Negative contributions

[dadcowell]

My church received monthly payments from about 50 members to be applied to their upcoming Israel trip.

I recorded each of those payments in PC and labeled them as "non-Tax deductible" with a designation called "Israel".

Our Israel trip was recently cancelled, and I need to write 50 refund checks to the 50 members.

I feel that I need to reverse the effect of the original payments. If I don't reverse them, the year end statement will reflect about $3000 of payments that were in fact refunded.

So, is it proper to enter a negative donation for each member as a minus "non-tax deductible" item, thus reversing the previously entered payments?

Or, Is there a more correct way to accomplish the refunds?

[NeilZ]

My church received monthly payments from about 50 members to be applied to their upcoming Israel trip.

I recorded each of those payments in PC and labeled them as "non-Tax deductible" with a designation called "Israel".

Our Israel trip was recently cancelled, and I need to write 50 refund checks to the 50 members.

I feel that I need to reverse the effect of the original payments. If I don't reverse them, the year end statement will reflect about $3000 of payments that were in fact refunded.

So, is it proper to enter a negative donation for each member as a minus "non-tax deductible" item, thus reversing the previously entered payments?

Or, Is there a more correct way to accomplish the refunds?

I'm going to assume that you did NOT create a separate Contribution Fund for this? If you did, you just need to go into Contributions -> Setup -> Maintain List of Contribution Funds, find that fund, and uncheck the box that says 'include fund on statements'.

That said, if you didn't setup a separate contribution fund, and are using the standard 'Tithes & Offerings' fund, so these trip payments were included in that fund, you really can't enter the negative amounts and post them to Funds Accounting. You'll have to make sure these are done completely separate from normal contribution entries, and you DO NOT post to Funds Accounting, but to Contributions Only.

The reason? If you used the standard Tithes Contribution Fund, and post all that to Funds Accounting, those funds were added to the standard INCOME account in Operations. You're going to be issuing a refund out of operating (I assume), and processing those negative amounts would reduce the Income account, as well as also reducing the amount in the checking account from which you have to write checks.

That would make the system 'off'. Do you see what I mean? If you only post to Contributions, those entries should not be seen on the Contribution Statement.

Now, in future, may I suggest that you create a separate Contribution Fund that would not be published on the statements, and that in the setup, the CREDIT account used in the fund setup point to a LIABILITY account, as that is what these funds really are, a 'pass-through' to a third-party, and should not be considered income to the church.