Contribution Date vs. Deposit Date

[Terry Bentley]

I can only find one date for entering contributions, so I end up using the bank deposit date, so that it reconciles with the bank statement.

Is there a way to enter the actual contribution date (when they donated online or the the Sunday they put the check in the offering), so that it matches a donor's records?

Thanks,

Terry

[sgbani]

I can only find one date for entering contributions, so I end up using the bank deposit date, so that it reconciles with the bank statement.

Is there a way to enter the actual contribution date (when they donated online or the the Sunday they put the check in the offering), so that it matches a donor's records?

Thanks,

Terry

Hi Terry,

When entering contributions, I choose to use the contribution date as the date the church accepts receiving the funds. This is generally not the same date as the deposit (in the case of Sunday offering). Meaning, we use the contribution date in PowerChurch as Sunday (e.g. 7 January), even though they are always deposited the next business day. For example, 31 December, 2023 the contributions were entered as 31 December, even though the deposit occurred 2 January, 2024.
With online donations, we have it as the date of the bank receiving the online funds (which makes sense).

In our workflow / process, we do not post the contributions for a given month until after the month-end and reconcile the unposted contributions against the bank statement deposits.

When reconciling the bank statement, one option is to create the Fund Report by Date. Then, you can match the amounts on that fund report with the bank statement deposits. I check off every deposit on the bank statement for the month to match what is on my Fund Report by Date.
It does not matter to me if the contribution date on the Fund Report by Date is different from the bank statement. What matters to me is they match amounts and are present on both documents.
I even create two Fund Reports by Date. One that has everything, and a second one for just online donations to make it easier to compare with the bank statement.


Once all deposits on the bank statement are matched to a corresponding contribution on the Fund Report by Date, I know that all deposits on the bank statement are reconciled for that given month.
If there are contributions remaining on the Fund Report by Date for that month which are not present on the bank statement (because they were deposited the next month), I simply verify those contributions were in fact deposited and correct according to the bank (by accessing our bank account info online).

I simply take the total amount of contributions for the month on my fund report, and subtract all contributions marked as received for the month, but deposited the next month. This is easy because I already compared the bank statement to the Fund Report by Date, so I know EXACTLY which 'contribution sets'' are not on the bank statement.
The resulting value should be the total amount of deposits as listed by the bank statement.

The following month, the opposite may occur. The total deposit amount on the bank statement will be higher than the fund report total for the month. I do the same thing in terms of comparing Fund Report by Date and the bank statement.
Then, I take the bank statement total deposit amount, subtract the fund report total. The difference should equal the extra deposits from the previous month.

In all cases, what is the most useful is the Fund Report by Date. That really helps match up 'sets' of contributions to deposits. Since I compare the amounts to reconcile, being off a day or two does not matter to me.

Since this is all done BEFORE we post the contributions, our treasurer can be assured that all deposits to our account are reconciled. When they do the bank account reconciliation in fund accounting, it becomes very quick because everything matches up again, no errors.

If this is not clear, let us know and we can try outlining a more specific example.

[Terry Bentley]

Thanks for your response.

I do reconcile the bank statement with the deposits before posting contributions.

I was just hoping for a way to show both the date of contribution and the date deposited to the bank.

Thanks,

Terry

[NeilZ]

Thanks for your response.

I do reconcile the bank statement with the deposits before posting contributions.

I was just hoping for a way to show both the date of contribution and the date deposited to the bank.

Thanks,

Terry

Frankly, I never advise reconciling the bank statement with the contributions before posting. The reason is I get a deposit receipt from the bank, and attach that to the weekly Contribution reports printed at the time of the entry. The funds are counted by our volunteer entry team, entered into the system, and the deposit dropped at the bank on Sunday.

Once I get the deposit receipt, I post the contributions. Then when the bank statement comes in, I do the normal reconciliation using the statement. This saves a lot of time and duplication of effort.

[Tammy/newlife]

Hey there Neil,
I'm trying to see if something can be done or not. My Pastor when he has me print a monthly income and expense report in power church wants that report to be equal to what we see as the total on our bank statement of the deposits/credits monthly. Maybe better put...is there a report that can be generated from Power Church that will show the total income we receive that will be the same as the bank statement's deposits/credits? When I see the total amount of incoming that the report shows for the month in power church, the totals are very different...it is only showing the contribution totals for tithes and offerings, missions, interest and other misc income...but it did not show reimbursements or income designated to special guest ministry as an example. And the totals do not reflect fees that need to be subtracted (online fees) that are taken out because the deposits in the bank reflect them, and totals deposited in the next month. I just want to know if I'm missing maybe choosing the correct report if it exists.

[NeilZ]

Hey there Neil,
I'm trying to see if something can be done or not. My Pastor when he has me print a monthly income and expense report in power church wants that report to be equal to what we see as the total on our bank statement of the deposits/credits monthly. Maybe better put...is there a report that can be generated from Power Church that will show the total income we receive that will be the same as the bank statement's deposits/credits? When I see the total amount of incoming that the report shows for the month in power church, the totals are very different...it is only showing the contribution totals for tithes and offerings, missions, interest and other misc income...but it did not show reimbursements or income designated to special guest ministry as an example. And the totals do not reflect fees that need to be subtracted (online fees) that are taken out because the deposits in the bank reflect them, and totals deposited in the next month. I just want to know if I'm missing maybe choosing the correct report if it exists.

OK ... first off, you will never see the bank statement equal what the I&E report says. Why? Well, sometimes deposits are not processed at the bank until the next month. Or some banks do not produce a bank statement at the end of the month, but only at the end of a work week, while the church gets income on a Sunday that is the last day of the month.

In addition, I'm not sure what you mean by 'reimbursements' or 'special guest ministry' ... what are these? As far as online fees, they should be tracked as an expense. I take it you're not using Vanco as your online processor, as the built-in Vanco download process is setup to track those fees.

[sgbani]

I was in a similar situation a couple of months ago. the governing board wanted a report that helped them 'connect the dots' between all the contributions that came in, with the deposit amount reflected by the bank, against the income/expense report.

Since not all amounts on the contribution report, or deposits, are considered 'income', and not all items on the contribution fund report go to the checking account (some go to other accounts), I basically told them to review the balance sheet. In particular, I took a section from the checking reconciliation report, where it shows the statement balance, the outstanding checks and outstanding deposits, to arrive at the adjusted balance of the checking account (which shows on the balance sheet).

Since we have more than one fund, the income/expense report for our general operating fund is not the same as the inflows/outflows of the bank (for all funds).

I had to bluntly ask them in multiple ways, 'what is it you want to see exactly'. It took a bit of time, but they basically wanted to see how we get from the checking account balance on the bank statement, to the amounts listed on the accounting fund balance reports, or the fund balance shown on any given balance sheet. Once they told me that, I realize I had to add the reconciliation report to the regular balance sheet; that satisfied them. They were okay with the income/expense report values not matching, as long as they could see the dots on the balance sheet.

yes, it is sometimes frustrating to explain to others, but I would consider discussing with them about the balance sheet values, plus the values from the reconciliation report, and whether that provides them the information they want.

The total on the contribution fund report will not match the amount of deposits on the bank statement, for the reasons Neil indicated. The income will not match the fund report or the deposits, because there are deposits which are not treated as income (such as refunds or pass-thru transactions).
The adjusted balance in the balance sheet / fund balance takes into account other subtractions not cleared from the bank.
The reconciliation report connects the bank statement balance to the adjusted balance, and thus the fund balance.

There may be another report possible, such as the cash register report / cash management report, but I have not gotten my numbers to match up as they are supposed to, something is off somewhere and I cannot figure it out yet on that report.

Hope this gives some additional insight from similar requests I've had.