Setting up accounting

[JoeJansen]

Hi everyone!

I am the financial secretary for our church. We have been using Quickbooks for our accounting for the last 4 years ( I have been doing this for 3). We have used PowerChurch in the past for accounting, but when the secretary trashed the fund accounting 4 years ago, the F.S. and treasurer at the time decided to switch to QuickBooks.

Since we have now upgraded to PowerChurch V9, I would like to move back to using the accounting system there. I have read the accounting chapter of the manual a couple of times now, and still am not sure on how to progress. Here are the initial issues:

1. Because the PC accounting used to be used, there are still accounts and balances shown in the accounting system. I want to delete all of the old transactions, but want to keep the accounts list, as I think I can bring this up to date, rather than start completely over.

2. The examples in the manual are not very helpful. We run 2 bank acocunts. One is for budgeted money, and the other is for restricted contributions (donations to buy new bibles, building fund, etc.) As I understand it, and the way the old accounts were set up, we have 2 accounting funds, 01 - General, and 02 - Dedicated. The sub accounts are where I start to get confused. For example: In the current list of accounts that are in there from prior use, the Board of Christian Ed has 3 sub accounts in 01 - General. One is an Asset account, one is an income account, and one is an expense account. Are all of these needed? If Christian Ed spends $100 of budgeted money, how does that work? From the book, I thought that I would credit the checking account, and debit the expense account, yes? We do not want to track inventory items. IE: if Chr. Ed. spent the $100 buying textbooks for sunday school, we don't need to track the textbooks as an asset. or do I have to? Maybe I should just start over with the account list anyway.

I am just having trouble understanding where to start. Once I get going with it, I am sure I will do just fine. I guess I just got too used to quickbooks being so intuitive.

I will be doing the install Saturday, so we have been holding back on entering our contributions until then. Any help will be WONDERFUL! I am sure there will be more questions to follow....

Thanks!!

--Joe Jansen

[jeffkoke]

Joe,

Since so much has changed in PC+ in the past five years, I'd recommend you start fresh.

Use the parts of your previous PC+ Chart of Accounts (by re-entering them in version 9) as you see fit.

You can keep the old version on-hand for reference, just be sure you remember which one you are in.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

[JoeJansen]

Jeff,

That is where I am leaning towards. The more I read online and from the CD, that just seems to make sense.

I am gradually getting my head around the concepts here. I have also been looking through the history of this forum, which has shed a lot of light on things.

Thanks!

--Joe

[Matt]

Since you haven't done the install yet, you may want to consider not importing transactions from your previous version at all. Then, you could use the Accounting Setup Assistant to start completely fresh. If there are specific accounts you want to see in your chart of accounts you can add them during the setup process. This approach may be advisable if your existing records are a mess.

Alternately, if you want to keep the chart of accounts you have but don't want the transactions do an import when you do the install. After the install is complete you can go into Fund Accounting and delete all of the transactions.

[jeffkoke]

Since you haven't done the install yet, you may want to consider not importing transactions from your previous version at all. Then, you could use the Accounting Setup Assistant to start completely fresh.

I meant to say that!

Jeff