Getting Up to Speed

Fund Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll

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NeilZ
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Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
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Re: Getting Up to Speed

Post by NeilZ »

Rising Sun Sailor wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:02 am
I don't know that we're eating the fees. As I understand it, when someone donates, they pay a cc fee to Faithlife to process the transaction. As far as Faithlife is concerned, both the donation to the church as well as the fee are considered donations for tax purposes.

For our tracking in QB, we only track the donation itself since we don't see the fee (nor do we pay it). So long story short, there's a disconnect from what we see as donations from someone and what their actual tax deductible amount is.

Just curious if there's a way to track this from an accountability standpoint so we can let folks know what their total tax deductible amount is.
OK .. from the looks of things, the donor does not realize that they are being charged the fee, if they did, then Faithlife could not say its tax deductible as they are paying for a service. So, in reality, the church is eating the fees, as you're not getting the entire amount donated.

I'm assuming a few things here, so let me know if this is correct:
1. You get a list of persons and amounts donated
2. You also get a notice of how much was taken out as fees.

So, in order to give the donor the full credit on their statement, you can enter the full amount in Contributions. You should do this SEPARATE from the normal Sunday contributions, so you can POST these entries separately. When you POST, you POST TO CONTRIBUTIONS ONLY. Do not post these to Funds Accounting.

In Funds Accounting you'll enter a transaction to show the deposit of the actual funds received from Faithlife. So while Contributions will show the entire amount, your Income & Expense report will only show the amount actually received as income.

This will cause your Contributions totals to be more than what you actually took in as income. I would create a separate Contribution Fund to handle these, so that your normal "Tithes & Offerings' fund will reflect what came in from the actual collection.

FWIW .. the Vanco online integration with Powerchurch takes care of all this so its one less thing to worry about. Not sure if it would pay for you to switch or not. That depends on the amount of online giving you're seeing.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

Rising Sun Sailor
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2020 11:38 am

Re: Getting Up to Speed

Post by Rising Sun Sailor »

Ok, that makes sense, thank you! If nothing else, it's good to know we have options.

jadamwilson
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:39 pm

Re: Getting Up to Speed

Post by jadamwilson »

NeilZ wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:42 am
OK .. from the looks of things, the donor does not realize that they are being charged the fee, if they did, then Faithlife could not say its tax deductible as they are paying for a service. So, in reality, the church is eating the fees, as you're not getting the entire amount donated.
That is a very good point of clarification, I am glad you mentioned it.
The donors are given the option to "Cover the processing fees", which I suppose is a creative way of saying "give more to the church to offset the expense"
NeilZ wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:42 am
I'm assuming a few things here, so let me know if this is correct:
1. You get a list of persons and amounts donated
2. You also get a notice of how much was taken out as fees.
From Faithlife, we get all the information:
- Original amount
- Fees
- Fees covered
- Gross
NeilZ wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:42 am
So, in order to give the donor the full credit on their statement, you can enter the full amount in Contributions. You should do this SEPARATE from the normal Sunday contributions, so you can POST these entries separately.
I use the contribution type of Online to keep them separate, so that I can post them separately.
NeilZ wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:42 am
In Funds Accounting you'll enter a transaction to show the deposit of the actual funds received from Faithlife. So while Contributions will show the entire amount, your Income & Expense report will only show the amount actually received as income.
This is the part that I was really hoping for an alternative solution. I have been doing something similar to the above (I would post to the Funds accounts, and then adjust the amounts), but it makes it hard to track on the actual cost of using Faithlife online giving, as the expense isn't in PowerChurch.
I have considered trying to create a pass-through account but can't figure out how to track the "income" without messing up the ability to balance the books. Would it be crazy to create something like a Faithlife checking account for this?

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: Getting Up to Speed

Post by NeilZ »

jadamwilson wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:54 am
NeilZ wrote:
Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:42 am
In Funds Accounting you'll enter a transaction to show the deposit of the actual funds received from Faithlife. So while Contributions will show the entire amount, your Income & Expense report will only show the amount actually received as income.
This is the part that I was really hoping for an alternative solution. I have been doing something similar to the above (I would post to the Funds accounts, and then adjust the amounts), but it makes it hard to track on the actual cost of using Faithlife online giving, as the expense isn't in PowerChurch.
I have considered trying to create a pass-through account but can't figure out how to track the "income" without messing up the ability to balance the books. Would it be crazy to create something like a Faithlife checking account for this?
If you really need to reflect the expense, then you're going to need to show the entire amount as shown in Contributions as income. You'd then subtract the actual amount deposited by Faithlife from that Contribution amount. The resulting transaction will look like the following, account numbers are based on the normal PCPlus defaults, with the amount in Contributions of 2000.00 and the amount deposited as 1875.00

Code: Select all

01-1110-000   Checking                        DB       1875.00
01-4010-000   Tithes & Offerings              CR               2000.00
01-5120-000   Faithlife Fees                  DB        125.00
This will properly reflect the 'income' and the expense.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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