Recording a Bank Deposit

[greenhillpc]

I am totally stuck and I hope you all can help me out! The only person in our office who handled Powerchurch passed away last week and I am scrambling to figure out how to do everything he did!

I have a bank deposit from Sunday's offering that I need to enter into the system. I see the place to tell the computer which account the money should be applied to, but I can't figure out how to tell it that the money went into the bank account in the first place. We do not record individual contributions in Powerchurch, just the total deposit.

How do I tell the computer that I went to the bank?

Thank you.

Sandra
Green Hill Presbyterian Church

[NeilZ]

I am totally stuck and I hope you all can help me out! The only person in our office who handled Powerchurch passed away last week and I am scrambling to figure out how to do everything he did!

I have a bank deposit from Sunday's offering that I need to enter into the system. I see the place to tell the computer which account the money should be applied to, but I can't figure out how to tell it that the money went into the bank account in the first place. We do not record individual contributions in Powerchurch, just the total deposit.

How do I tell the computer that I went to the bank?

Thank you.

Sandra
Green Hill Presbyterian Church

Since you don't use the Contributions module to record contributions, which is weird because this would save you a LOT of time and effort. You need to enter a transaction in Funds Accounting to reflect the bank deposit. I would go to Accounting -> Quick Menu to put the Accounting menu on the main screen. You can then do everything I'm about to suggest from there.

Select View Posted Transactions. This will bring up a list of previously posted transactions, and I would think you'll find a previous bank deposit transaction there. Use that as an example when you then go to Enter Transactions to add this weeks deposit. I'd do a print screen so you have it available.

Then once that's done. I would definitely start learning all you can about Powerchurch, and try to find another person to assist. Having only one person who knows how to do it all is not a good idea. We used to call it a 'One Level Deep' position, as in what are you going if that person is no longer available.

The church should be willing to invest in some training videos so that you and others can learn the system. Online videos are located here:

https://www.powerchurch.com/training/videos/

Finally, why aren't you using Powerchurch to do the contributions? How are you creating your contribution statements? Please don't tell me you're using another bit of software, or something that was put together years ago, as you're missing the best part of Powerchurch, the total integration of Membership, Contributions, and Accounting.

[greenhillpc]

Thank you. I will give it a shot first thing in the morning. I am worn out from trying to figure out this darn program. It's like a Porche, and we only need a Yugo. I don't know why we were doing things the way we were, and the only person who knew can't tell me.

We are considering making a switch to QuickBooks with Payroll, since the only thing we need to do is track deposits and checks. The rest of it is fluff we just don't need.

[NeilZ]

Thank you. I will give it a shot first thing in the morning. I am worn out from trying to figure out this darn program. It's like a Porche, and we only need a Yugo. I don't know why we were doing things the way we were, and the only person who knew can't tell me.

We are considering making a switch to QuickBooks with Payroll, since the only thing we need to do is track deposits and checks. The rest of it is fluff we just don't need.

Fluff?? It has payroll, it has membership? How do you track your membership information? How do you sent out your contribution statements at the end of the year?

I've helped churches move from Quickbooks to Powerchurch, because Quickbooks really does not understand fund accounting requirements.

[greenhillpc]

We are a teeny tiny church. Less than 100 members, with less than half of that attending on any given Sunday. We have a church treasurer who records everything by hand, and has been doing so for more than thirty years. The addition of PowerChurch, which happened about ten years ago, was supposed to be a backup to the treasurer. The problem is that in all that time it never showed itself to be more efficient than the handwritten records. Even prior to the death of the person who knew how to use it, the church Elders were considering switching programs because they haven't been able to make heads of tails of the financial statements they would get out of PowerChurch for years. They've had to resort to using Excel spreadsheets based on the handwritten work of the treasurer.

I am the church secretary who has been thrust into the position of trying to figure this out. I have a four year college degree, I used to work in finance, and I consider myself to be very good with computers, but getting stuck in the middle of all of this, and not having any idea how it was set up, or why it was set up in the way it was, is making me a little crazy.

My apologies. I didn't mean to rant. This has just been a really rough week.

[NeilZ]

We are a teeny tiny church. Less than 100 members, with less than half of that attending on any given Sunday. We have a church treasurer who records everything by hand, and has been doing so for more than thirty years. The addition of PowerChurch, which happened about ten years ago, was supposed to be a backup to the treasurer. The problem is that in all that time it never showed itself to be more efficient than the handwritten records. Even prior to the death of the person who knew how to use it, the church Elders were considering switching programs because they haven't been able to make heads of tails of the financial statements they would get out of PowerChurch for years. They've had to resort to using Excel spreadsheets based on the handwritten work of the treasurer.

I am the church secretary who has been thrust into the position of trying to figure this out. I have a four year college degree, I used to work in finance, and I consider myself to be very good with computers, but getting stuck in the middle of all of this, and not having any idea how it was set up, or why it was set up in the way it was, is making me a little crazy.

My apologies. I didn't mean to rant. This has just been a really rough week.

Oy ... I do understand. People are used to information they way they've already been getting it. If the program and chart of accounts were not properly setup in the first place, the reports would not mean anything. FWIW .. moving to Quickbooks won't solve that issue at all.

My sympathies.

[greenhillpc]

Thank you. And thank you for the advice on recording the deposit. I followed your instructions and from what I can tell, it worked!