feeling overwhelmed

[Shirley_SLF]

I am so glad for this forum. I am the secretary at our church, but have also been doing the accounting. I have had no prior experience so this last year has been quite the learining lesson. I have gotten familiar with QuickBooks but we are now switching over to PC+ since there were some clitches in QuickBooks. We did have an accountant come fix everything so I wish we would stay with that now, however, that is not the case. I have played around with the PC+ and it is just not clicking with me on how this all works. Database is fine, contributions seem ok, but setting up accounts and understanding all of that is quite overwhelming. I was supposed to have this all started the first of the year, but there was no way as I am far from ready. I am just wondering if this program is really best to do if you have accounting experience or is there really a way to understand and learn this program for someone with no experience in setting accounts up nor accounting experience. I would love any input or even someone who is able to walk me through quite a bit over the phone, just to get more familiar. I know there is tech support, but I don't want to use our 90 days with them when I have absolutely no understanding at all. I have a mock program set up right now to play around with, so it would all be hypothetical. I know this is probably alot to ask, so I understand if no one can help. Thank you for your time, sorry this was so long.
God Bless

[rookie]

I know the feeling! I just completed the Fund 01 of 18 which our church has in its system. I am upgrading from V8 to V9 which requires the COA to be uniform throughout the Funds. The prior bookkeeper mixed and matched and I am now cleaning it up. The important thing to keep in mind is PC+ is a traditional double entry accounting system unlike QuickBooks.

I would be willing to e-mail you a copy of my fund 01 to give you an idea of what a detailed on is like.

This is my first time to post on the forum and I don't know how to get the info to you. I guess I'll post and see if you answer back.

Good luck and pray a lot!

[Shirley_SLF]

Thank you so much for your reply. I would love to see a copy. This is my first time as well. I have set up an email account for this purpose.
ROLofficeOC at yahoo. I tried posting but it wouldn't let me with the email address so I re-posted in a different form hoping you could understand the email address.
Thank you again so much.
God Bless

[rookie]

Hi Shirley_slf,

I sent you the Fund 01 file to your address rolofficeoc at yahoo dot com on Wednesday. I hope you received it ok. Let me know if you did not receive it and I will try again.

Good luck.

[NeilZ]

Shirley,

what you may want to do is ask for a congregation member who is an accountant or bookeeper to help you setup the system for the first time. This is probably the best way to get the system setup.

You may also want to remove any trace of the email address you listed, as there is a way for registered forum users to contact you through the forum. Anyone can browse the forums to pull up your email address, even though you disguised it from autobot readers.

[ladavis76]

I am a new comer to the whole system. I received the demo and it seemed easy enough to understand, however, when I actually purchased the software, I was in for a huge suprise. They should really tell you before hand that you should have some background in accounting before trying to impliment this software. I previously used the ancient method of excel spreadsheets, and an envelope system from Chitwood & Chitwood. Though, not as detailed as this PC+ seems to be, it was definitely alot easier to use and keep track of. I am really stuggling. I too was suppose to start Jan. 1st. I totally missed that deadline. I am still trying for Feb. 1st.

Pray for me!

[Matt]

It definitely helps to have a basic understanding of double entry bookkeeping (i.e. debits and credits) and also a basic understanding of how the different classifications of accounts (i.e. assets, liabilities, fund balance, income, and expense) are used to build the Balance Sheet and Income and Expense Statement reports when trying to set up the Fund Accounting modules in PC+. The program does come with a chart of accounts already loaded and walks you through the process to establish the beginning balances so you can get started with little or no accounting knowledge. However, if your church wants to customize the chart of accounts, has a lot of designated funds, or wants to set up more than one accounting fund you may want to ask an accountant for assistance in doing the initial set up. Once the Fund Accounting modules are set up and the defaults established the program will create most of the accounting entries for you automatically. Shirley and ladavis76--if you are still struggling with setting up the accounting part of the program I would be happy to assist you via phone or in person, depending on where you are located. Just send me an email by clicking on the email icon below so we can work out a time to call or meet.

[Al]

Shirley

It isn't an easy thing to set up the Chart of Accounts without an accounting background. As well as asking an accountant to help, I would suggest getting several different Charts of Accounts from different Churches. That is what I did, and after comparing them with the demo set and the pre-assigned set, away I went. However, I would suggest a night-school course in basic double-entry bookkeeping will save you much mental anguish.

Take a deep breath.
Good luck.
Al

[Eden Whitehead]

Shirley and ladavis76--

Like you, I had no accounting background and only OJT bookkeeping training and found it a HUGE challenge to get set up. But I was very confident that once the set-up was finally done correctly this software would prove to be worth it, in terms of both the financial cost and the HARD work to get started.

I can say now, with 2 full months of actually using the system under my belt, that my confidence has been rewarded. I LOVE using PC+ and I encourage you both to hang in there. It WILL get better!

The advice the others have given about using the services of an accountant is certainly good (if your church's budget can support that, or if you can find someone who is willing to donate time to help). And Matt (who posted earlier) helped me so don't hesitate to call on him. Also, spend as much time as you can reading posts in this forum. I learned a great deal just from that exercise. And you will find very knowledgeable people very willing to help.

May God bless you in your efforts.