The Fund Accounting module was redesigned in this release:

• Multiple Years of Transactions Detail - Like other areas of PowerChurch Plus, the Fund Accounting module will now hold multiple years of transactions detail. You will still be able to review this year's transaction detail next year.
• Work with Calendar Months - You no longer have to be puzzled by confusing accounting periods. Instead of referring to the month as "0901," we now refer to the calendar month as "January 2009".
• Change Account Numbers - Change an account number at any time, automatically updating wherever the account is used. No longer do you have to wait until the end of the year to reorganize your chart of accounts. You can also merge two accounts together.
• Deactivate an account - Mark an account as inactive to keep it from printing on most reports. An inactive account can not be used in new transactions.
• Manage Donor Restricted Contributions - A whole new area has been added in Fund Accounting for keeping track of donor restricted contributions. These changes are in compliance with GAAP modifications for non-profit organizations (specifically FASB 117). With the additional feature of allowing multiple equity accounts in each fund, you can track the available balance of your restricted funds at any time.
• New Bank Reconciliation Method - Reconcile your bank account quicker and easier. The two step process of maintaining the check register, then reconciling the bank account has been combined into one easy step.
• Repeating Journal Transactions - Save Fund Accounting transactions as repeating entries for easy retrieval. Great for common monthly entries such as bank service charges.
• Transfer Accounts - A new account category has been added to keep transfers between funds from affecting income and expense balances.
• Transaction Description, Line Description, and Unlimited Notes Fields - A new 25 character note field has been added to better describe the transaction. You can also enter a separate description on each line of transaction detail. An unlimited note field is available to record more detailed information about the transaction.
• New Reports - 15 new reports added to the fund accounting module alone, including Balance Sheet by Fund, Income and Expenses by Fund, Statement of Activities, and more.
• Include Unposted Transactions - The Balance Sheet, Income & Expense Statement, and Account Activity reports now allow you to include unposted transactions. This helps to verify that your transactions are correct prior to posting and finalizing them.
• New Accounting Setup Assistant - If you have not yet set up accounting, PowerChurch Plus now has an assistant that walks you through the process of creating your chart of accounts and establishing beginning balances.

Budgets

• You can now have multiple years of budget history.
• Enter budgets for group accounts and "budget by the group" which allows all of the detail accounts to share the same group budget amount.
• PowerChurch Plus now allows you to enter a budget for any type of account (Asset, Liability, Equity, Income, Expense, Transfer).
• We have added subtotals on the Budget Report.

Increased Security

• New options for controlling who can post information and close months in Fund Accounting.
• The system now tracks the user that entered, modified, and posted individual transactions and when it was done.
• A new audit log to track system functions, such as posting transactions, closing the month, deleting and envelope number, or restoring a backup.

Accounts Payable

• You can now print your "account number" or other information on the memo line of Accounts Payable checks.
• There is a now a description field for each transaction line on invoices and manual checks.
• A new unlimited note field has been added for recording detailed information about an invoice.
• You are now able to delete individual vendors without deleting history for all vendors.

Payroll

• The new Void Checks process makes voiding checks a breeze, even easier than in Accounts Payable.
• You are now able to delete individual employees without removing history for all employees

E-mail Enhancements

• Bulk e-mails now allow file attachments.
• E-mails can be Plain Text or HTML formatted (using the built in HTML editing tools).
• You can request read receipts and set priority levels on bulk e-mails.
• The e-mail address field can now be marked unlisted.
• You can also exclude a person from bulk e-mailings.
• Send e-mail through servers that require authentication.

E-mail Contribution Statements

Save time and postage by sending Contribution Statements as an e-mail attachment directly from PowerChurch Plus. There is a setting for each contributor to opt-out of receiving Contribution Statements by e-mail.

Sort Lookup Lists by Any Column

All Locate screens and Lookup lists can be sorted by any column. Use this feature to find a person by their first name or locate a vendor by their name rather than vendor ID. Simply click on the column header to resort the list. This is especially useful in the Reconcile Bank Accounts screen, to look for a transaction by date or amount, rather than by reference order only.

Report Enhancements

• E-mail reports - Send a report to one person, or a group, right from PowerChurch Plus. For example, e-mail the Balance Sheet report to finance committee members so they will be ready for the next meeting.
• Export reports in PDF and HTML formats
• Improved Word and Excel export formats so they more closely resemble the original report

Add Family Assistant

The Add Family Assistant walks a user through the process of adding a new family and its members. This is a great tool for new staff members learning PowerChurch Plus, making sure that all of the information makes it to the right places. It can also assign envelope numbers automatically to each member of the family.

New Activity Department, Type, and Role Fields

Three new customizable code fields have been added to the Activities & Skills module:

• Roles - Roles are assigned to indicate a person's functions in an activity. Roles of "Teacher" and "Student" are perfect examples.
• Department and Type - These new code fields can be used to further categorize your activities. This offers greater flexibility by providing additional search criteria when generating Activities & Skills reports. For example, you could create a list of all teachers of Sunday School classes in the Children's department.

We listened to you!

The following improvements were made based on requests to the wishlist.

• Screen Preview for Mailing Labels - This keeps you from having to waste labels if you aren't ready to print, but would like to see who will be included in your selection.
• Automatically open Quick Menus on startup - Quick Menus were added in a previous version as a way to go directly to the screen you want, without having to navigate the full program menu. You can now define which Quick Menus you want to be opened automatically and where on the screen they will appear.
• User-Defined Background Image - Each individual user can now define their own background image or choose to not show a background image at all.
• Attendance Register Form - Bar Codes have now been added to the Weekly Column Layout of the Attendance Register Form.
• Contribution Statements - You can now adjust the top margin up to 4 inches for Contribution Statements printed on church letterhead.
• Pictorial Directories - Pictorial Directories can now be saved to a file or e-mailed like any other built-in report.
• Higher Resolution Pictures - Family and Profile pictures can now be stored at a higher, 800x600 resolution for better printing.
• Password Protection - Separate, per-user password options were added for Backup & Restore functions.
• Top Margin on Reports - A new option to set top margin of all reports allows for greater printer compatability and also allows any report to be printed on church letterhead.
• Bulk E-mail - You can now send an e-mail message to all current officers in Activities & Skills.
• Unposted Contributions report - The Unposted Contributions report now has the option of sorting alphabetically.