Contribution Statement Design

[TobyWilson]

Our church has a hardship with PowerChurch’s standard contribution statement. We’re wondering if other churches have experienced the same problem and found a solution. The contribution statement serves numerous objectives. We find, however, that two important objectives cannot be achieved simultaneously. Those are: (1) to report the contribution total for tax reporting purposes, and (2) to report pledge status, including any unfulfilled balance from the prior year. Statements produced with a one-year time window (Jan 1 – Dec 31) satisfy objective #1 very well, and we note on statements that the total contribution shown under “FUND SUMMARY” is tax deductible. Our problem is that a one-year time window doesn’t satisfy objective #2. Approximately 5% of contributors carry over unfulfilled pledge balances from prior years, which don’t appear on one-year statements. To fix this, the report’s time window can be expanded from one year to two years; however, that tactic causes the total under “FUND SUMMARY” to be a two-year total vs. the one-year (deductible) amount that is referred to by our standard tax note. Another tactic considered just recently is to expand the statement time window by just a single day, backing one day into the prior year, i.e., window = Dec 31 – Dec 31. This would cause prior year pledge data to appear on the statement without affecting contribution totals for the reporting year (except for years when Dec. 31 falls on a Sunday – so this is not a stable solution). We’ll appreciate any suggestions from users or chastisement from tech support if we’re missing something obvious.

[jeffkoke]

How about running two statements, selecting the appropriate contribution funds and selecting the requisite time frames?

Just a thought.

[Jeff]

What some have done is use the contribution statements for only tax purposes with no pledge information on it at all. At a different time they use the pledge statement. This is a different report and has an option to include prior pledges if there is a balance due.

[TobyWilson]

Thank you to both Jeffs for your responses.

Jeff Koke suggests the issuance of two contribution statements, one for the current year and one for the unfulfilled pledge year. This could be done but not efficiently, we believe, because the software doesn’t provide an option to print contribution statements for delinquent accounts only. (This option exists for pledge statements but not contribution statements.) Selected second-year contribution statements would have to be produced individually.

Jeff #2 states that some churches issue contribution statements, without pledge data, at year-end for tax purposes only and then issue pledge statements at different times, choosing, if desired, to include delinquent-year data. Although our practice has been to issue “contribution” statements (with pledge data displayed), we are now considering the use of pledge statements also, either as stand-alone statements or as supplements to contribution statements for folks with unfulfilled prior-year pledges.

Thanks again for the ideas.

For PC+ Program Development: Please consider the possibility that contribution statements and pledge statements needn’t exist as separate entities. A single (universal) statement could serve either or both purposes, i.e., allowing suppression of contribution data for pledge-only statements and suppression of pledge data for contribution-only statements. The universal statement should have all the selection criteria that presently exist, especially the feature that allows the display of unfulfilled pledge data (presently available only for pledge statements). The universal statement would allow churches to issue statements that satisfy all of the important reporting objectives in a single document. If the universal statement is too radical or creates other problems, please consider incorporating the option to display unfulfilled prior year pledges on contribution statements (just like the option that exists for pledge statements). Thanks

[TobyWilson]

Our church is preparing to issue "Pledge Statements" periodically instead of "Contribution Statements". It appears, however, that unlike "Contribution Statements", we're not able to e-mail "Pledge Statements", at least not with our v.9. Are we missing an MR, or is the e-mail facility not available for "Pledge Statements"?

[NeilZ]

Our church is preparing to issue "Pledge Statements" periodically instead of "Contribution Statements". It appears, however, that unlike "Contribution Statements", we're not able to e-mail "Pledge Statements", at least not with our v.9. Are we missing an MR, or is the e-mail facility not available for "Pledge Statements"?

The email facility is not available for Pledge Statements.

What we used to do at our last church was send out the quarterly contributions statement (just that quarter's contributions not Y-T-D) with the pledge information included with them.

This did two things, helped the contributor verify that what they have given, is listed, and also how much of their yearly pledge had been fulfilled to date.

[fpchurch]

Our church creates a new pledge at the beginning of the new year, it is called "Pledge Balance (year)". We run a report that lists those who have not fulfilled their pledge for the previous year then go in and add the new pledges (dated 01/01/(current year) to 12/31/(current year) & for the amount due). When contibution statements are run it shows the "Pledge Balance" as a current pledge. This works well because the contribution statements show the balance due on the previous year and the current year pledge and most people send a check right away for that balance due.