One Check, 2 envelopes

[Dish-Man]

We still have a couple of families who turn in TWO envelopes (with separate numbers for the husband and the wife) and only write ONE check. The check may be written for $80.00 and the husband's envelope shows $60.00 on the outside (and the check is in that envelope for $80.00) and the wife's envelope shows $20.00 with nothing in it. How do you handle this? (as you can see, I just started using the check reader) What I did was scan the check ONCE, and entered the husband's amount against HIS envelope number and did a manual entry indicating it was a check and entered the wife's amount against her envelope number. The only thing that I didn't like was PowerChurch didn't let me type in a check number for the wife's contribution. As long as I do both envelopes consecutively, they show up right next to each other on the Bank Deposit Slip report, but of course the wife's entry doesn't show a check number. Is there a better way to do this (other than making the folks mad by telling them that they can't split their one check amount between envelopes anymore

[NeilZ]

We still have a couple of families who turn in TWO envelopes (with separate numbers for the husband and the wife) and only write ONE check. The check may be written for $80.00 and the husband's envelope shows $60.00 on the outside (and the check is in that envelope for $80.00) and the wife's envelope shows $20.00 with nothing in it. How do you handle this? (as you can see, I just started using the check reader) What I did was scan the check ONCE, and entered the husband's amount against HIS envelope number and did a manual entry indicating it was a check and entered the wife's amount against her envelope number. The only thing that I didn't like was PowerChurch didn't let me type in a check number for the wife's contribution. As long as I do both envelopes consecutively, they show up right next to each other on the Bank Deposit Slip report, but of course the wife's entry doesn't show a check number. Is there a better way to do this (other than making the folks mad by telling them that they can't split their one check amount between envelopes anymore

PC+ will not allow you to use the same check number from the same account. It does track that. Also, we use the bank deposit slip and send it to the bank with our regular deposit slip. It acts as a total tape, and it allows the bank to verify all the check amount entries in case there is an issue somewhere. This happens once in a great while when there is a mistake made in cash count (very rare), or a contributor wrote one hundred in the written portion of the check, but left off a zero in the numeric. We found out that the bank (at least ours) will use the written out number before the numeric as the official number.

We do not have separate envelopes for a husband and wife, they are one giving unit. When members marry, we combine the accounts into one.

I would either combine accounts, or let them know they must write two separate checks, And if they ask why, tell them that your new combined database system will not allow you to use the same check number twice against a checking account.

Unless they are filing Married, but filing separately for their federal taxes, separate accounts for a husband and wife only wind up costing the church money and time. Money when you have to buy another set of envelopes and print up an additional statement, and time as you have to figure out how to enter this stuff.

If they are filing separately, (IMHO) they then should be using separate checking accounts anyway, as they have to track deductions separately.

[Dish-Man]

Neil, thanks for all the answers. These couples have been in the church for years and are one of those types "who don't like change" Previously, we used standard Baptist Envelopes which recorded more than just contributions (like Lesson Studied, Attending Worship, Bible Read Daily) to provide statistics to the convention, but I don't think we track that info anymore. These folks still check off all the boxes that they did because THEIR Sunday School class records it and I guess they also want to get credit for giving in THEIR class (it's hard to explain to these folks that all the money goes to the same account and it doesn't matter if the husband gives it all or the wife does, especially when I KNOW they are filing Married Joint). All that said, I will probably talk to them individually, but I don't want to make them mad if they don't want to change the way they do it. My church has toyed with doing away with the "standard" envelopes that have all the information boxes on them, but several of the senior citizens got upset that we were going to quit tracking that info (I don't know why, but they did). I'll just keep doing it they way I did this weekend and make sure that the couples envelopes are counted sequentially, so it will show up on the report together.

Again, thanks for all the answers!

[jeffkoke]

Neil, thanks for all the answers. These couples have been in the church for years and are one of those types "who don't like change"

Jay,.

If you'd like a chuckle....

Last year I reset everyone's envelope number moving to numbers beginning with 3000. You wouldn't believe the complaints I received because I changed THEIR envelope number!

Since then, I've been informed not to do that again!

Okay everybody, its only a number; breath in.....breath out....there, better?



Whew!

[SBCTrustee]

Hello Everyone,

We don't use aa check reader, however, we do record check numbers into PC+ v.9. If a member splits his check for different contribution funds say building fund, youth choir, etc, we simply record the check number again to compensate for the split. We don't use the deposit slip feature for banking.

The purpose for the check number recording is for individual reconcilation & audit trail in terms of posting to individual contribution statements at year in case if a member wanted to reconcile with our posting.

We write the check number on the giving envelopes also.

Tom

[NeilZ]

That works because you're not using the check reader, if you were using the check reader, the system would not allow that as it checks for duplicates.

If you have the check number recording turned on, the system will maintiain that. We shred our envelopes after entering contributions.

[Dish-Man]

jeff, I hear ya!! We did the same thing a couple of years ago because we order envelope boxes 1-250 and have kept the same envelope numbers for the same contributors for years. So when people leave, we had "holes" in the sequential numbered boxes and had to order more boxes than we needed just to keep the numbers the same. Of course I recommended we save money and renumber the envelopes because I figured, who would mind or even REMEMBER what their envelope number was!! Boy, was I wrong!! There was a small crowd that wanted to know WHY their envelope number was changed!! When I told them that it was a combination of saving the church money and because of the computer, their response was "well I PAY for my box (you get an envelope in the front of the box if you want to help defray the cost of the box) and why do we change things just because of a COMPUTER???"

Ain't it fun dealing with folks who have such major CRISES in their lives???? (like changing their envelope number)

[NeilZ]

Better yet ... do away with envelopes entirely, and go to account numbers, then see what happens !!