As you recall I was able, with the tools that POWERchurch software provided me, to initiate and implement many positive changes with this superior church management software. I was able to use a phased approach beginning in 2004 with simply loading membership data which allowed us to track attendance for our various Christian Education classes as well as our main Sunday worship services. From there I transitioned into the Accounting module which was a HUGE undertaking for someone such as myself that had no prior background in accounting, with the exception of one single accounting class at a Community College back in the 1980's. Then after witnessing the painful 'long-hand' process that our church treasurer was using I could not stand idly by, knowing that I had the electronic tools to make that job so much easier. To bring this into perspective, this small church with an attendance of 100-120 had TEN checking accounts!!! I assumed the Assistant Treasurer's responsibility only for the purpose of 'filling in' and writing the checks while the Treasurer was out of town for 2-3 weeks during the summer/fall. After seeing & working with table-top sized ledger sheets used to track each account, I took it upon myself to request that we handle these accounts through Fund Accounting and close as many of the checking accounts as the church elder board would allow me to close. Permission was granted to close several of them and as it ended up I was able to close six of the ten checking accounts and move everything into POWERchurch software and manage our finances electronically.
Finally, I pushed myself to request moving payroll into POWERchurch as the final phase to complete the process. I 'REALLY' didn't want to undertake payroll because I found it quite intimidating. But, in order to finish what I had begun (I would never be able to respect myself if I failed to finish) I took it on. The current process of payroll would be for the church treasurer to issue the payroll check, noting all of the deductions, etc. on the MEGA sized ledger-sheets (each new minister had different demands) and at the end of each quarter have another church member with an accounting background fill out the 941 and State Payroll tax forms and hand the filled out forms to the treasurer who would then issue the check to the Government entities and mail them in. Year end reporting for the Annual Business Meeting was quite a process as well.To better illustrate how labor intensive the former treasurers job was, at year's end of 2004 I requested a statement of my family contributions. I was told that it would take a while (???). Two weeks later I was given my contribution totals. I asked what the process for this was and was told by the treasurer that he had to go back through all of the deposit slips for the calendar year of 2004 and total our giving. It was at this point I knew I needed to persuade the elder council to move the finances to an electronic format.
Thank you so much for this POWERchurch Forum support. There were so many times that I simply hated to post something that for most of you might consider as an elementary question. But I was under duress to make sure that I did the best that I could in a relatively short amount of time, so I posted. Without your responses & support I doubt that I would have been able to succeed with this undertaking. I am stepping away from a volunteer responsibility sensing a tremendous sense of accomplishment and satisfaction of being able to finish something that I really believed I needed to undertake.... I have always operated in a support function and when I determined a need, I felt obligated to do what I could to meet that need.
