Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

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rclanger
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Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2022 2:57 pm

Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by rclanger »

My church is small, 58 weekly average. Our accounting/bookkeeping is a combination of PowerChurch Plus version 11.1 and Quick Books. PowerChurch has membership and giving data. Quick Books has payables and payroll. I'm not sure how much we pay for Quick Books, but I think it's 50 or more monthly.

It seems to me that PowerChurch is a proper church management, fund accounting application. Can every monetary transaction be entered and tracked using this application?

How hard would the payable and payroll data be to add to our existing PowerChurch Plus?

We just had cable installed giving us wifi. We don’t have and will not have a network. Only the secretary's is hardwired to the internet. If anybody else connects it will have to be using wifi.

I would appreciate some guidance as to how to approach getting our books straight. Got a business meeting Wednesday!

Zasalamel
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Re: Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by Zasalamel »

Can every monetary transaction be entered and tracked using this application
Yes, PowerChurch has modules for Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Payroll.
How hard would the payable and payroll data be to add to our existing PowerChurch Plus?
Once you've setup accounting, you can import the Vendor and Employee data using CSV (comma separated value) files. You can generate a template on the import screens by pressing the Save Template Button from the appropriate Import. For AP (Accounts Payable) you go to Accounting>Accounts Payable>Setup>Import Vendor Records. For PR (Payroll) you go to Accounting>Payroll>Setup>Import Employees. These imports will only bring in the records for the Vendors and Employees themselves; if you want transaction history those would need manually entered.
We don’t have and will not have a network. Only the secretary's is hardwired to the internet. If anybody else connects it will have to be using wifi.
If you have more than just the one person working on the data, it's advisable to network the setup; otherwise, the risk of user error when doing Backup/Restores is much higher. They don't all have to be hardwired, as long as they're on the same network. You can have one machine working as the Server and the rest would be Clients using the data stored on the server. The alternatives are either everyone making sure to use backups and restores, which is very easy to accidentally lose data; or PowerChurch Online, which might be more than what a church of your size would really need.

rclanger
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Re: Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by rclanger »

Thank you for your response. I am very concerned about taking the next steps needed. It just seems wasteful to pay extra for functionality we already have in one program. I asked for and received a list of churches that I could contact. I needed 3, received 20. Out of those I have been able to contact 10. Half of which use all or most features of PowerChurch. The others do as we do and use membership and donations.

Zasalamel
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Re: Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by Zasalamel »

Networking setup has no additional cost, it's just a little extra work, and can support as many users as you want. Once setup there's functionally no difference in how you use it than using the program standalone, with the important exception being the data shared across all users. Users can still connect via wifi so long as the wifi is on the same network. You can always call into PowerChurch for assistance setting it up at (800) 486-1800. If you utilize all of the features available in your current version of PowerChurch, you could actually save money by doing away with QuickBooks

NeilZ
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Re: Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by NeilZ »

Zasalamel wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:12 pm
If you utilize all of the features available in your current version of PowerChurch, you could actually save money by doing away with QuickBooks
I can confirm that. I use Quickbooks to take care of the accounting for my military association. I use Quickbooks desktop non-profit edition. I received a notice that to continue with the 'subscription' which allows updates, and online banking stuff (which we don't use) we'd have to pay over $700 for the year. We don't have that kind of money to spend on software, and only update the desktop every other year or so.

Powerchurch gives you all the functionality of QB, and more, without having to pay extra for payroll, and definitely not $700 for a update subscription. PCPlus provides updates for free for at least two versions, the current one, and the preceding one. And upgraded to any new version are usually half the cost of a new installation.

It makes for good stewardship of your funds to move to one program to take care of everything.

As far as WiFi ... I'm fairly sure you'll find that the cable company installed box is a WiFi router, which is basically your network. The secretary being hardwired to the router makes it easier as that should be the 'server' computer that contains the database. As a long time user of the program I would take advantage of the assistance offered to get it setup properly on your network.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

rclanger
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Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2022 2:57 pm

Re: Should we upgrade and combine accounting data? And why?

Post by rclanger »

NeilZ wrote:
Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:52 am
It makes for good stewardship of your funds to move to one program to take care of everything.
Thanks for your thoughts, I whole heartedly agree.

I was a system admin and a programmer but that was a while ago.

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