Maintaining a SIMPLE church budget with PC

[ChristGuard]

Hey guys,
I am no accountant, I am a pastor of a small 50 member church and we use powerchurch to track our tithes and offerings and print contribution letters (As well as some other small things). Can we use PowerChurch to maintain a simple church budget? I mean Simple Simple... we have 16 areas we budget, such as "Worship team equipment- $50 a month", we set up thes in fund accounting... but I am so lost on how to enter in trasactions. If I buy a sound cable from Guitar center for 12.50 I want to be able to simply enter "Sound cable" and debot 12.50 from the monthly budget from "Worship Team Equipment". Is this doable, or is PowerChurch accounting really meant to be used by an accountant for larger churches?

[NeilZ]

Hey guys,
I am no accountant, I am a pastor of a small 50 member church and we use powerchurch to track our tithes and offerings and print contribution letters (As well as some other small things). Can we use PowerChurch to maintain a simple church budget? I mean Simple Simple... we have 16 areas we budget, such as "Worship team equipment- $50 a month", we set up thes in fund accounting... but I am so lost on how to enter in trasactions. If I buy a sound cable from Guitar center for 12.50 I want to be able to simply enter "Sound cable" and debot 12.50 from the monthly budget from "Worship Team Equipment". Is this doable, or is PowerChurch accounting really meant to be used by an accountant for larger churches?

This is not a problem. Just setup Accounting for the areas you need to track, don't forget to include the checking account as that is needed so you can track your income and expenses too.

Delete any of the default accounts you do not need to use, and leave the ones that you set up. When you buy something, you use the Accounts Payable module to enter a manual check (I'm assuming you don't want to print checks from Powerchurch) and include the check number. When you create your vendors (even a one-time vendor) you select the expense account that the purchase will be charged against.

Then when you create the check, and select the vendor, the accounts will appear in the check. You then post the checks to Funds Accounting. Then you post all transactions in Funds Accounting, and the system will properly debit or credit the accounts.

Same with contributions, you make sure you have the Contribution Funds setup to point to the proper income account and the checking account. When you post Contributions, then post in Funds Accounting, your income accounts are updated, as is your checking account deposit.

For most actions you do not need to create transactions in Funds Accounting for such simple accounting as you need.

My advice is to check out the various video tutorials that Powerchurch provides for more examples,and information:

https://www.powerchurch.com/support/kb. ... ode=browse