User Support Forum

At the moment we currently have four different funds. Each fund has its own checkbook.
01 - General
02 - Missions
03 - Benevolence
04 - Youth

We have a relatively small church with not a lot of activity on everything but the general account. Our missions chair person is retiring in December. The board is considering options. They would like me to take over the missions checkbook as well as the general. I have several questions in that regard.

The first is, is it really necessary to have a separate missions checkbook? The missions committee writes 15 checks per month. Of those, all but a couple could be switched to an automatic monthly payment system (which I would prefer.)

If we were to try to merge the missions account back into the general checking, what would be the best way to accomplish this? And, is it recommended?

Could the same missionary account numbers be used just on the -01 fund instead of the -02 fund? Then they would show up on the main report instead of printing out a separate missionary report...

The church currently tithes to the missions account every month and any contributions designated for missions are also given to them. (Checks are written from the general account and deposited into the missions account.)

It feels like a lot of extra work that could somehow be streamlined. I just don't know what it could or should look like...or how to make the transition!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

gospeltab wrote:At the moment we currently have four different funds. Each fund has its own checkbook.
01 - General
02 - Missions
03 - Benevolence
04 - Youth

We have a relatively small church with not a lot of activity on everything but the general account. Our missions chair person is retiring in December. The board is considering options. They would like me to take over the missions checkbook as well as the general. I have several questions in that regard.

The first is, is it really necessary to have a separate missions checkbook? The missions committee writes 15 checks per month. Of those, all but a couple could be switched to an automatic monthly payment system (which I would prefer.)

If we were to try to merge the missions account back into the general checking, what would be the best way to accomplish this? And, is it recommended?

It makes no sense for a separate checking account when you can maintain the separate funds in Powerchurch and use only one account.

Could the same missionary account numbers be used just on the -01 fund instead of the -02 fund? Then they would show up on the main report instead of printing out a separate missionary report...

The church currently tithes to the missions account every month and any contributions designated for missions are also given to them. (Checks are written from the general account and deposited into the missions account.)

It feels like a lot of extra work that could somehow be streamlined. I just don't know what it could or should look like...or how to make the transition!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

You can do that, or you can just keep the Missions Fund separate, but use the ONE checking account. Powerchurch will maintain the amounts in each fund, but everything goes to one checking account. Then all you'd have to do is setup the contributions to point to the 02- fund's income account, it would go into the one checking and there wouldn't have to be any transfers.

In this way you keep the separation for full accountability, but you only need maintain one checking account. Frankly, you could do the same with the other funds. Everything in one checking account, but each fund with its own fund balance, and own Income & Expense report.

I guess I am not clear on how it would work to have all expenses paid out of the general checkbook but track correctly in the separate funds...

The board is definitely leaning towards totally closing down the missions checkbook and having everything go through the general fund. If the checkbook is closed and I am writing all of the missions checks from the general fund account, how would it be posted in accounts payable?

We write manual checks for everything. So, would the maintain manual checks form first line be:

01-1110 general checking credit
02-6142 expense account debit

I know this shouldn't be that complicated, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around it!

gospeltab wrote:I guess I am not clear on how it would work to have all expenses paid out of the general checkbook but track correctly in the separate funds...

The board is definitely leaning towards totally closing down the missions checkbook and having everything go through the general fund. If the checkbook is closed and I am writing all of the missions checks from the general fund account, how would it be posted in accounts payable?

It would post to the Missions Fund checking, and missions fund expenses. However the mission fund checking would be 02-1110

We write manual checks for everything. So, would the maintain manual checks form first line be:

01-1110 general checking credit
02-6142 expense account debit

I know this shouldn't be that complicated, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around it!

Nope it would be 02-1110-

You just add the 1110- account to Fund 02 by heading to the Maintain Chart of Accounts function and find the 1110-000 account. Click on the Add Acct to Fund button, and select Fund 02 to add the main checking account to the 02 fund.

Assuming that the current Mission Fund checking account is 02-1112, you'd do this:

Close the mission checking account at the bank, and deposit the funds into the general checking. Again, lets say that that checking account has a balance of 500.00. You would then take those funds and deposit them into the General Checking. However, you would create a transactions in Funds Accounting as follows:

02-1112 CREDIT 500.00 (this empties that account of funds)
02-1110 DEBIT 500.00 (this adds the funds to the 1110-000 checking)

This transaction would show on the bank statements as the account closing balance transfer/check/??? on the old mission checking, and a deposit on the general checking statement.

Now when you create checks for the Mission Fund you would use the main checking account. The system will then track the funds in the Mission Fund separately from the General. This way you have the same transparency of funds and the congregation can see that the money they're contributing goes to Missions, and it not 'lost' in the General funds.

When you then write the check, you'd write:

02-1110-000 CREDIT 100.00 (Checking)
02-6142-000 DEBIT 100.00 (Expense)

This actually saves you A LOT of time and energy adding the expense accounts to the General Fund. When you do the reconciliation of the bank statement, all your checks will be found on the one statement.

Then Mission Contributions currently assigned to an 02 fund income account will still show up there, the system will properly reflect those when the Contributions are posted to Funds Accounting.

As far as the congregation's "tithe" to missions, I'm assuming that this is 10% of all contributions income. You have a number of ways to cover this. One is to do the way you're doing it now, but instead of writing a check, just create a Fund Accounting Transaction to cover the internal move.

Another way is that you can go into Contributions -> Setup -> Maintain List of Contribution Funds then change the normal Contribution Fund for "Tithes & Offerings" (or whatever you use for normal Sunday giving) and on the Accounting Tab, create an automatic transfer of 10% from that Contribution Fund to the Mission's Contribution Fund, so the system will automatically create the 'tithe' without any other human intervention.

As you can see, you have options.

There's a Quick Menu item in Fund Accounting - Merge Accounting Funds - what does that exactly do?

I have five funds set up now, but for years past the former treasurer did everything with just one. It got pretty messy about 7 years ago as we then consolidated 3 congregations together. so he just stopped using the 01 Fund and started fresh with a new 02 Fund for the new congregation.

So now I have established besides this 02 Operations Fund an 03 Benevolence, 04 Capital Improvement, and 05 Pastor's Sole Discretion Funds. There are mutual funds and checking accounts across them all, but I have it pretty well tuned up. I just want to 'delete' the old 01 Fund, and everything will be fine.

Unfortunately, there are some adjustments to Net Assets that we can't quite explain or track down from 2009 and 2010 in the 01 Fund. Probably some resets were made when we started over in the 02 Fund. Can we just merge 01 and 02 together and be done with it? Or do we have to pull out the records from 2009 and 10 from the attic and find out what we were adjusting at the time?

Mark Mediary wrote:There's a Quick Menu item in Fund Accounting - Merge Accounting Funds - what does that exactly do?

From the built-in help (F1 key):

Powerchurch Plus Help wrote:If you need to combine two funds together, there is a utility called Merge Accounting Funds. This will change all references in the PowerChurch Plus database from accounts in one fund to another. If accounts exist in both funds, the accounts will be merged. Their balances, budgets, and transaction histories will be combined. Accounts used in the setup of other modules, like Accounts Payable Vendors, Payroll Items, and Contribution Funds will also be affected by this process.

What I would to is do a complete backup using the Powerchurch backup utility, then do the merge. See what the results are, if they don't look what you expected, just restore the old data. Or, if you use the program locally (not the online version) install the program to a personal computer, and then restore a current backup, then you can play without worrying that you'll mess something up.

Mark Mediary wrote:I have five funds set up now, but for years past the former treasurer did everything with just one. It got pretty messy about 7 years ago as we then consolidated 3 congregations together. so he just stopped using the 01 Fund and started fresh with a new 02 Fund for the new congregation.

So now I have established besides this 02 Operations Fund an 03 Benevolence, 04 Capital Improvement, and 05 Pastor's Sole Discretion Funds. There are mutual funds and checking accounts across them all, but I have it pretty well tuned up. I just want to 'delete' the old 01 Fund, and everything will be fine.

Unfortunately, there are some adjustments to Net Assets that we can't quite explain or track down from 2009 and 2010 in the 01 Fund. Probably some resets were made when we started over in the 02 Fund. Can we just merge 01 and 02 together and be done with it? Or do we have to pull out the records from 2009 and 10 from the attic and find out what we were adjusting at the time?

Actually, the IRS does not require you to maintain records past 7 years, so I'd just wait until 2018, then delete the old Fund. Since you're not using the 01 fund, why bother with it.

Cool, I hope. But when I open the local desktop version 11.5 it doesn't have that menu choice in the Quick Menu. So the feature was added in v. 12, right? That's interesting, but wait, there's more...

Just tried to restore today's online backup onto the local version and got stopped because I don't have 12 on the local machine. My October and November backups restore just fine. I may have a meltdown. What can you do to keep me from jumping off the 20th story ledge? JK but don't think I'm okay with that. I did the Mnt. Rel. Update on the local copy, and still get the error message. I have several adjustments and 'fixes' I need to try out on the local copy before I trust their unintended consequences will be acceptable.

Mark

Mark Mediary wrote:Cool, I hope. But when I open the local desktop version 11.5 it doesn't have that menu choice in the Quick Menu. So the feature was added in v. 12, right? That's interesting, but wait, there's more...

Just tried to restore today's online backup onto the local version and got stopped because I don't have 12 on the local machine. My October and November backups restore just fine. I may have a meltdown. What can you do to keep me from jumping off the 20th story ledge? JK but don't think I'm okay with that. I did the Mnt. Rel. Update on the local copy, and still get the error message. I have several adjustments and 'fixes' I need to try out on the local copy before I trust their unintended consequences will be acceptable.

Mark

You can't restore a v12 database to a v11.55 system, the tables were changed. And, as you noticed, the merge option is new to v12.

What I would do is restore the last 11.55 backup you have before you moved to Powerchurch Online, and use that to play with. As you said, this fund has been around for a few years, so you can play with that.

The alternative is to do a backup of the database in Powerchurch Online, do your testing, then restore the backup.

You'd need to do a full backup, because if you're going to test merging the funds, it affects Contributions, Accoutns Receivable, etc.