spend from the budget and charge it to the line item, it is a true reflection of where you are at in your budget for that activity.Īs an example, we have Member Care for any church members that need assistance financially. Everything is paid from budget, so there's no need to keep track of designated funds. If someone expresses a wish to give to a specific fund, then we tell them we do not take designated funds, but we have budgeted for this event, so their contribution will go to the budget. We budget for the event, and we do not accept designated funds. Our church is using a different approach to this, which takes a whole new way of thinking - but it DOES make it easier! I'd sure like to know if there are better ways to handle donations for budgeted line items. We do that on a quarterly basis as a policy anyway. I don't like the budget reports when using budgeting in other funds.Īnother way that we've done it is to change the budget amount. We would rather have all or our budget items in one fund (our Genral Fund 01), but we do use cross fund budgeting. That means when the budgeted expenses are paid from the general fund money, we need to transfer money into the fund. We have an expense line items for those expenses paid by donations, but also have the budgeted line item in that fund too. There should be in income line item in the fund for the special donations. If it is a 'big item' with quite a bit of special giving for the item, we create a new fund. We often also create a non-budgeted income line item for the expense. Can get a little confusing trying to decide which expense line to charge it to. That can add a lot of additional line items if that happens a lot. In some cases, we have created a special matching non-budgeted expense line. But people really like to give to specific things. We cringe when we get specific donations to a budgeted line item (PowerChurch 'account'). The template makes it easy to craft a high-quality and mistakes-free document that you can easily share with your congregants.Oh yes. It highlights the important activities that you need to talk about and how the congregation grew for the past year. Have a new church and want write your first annual report? This template will be a godsend to you.
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