Help Please Anyone!!!!

[tborgal]

I inherited a system that had each employee with a different account number. But using one salary account and different sub-accounts for each seperate salary will work fine and in fact may be a cleaner way than what I have.

One thing to be aware of with sub-accounts. If you use the same sub-account number in different funds -- 01-5210-001 and 02-5220-001 -- and you run a sub-account report both of the above accounts will show in the report. If you do not want this to happen make sure not to repeat sub-account numbers in major accounts. You can use them on connected income and expense accounts to tract income and expenses however. For example I use them to tract special designated contributions to missionaries. I have an income account xx-4210-801 and an expense account xx-5201-801. When you run a report on sub-account 801 you will get both the income and expense comparison for these accounts if you check the boxes next to income and expense when selecting the account or accounts you want to see.

Hope this doesn't confuse you even more.

PS I am praying for you -- mostly because I am responding to your questions and don't want to send you off in the wrong direction.

God Bless

[CJ]

Thank-you Tom
I feel like if I can just get comfortable enough to really this set up I will be in good shape.
I already have some "what if" questions for somethings that I know are going to happen but I will wait until i get to that point.

But one more question I do have about set-up is concerning cash. I am of the opinion that cash transactions should be VERY minimal but that doesn't seem to be the case a lot of the time (not my doing, I just record). In order to track the cash, would I just set it up another account calling it a "cash account"? If I do that and I use the same account number (income & exspence #) as I do in the checking account will they tally together for a grand total when I run reports?
For example if someone was reimbursed with cash to buy office supplies and other times office supplies were paid for using a check, will the report show all office supply exspences together even though they were paid out of 2 different accounts?
If a certain amount of cash was withdrawn for a specific purpose I could see that I would put that withdrawl as an exspence in the office supplies catagory but unfortunantly sometimes cash from contributions gets used before it ever makes it to the bank.
In this same scenario I am VERY concerned about what this is going to do to my totals - because my contributions and my deposits won't match up.

Thanks for the prayers I need them! Whatever the motive : )

[jeffkoke]

..."For example bothe funds 01 and 02 might share your checking account number 1110.

My original thought was that with Salaries if I needed to break them down into specific people that is where my sub accounts would come in. Is this right?
Is anybody praying for me out there?

Absolutely!

For your salaries, you might want to show specific fund numbers for each portion of the salary package. We have: Salary, FICA (x2), MedCare (x2), medical insurance, dental insurance, pension, 401(k), retirement and housing. Each is a sub to the salary for the full-time staff member. Using this method, you can easily roll up a summary report to see what each staff person's salary expenses are.

Make sense?

Jeff

[tborgal]

Not sure what you mean about setting up a cash account. If this is from loose cash contributions just assigned an envelope number to cash contributions, in our case we use envelope 100.

What you are saying about the account numbers totaling, they will. But to do what you want you would have to create a seperate Fund. You can not duplicate account numbers within a Fund. You could do it with sub-account numbers within the same Fund however.

How are you getting your information to enter the contributions? Are you doing the countring yourself, with others, or is it being passed along to you from others? If what you are recieving as the contribution amount and what is being deposited in the bank are different amounts, you have a problem. In my opinion nothing should be removed from the contributions before it is deposited. If it is, you have lost all accountability for it. Reimbursements should be made by check only. That way you have a definite paper trail for all expenses. Another solution for this could be a "petty cash" box. We do this for incidentale expenses when needed, but require a "petty cash" slip be put in the box whenever money is removed. We then have a record of how much was removed and what it was removed for. It is then replenished when needed and the proper accounts are debited. We replenish from the Sunday mornig offering, then write a check on the Church account and put that in the offering to replace the cash. That way the deposit matches the offering. Sounds a little odd but it works just fine. To keep track of the "petty cash" we use an asset account, in our case we use account number 1120 and it is kept in our General Fund. I don't do any debiting or crediting to it, I just maintain it a the value we have set to have on hand. In our case again it is $100.


Hope this helps,



[/quote]

[CJ]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!
You answered my question about the cash account with your example of "petty cash". One question though I'm a little lost with the replenishing part. How would you write a check to yourself, so to speak? How does that work? The bank takes the money out and puts it back in again? And the check written to replace the cash should be listed as the actual expense in the appropriate category?
If you don't mind sharing what info do you include on each petty cash slip?

For the loose cash contributions we also have an envelope number assigned to that in our case it's 500 : )

I enter contributions based on envelopes and I have the trustees give me the total for the loose money as well. I tally envelopes and loose while they count cash and checks and pray we get the same total. As long as they do their job carefully and make sure the envelope total matches what is actually inside we are in good shape. When they don't we have a problem. But that is a separate issue all together.

I agree with you 150% about not taking cash out of the contributions and reimbursements. My problem is getting the treasurers to understand and follow through. Too many folks set in their ways. I have been trying make them see there are certain laws we have to abide by and really they are opening themselves up to be accused of embezzlement. No one is above temptation - and there have been too many instances of trust broken with church finances - so why make it so easy?
Sorry I had to get that out : )
But anyway, that is why I am so determined to get this system going. Hopefully we can put an end to all this.

You are being most helpful, I feel like I'm making some progress!!!!

[tborgal]

First - The petty cash slip contains the amount taken, the reason for taking it (business expense, office supplies, postage, etc.) the person who recieved it, and the person who approved it, if different from the person who recieved it. Tha last item may seem a little confusing, but we have a People In Need fund and we will often give someone in need cash for gas or food. In that case the person who gave them the money will sign the slip.

Second - We make the check out to cash. So yes, the bank takes the money out and puts it back in again. I often wonder if the bank thinks we are crazy but it works very well. Almost every time we do this we have several accounts that will be credited within the one check. The checking account gets credited the full amount of the check and the expense accounts get debited as needed. We have a "Petty Cash" reimbusement tally sheet that we fill out, with several different expense account discriptions and their numbers listed on it - most often used with petty cash - to make the totaling easier. We then attach the slips, the check stub, and the tally sheet together and keep that on file.


Again - Hope this helps

[Gabriel]

I am sad to say that I do feel and share your frustrations and pain.
The book is not too user friendly, it is too general

I am doing well on the contributions side, posting them and havings 7 different " funds" It works great!

I am still not able to use the accounting side, document checks etc or have anything transferred from my contributions to my "accounts" Obviously, I still don't get this account thing

I have only one checking account. I do have 7 funds that people contribute to but it all ends on the same pot.

I have let's say 10 other things to pay like a loan, utilities etc.

I have my Assets as 01-1110-000 group level 1
My checking account as 01-1110-101 detail level 4

my income general fund as 01-4001-000 level 2 detail
as expenses one example is 01-5002-000

Is this sort of right? If by any chance this is right (ha, ha, ha...) how do I get the contributions to transfer over?

Like many of you, this program is testing my patience and resolve. Can I e-mail anyone a copy or can anyone send me an example of this. Then I could expand it to the other expenses and the other funds income.

Any help is appreciated! Thank you ahead of time.

Have a wonderful and blessed day!

Gabriel