New to This Style of Accounting

[austincrs]

As we have grown, we left Quicken for Power Church. We had all our categories and subcategories figured out in Quicken, but can't figure out how to set up in PC. I understand the member module, contributions, but am getting bogged down in creating the General and Detailed accounts. In Quicken I have expense entries with subcategories of: service supplies, rent, minister, recording, etc., with all the numbering of accounts I'm lost.

Can anyone help steer me in the right direction? I'm sure I'm making it harder than it really is. We are a small church with only one checking account. Just need to be able to set up the categories so we can run our monthly and year end financial reports.

Thank you.

[555glenda]

We are a small church, 25-35 active particpants, mailing list of 200, and an annual budget under $50,000. I just purchased PC 10 and am tryiing to decide just how to proceed. Here at years end, I'd like to finish out 2007 in QuickBooks and have PC up and running to begin by Jan. 1 2008. Is there a quick, easy cost effective why to export QuickBooks 2005 data for the last 2 yrs into PC Accounting and Contributions?

I also have just upgraded my desk top at home (where I do most of the bookwork for the church) to Windows XP. I will be keeping back-up copies of PC on my laptop, and on the desk top at the church, both of them run on WindowsXP.

I'm most interested in getting the accounting and contributions modules up and running, but would welcome any tips and suggestions on what to do first in any of the otther modules. Naturally, I'm reading the manual and beginning to get a fundamental understanding of the program. And have been reading through these forum post to glean as much information as I can. Thanks in advance for any quick tips. Glenda

[NeilZ]

First let me answer Glenda, there is no way to convert Quickbooks data into Powerchurch. The dissimilarites in the way the programs do things make this type of conversion very, very hard.

For both of you, there is a Powerchurch trainer, Matt, who trains churches on Powerchurch, and can definitely assist you with your questions about categories to accounts/subaccounts. The problem is he's usually on the road teaching, and can only visit here once or twice a week.

If you can be patient, I know that he, or someone else who is knowledgable about a quicken/quickbooks to Powerchurch transfer will stop by and give you some advice.

Hope this helps.

[555glenda]

Ok, I've been being patient, reading as much as I can and doing what seems normal to do..from the manual, but I'm ready for some real training on the accounting module, from a real person, any suggestions?

[brunelst]

I have been using PowerChurch on some level since 1997. I began with Membership and Contributions and used Quicken for the financial part of the job. I did this volunteer for my church. I have been working for another church for the past 6 months that uses every module of powerchurch. One thing people should know is that the Accounting Module of PowerChurch is a true accounting program. Someone can show you how to setup the accounting and correct errors but they can't teach you accounting. That takes learning accounting principles. This is necessary in order to think through your problems. Otherwise !