Can Powerchurch Track Inputters & Counters

[RevWJones]

Let me first outline our process that our church uses to manage our donations each Sunday.

1. All envelopes and donations are dumped onto a table.
2a. Counters (11 people from our finance ministry rotate in/out on a weekly basis), grab a handful of envelopes to count. Using an adding machine they produce a tape of the totals to be given to the auditor.
2b. The auditor retrieves all checks and creates an envelope for each.
3. The auditor forwards all monies to the church treasurer for final verifications.
4. The auditor then takes the tape, envelopes, and envelope monies & performs an audit. If there are discrepancies, they are corrected. When the numbers match, each envelopes from each counter is then given to the Inputter to enter into PowerChurch. The Inputter must sign the adding machine tape as a method of tracking.
5. The Inputters would then sign-on to PC using the ID of the Counter of whom envelopes they're inputting. When all envelopes for Counter A is
inputted, the Inputter signs-out & then back-on again as another counter until all envelopes are inputted into PC.
6. A report from PC is generated for each Counter's sign-on.
7. The Treasurer verifies the totals with the monies received.

With the report from PC, it is easy to track the Counters since it's their IDs that was used to login.

As the Minister of Technology here at Second Baptist Church, Ypsilanti, MI, I suggested that we create Inputter/Counter ID pairs. Since we have 4 Inputters & 11 Counters, we would have to create 44 ID's in PC. For example,

Usernames:
IP1/C1
.....
IP1/C11

IP2/C1
.....
IP2/C11

IP3/C1
.....
IP3/C11

IP4/C1
.....
IP4/C11

PROBLEM: Is there a simpler way we can track the Inputters & Counter in PC?
Is there something in the Contribution Module or somewhere in PC that we
can use to track both?

Thanks for any insight you can give us.

Rev. Wardell Jones
Minister of Technology
Second Baptist Church of Ypsi

_________________________________________________________________________________________
Response from NeilZ

Normally I would say this is the type of question that should be asked on the forum, as others could benefit from the answer.

That said, Powerchurch can only track WHO entered the contributions. So if you setup a Powerchurch account for each counter pair, for Contributions Data Only, you'll be able to pull a report weekly on who
entered the contributions, and what was entered.

We only use 4 teams of counters and a fill-in group who can replace someone on any given Sunday, however, each team takes a week. There are two people per team. One to input data, another to read off the envelopes, you could have 3 per team, with two to read and count money, the other to input.

Initially, the data input person enters loose checks, while the other person or persons separate out loose cash, and puts that aside counting that while the input person finishes the loose checks. Then the envelopes are entered, cash envelopes are held to the end of the process, so checks go first, then cash.

Once that is done, we run a bank deposit slip report, to verify the total cash. Then we run down the checks to verify each amount. If everything matches, they're done. If there is a entry issue, it is fixed at that time.

Its amazing how fast this sped things up for us, with an average of 300 to 400 different contributions per Sunday.

Finally, there really isn't a way to track the teams as you propose to do so. I would just track those who are doing the input along with the Sunday they were assigned to do the input to see who else was on the team.

Hope this helps.

BTW .. I'm just a long time user, so these are my thoughts and opinions only.