Fund Accounting vs Accounts Payable

[jshutt]

I am new to the Accounting Module in PC. We have a treasurer who writes all the manual checks or pays bills online. My job is to enter the transactions in to Power Church. Can I just enter them straight into Fund Accounting or do I need to go through Accounts Payable?

[NeilZ]

I am new to the Accounting Module in PC. We have a treasurer who writes all the manual checks or pays bills online. My job is to enter the transactions in to Power Church. Can I just enter them straight into Fund Accounting or do I need to go through Accounts Payable?

You really should go through Accounts Payable to track the vendors as well as the checks. Otherwise you do not have any other audit trail in Powerchurch.

You should enter them as Manual Checks, and enter the check number used, or EFT for online payments.

That said, you can enter directly into Funds Accounting, but you lose a lot of other data as far as account numbers, etc.

My opinion on this: your treasurer is probably a single person, with all the checkbooks, check register, bills, etc kept at their house. I call that a 'bus sensitive' position. That is, if they get hit by a bus, how can you recover information fast if necessary? Do you have more than one person who can sign checks? The answer should be yes. Do you require more than one signature on a check? Again, should be yes to provide full visibility on financial matters.

This is why my advice is to always write checks from Powerchurch, not write checks, then enter the data.