New to PC - Practical Advise?

[jacksonao]

Hello all,
I have a personal business - Jackson Administrative Outsourcing - and will be consulting with a church next week who is having difficulties with their books in PC. Until now, I have had accounting education, but the only practical application I have had in accounting is using the single entry system used by small businesses and individuals in programs like MS Money or Quickbooks.

I had a couple conferences with the people at the church and I strongly advised they have a CPA correct their books to start (the fund balances to do not match their bank account balance) but they are trying not to go that route. I offered to look at their set up at no charge, and try to help them through the initial correction/setup so that I could gain some experience. The plus for me is that, if I can help them straighten this out, I will likely acquire a new long term customer as I maintain the books for them in a consistent method. They were very excited about this offer and I don't want to let them down.

Now I am nervous. I know I'm capable but I need some practical application and training of the double entry system. I am eager to learn. Can anyone recommend an overview or some practical ways I can try to grasp this before I'm put in the driver seat, on the spot.

I'd be curious to see some sample chart of accounts, and demonstration of how some common entries are made.

FOR Example if I have $50.00 which must be deposited into the General Fund, hoo is the entry made?

If I have $120 bill going out as a heating expense, that comes out of the general fund, how to I record it as both a heating expense, and so that it comes out of the general fund, and comes out of the 1 checking account that the church uses? I'm assuming you'd make atleast 2 transactions, each with a debit and credit, so 4 transactions total right?

Any help, I would greatly appreciate. I'm sure I'll be visiting often, especially if this project works out for me.

I'm not sure yet what version of PC they use, I've requested this information. I may also request a chart of their accounts prior to meeting up with them next week.

[Eden Whitehead]

As someone with no formal training in bookkeeping/accounting, I have found the PC+ system to be very easy to learn. (The initial setup gave me fits, but was eventually accomplished.)

PC+ provides tutorials on their websites. A basic one to get you started can be found by going to www.powerchurch.com/support and clicking on Online Tutorials, then click Entering Transactions. This could be used for the $50.00 deposit example. (Note, though, that if the $50.00 is a contribution, it can be posted automatically from the Contributions module to Fund Accounting.) The Entering Transactions method can also be used for the heat expense, although the most likely scenario would be to post it through Accounts Payable. Anyway, this should give you a start. There are *tons* of resources available through the Support tab as well as this forum.

If it were me, I'd definitely want to look at the Chart of Accounts before going in; and I've discerned through forum posts that the version of PC+ can make a significant difference in how certain operations are performed.

Good luck!

(P.S. Virtually all my training on PC+ came from reading all the posts on this site.)

[jacksonao]

Thank you. I will continue reviewing these posts and go through the tutorial about entering the transactions. I think where I'm confused is that PC has some different moduals (ie: contributions) where the posts are deposted into fund accounting automatically and I just want to understand what happens "behind the scenes" on the general ledger. It's difficult to understand until I have the software in front of me.

I should have that opportunity very soon onsite at the church.

[Matt]

How did your consultation go?