User Support Forum

I've been using the program for about a year now, but I mostly set up the membership and contributions, and I have them mastered pretty good..
I would like to set up the accounting, but am confused about a few things.
mostly how to debit and credit the accounts.
we use two different banks. and each of our departments have their own checking account...
I made fund accounts for each dept like Gen. account, Tithing, Sunday School, Youth, Tape Room, Building fund..
Do I have to make account for the banks???
If I make a deposit in the tape room for example, where do I make the debit and the credit ...what accounts..
If I make a check to a vendor, what do I do?? Right now we are doing our check manually until we get everything else up and running correctly..
thanks Ardis

I'll try to help you from here in Alabama. First, how many checking accounts do you have? In Powerchurch, you can set up separate accounting funds for each department, yet use the same checking account. This would allow you to keep the monies for each department segregated without needing multiple checking accounts. Having one checking account will make your accounting setup less complicated to use.

When you make deposits, you will debit the checking account (1000 series) and credit an income account (4000 series) for the applicable accounting fund.

Will you be using computer checks? If so, you will need to create invoices first. At the time you input the invoices you will debit an expense account and credit your checking account. If not, you will enter all of your manual checks using the Maintain Manual checks screen. This screen is set up like a check and underneath it has a place to input the debit and credit accounts.

The key to getting set up and running smoothly is getting the chart of accounts and all of your accounting funds set up the way your church wants to operate. It sounds like you will want to set up an accounting fund for each of your departments. I would set up your General Fund first. Then you can copy some or all of these accounts when creating the additional funds. This will save you a lot of time in getting your chart of accounts set up.

I hope this helps.

Matt