Loose Cash Envelope Number Issue

[LizAA]

Hello All:
It's been about an year now since I took over as bookkeeper at our church and I am slowly identifying flaws in how things were set up, and trying to remedy them. Here's one of them:
Somehow (since January 2010) the secretary was able to set up 99999 as a Cash and Coin profile envelope number and we have been 'collecting' our loose cash on Sundays into this envelope number ever since. I have come to understand that this is a system number and should not be allowed to do this. I have tried to reassign the Cash and Coin envelope number by creating a new profile "Loose Cash No Envelope" but the system won't allow me to reallocate 99999 to my new number (999). Any thoughts on how to remedy this?

I don't think we have ever deleted a profile and the amounts in the contribution reports seem to correspond with our bank deposits for cash and coin, so no errors there. Each week we enter loose cash into envelope 99999 and then post the contributions when the bank deposit has processed. We don't get any error saying we can't use 99999 when we add contributions to this envelope...

[NeilZ]

Hello All:
It's been about an year now since I took over as bookkeeper at our church and I am slowly identifying flaws in how things were set up, and trying to remedy them. Here's one of them:
Somehow (since January 2010) the secretary was able to set up 99999 as a Cash and Coin profile envelope number and we have been 'collecting' our loose cash on Sundays into this envelope number ever since. I have come to understand that this is a system number and should not be allowed to do this. I have tried to reassign the Cash and Coin envelope number by creating a new profile "Loose Cash No Envelope" but the system won't allow me to reallocate 99999 to my new number (999). Any thoughts on how to remedy this?

I don't think we have ever deleted a profile and the amounts in the contribution reports seem to correspond with our bank deposits for cash and coin, so no errors there. Each week we enter loose cash into envelope 99999 and then post the contributions when the bank deposit has processed. We don't get any error saying we can't use 99999 when we add contributions to this envelope...

The only way to remedy this is to call Powerchurch support directly. If you've never use support in the past, then it will probably start your initial free support time. They can assist you to take care of this.

That said, do you really need to know that total? You can find that out very easily by taking the total posted contributions for the year in Contributions for envelopes 1 thru 99998, and subtracting that number from the total Tithes & Offerings as shown on the Funds Accounting I&E report.

I would definitely use the 999 number going forward. If you want to use the same profile setup to use 99999, you can do this; enter a ZERO in the envelope number on the personal profile. You will get a warning message, but say OK. Then save the changes. Then go back and enter 999 in that envelope number.

[LizAA]

If I set 99999 to ZERO, wouldn't that mess up my contribution amounts/contribution fund reports? I thought I needed to keep at least four years' contributions info? Or since it's just loose cash and not a person, it doesn't mater? How would I have a trace of amount of cash collected from the offering plate if I Zero out the 99999? If I can get 99999 reassigned, the 'contribution' history would be kept - right? Do I need to keep track of this for audits?

The 90 day tech support was never initiated so maybe now is a good time to start. We currently have PowerChurch v11.1 so we are a few updates behind. Would the upgrade to v12 be helpful, in general?

[LizAA]

oops I misread ... ok so I can change the envelope number to ZERO, and then reassign the envelope number to 999. That would keep my giving history for 'offering cash' and free up 99999 to be used as it should be.... is that right? I'll try that and see how that works.

[NeilZ]

oops I misread ... ok so I can change the envelope number to ZERO, and then reassign the envelope number to 999. That would keep my giving history for 'offering cash' and free up 99999 to be used as it should be.... is that right? I'll try that and see how that works.

Basically, you can't reassign the 99999, I just tested it and you can't even assign it to anyone anymore, I think that was a bug that was corrected fairly quickly, but it was active at the wrong time.

If you run a report, you'll find that 99999 will not show up anywhere in an individual report. The loose plate contributions will show up in the Funds Report and other aggregate reports, but you won't be able to get an individual total from it.

In any case, what you can do is what I mentioned earlier. Go in to the personal profile you have setup for loose cash, and enter a ZERO where the current envelope number of 99999 is. You'll get a warning message about 'posted contributions ... are you sure', click on the YES button. Then click the save button. After that enter 999 in the envelope number there, then use the 999.