User Support Forum

We are just finishing up our first year with PowerChurch and want to know if there is an easy way to deal with members at the end of the year who have become deceased during the year? Is there an easy way to archive them rather than delete them entirely so that they do not keep showing up in reports and I can issue a "final" tax receipt?
Many thanks.
Linda.

UnitedC wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 07, 2022 1:08 pm

We are just finishing up our first year with PowerChurch and want to know if there is an easy way to deal with members at the end of the year who have become deceased during the year? Is there an easy way to archive them rather than delete them entirely so that they do not keep showing up in reports and I can issue a "final" tax receipt?
Many thanks.
Linda.

There's a few things you need to do:

1. Change the personal profile name to "the estate of <firstname>" as the personal profile names are used to create the address for the tax receipt/contribution reports
2. Update the Mailing List status and personal profile status to "Deceased", uncheck the three check boxes on the Mailing List profile to remove them from Mailing, membership reports, etc (This should be done AFTER you do any end-of-year membership reports needed)
3. Enter a 'Loss Date" if you use such a date, as well as a "Loss Reason" if needed
4. Create the Tax Recepts/Contribution Statements
5. Change the envelope number to a number OUTSIDE of the normal envelope number range. This link gives you an idea of how I setup envelope numbers, and how that setup is used: viewtopic.php?p=50820#p50820

I'm not sure what is needed to be retained in Canada, but in the US, the IRS requires records be maintained for at least 4 years.

Thank you. I will take a look and see if this works. Originally, I was unable to find anything relating to deceased members so I changed a box to record the date at least so not sure about step 2 but I will try.

Good afternoon, Neil. In the case where both spouses are deceased, would it be okay to delete the envelope number(s), after printing their Contributions Statement? Thank you.

GNBBC wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 26, 2022 12:48 pm

Good afternoon, Neil. In the case where both spouses are deceased, would it be okay to delete the envelope number(s), after printing their Contributions Statement? Thank you.

No ... per IRS Puv 1828, churches and religious organizations have to maintain records of income (contributions) for at least 4 years. I recommend 7 years, as that's the length of time the IRS has to do an audit.

Its not hard to maintain this information. I've actually used a numbering scheme much like this for years, depending on the size of your congregation, you should adjust the number ranges as necessary.

Numbers
1 thru 999 - member envelopes
1000 thru 1999 - visitors

4000 and up ... archived envelopes.

So ... what you do is after you print the Contribution Statement, is reassign the number to a number in the archived number range, so if they have envelope 35, you reassign them to 4001.

Then when doing reports you only include envelope numbers from 1 to 2000 (or your ranges of active numbers).

Just make sure that you change the Mailing List Category to Deceased (if you don't have that as a category .. add it), and remove the checks in checkboxes "include in Mailouts", "Publish Address", and if you don't need to run reports at the end of the year to count the number of deceased members , from "Include in Membership Reports"