Tales From Tech 2 - Issue: 18a

As I worked on Volume 18, it began growing to immense proportions so I decided to break it up into smaller morsels for easier digestion. I'll probably wait a few days before sending Volume 18B, just to give you time to absorb all this wisdom.

Well, I'm finally ready to continue my discussion of contributions and pledges by having a Question and Answer session based on a few questions sent in by some of our users.

Anyway, thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch today reminded me of that old saying: Spare the rod and the watched pot never boils.

CHANGING PLEDGES

Ashley Wilkes at the First Church of Tara wrote the following:

"Our youth minister, Rhett, who is just the sweetest fellow, recently made an appearance on the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" show and he actually won $32,000. He didn't know the answer to the $64,000 question and so he just guessed. You know, on the $64,000 question, it's okay to just guess because you can't really lose any money. Anyway, Rhett has decided to change the pledge he has for our Birthin' Babies Fund from $10 a week to $20 a week starting on May 1st. How do I change things in PowerChurch Plus Version 8?"

Well Ashley, in simplest terms, all you'll be doing is changing the ending date on the first pledge and then adding a new pledge for the same fund. Since Version 8 now allows you to have multiple pledges to any contribution fund for any envelope number, it's easy to take care of issues like this when they arise.

Let's use the information you've given and work through the steps as an example...

The first step would be to go under Contributions to the Maintain Pledges screen. Once there, just bring up Rhett's record, highlight the pledge he has to the Birthin' Babies Fund and click on the Change button. Then, just change the end date to April 30th and click OK.

After you've changed the end date on the first pledge, click on the Add button and create a new weekly pledge to the Birthin' Babies Fund. This new pledge will be $20 a week instead of $10. Just make sure that the start date on this new pledge is May 1st and that you use the same end date that you originally had on the first pledge.

Now Rhett will have 2 separate pledges to the Birthin' Babies Fund. The first pledge ends on April 30th and is for $10 a week. The second one begins on May 1st and is for $20 a week.

The beauty of this is that you can actually have multiple pledges for an envelope to the same fund! This wasn't possible until Version 8 of PowerChurch Plus.

PRE-PAID PLEDGES

John Dunbar at Third Church of Dakota wrote and asked the following:

"Our pledges always run from January through December, but sometimes people will give you a little bit toward the following year's pledge at the end of the year before. In fact, just last December, I had four people give me some money that they wanted to give toward this year's pledge. What in the world am I supposed to do with this money?"

Well John, in Version 8 of PowerChurch Plus, contributions are "applied" to a pledge and they can be applied even when they are outside the date range of the pledge. This allows you to easily handle prepaid and postpaid pledges.

Let's work through an example. Let's say that we have a 2002 pledge for the Missing Bison Fund and that someone gives you a contribution at the end of 2001 that they want to apply to it. What do you do?

Well, how you handle this contribution is going to depend on whether or not the 2002 pledge has already been entered. If it has, the contribution can be applied to the pledge when it is entered. In fact, when you enter a contribution, if there is a pledge for the fund and the date of the contribution falls within the date range of that pledge, the program will automatically assume that you want to apply it. If the contribution is outside the date range of any pledges that exist for the fund, the program will not automatically apply it. If you want to apply it to a pledge that starts after or ends before the date of the contribution, just click on the "view pledges" button after you have entered the envelope number and then pick the pledge from the list.

If the pledge doesn't exist when you go to put in the contribution, you can always apply it after adding the pledge simply by going to the View Posted Contributions screen, finding the envelope number and then selecting the appropriate contribution. Then, all you have to do is click on the Change Pledge button and pick the pledge you want to apply it to.

Keep in mind that you can only apply a contribution to a pledge for the same fund that the contribution is for, but the date of the contribution doesn't have to be within the date range of the pledge.

YEAR AFTER YEAR

Nyota Uhura at the First Federation Church sent in the following question .

"My pledges are basically the same, year after year after year and my hands get so tired entering all of those pledges over and over again. What can the software do to help me out?"

Well Nyota, I'm thrilled you asked. In Version 8, we've greatly improved the Year End Pledge Processing routine within the program. In fact, it's easier than ever to create new pledges from the pledges you already have.

Under Contributions, there is a Year End Pledge Processing option that allows you to create new pledges for a fund based on pledges that already exist to that fund.

As an example, let's say that we have a pledge to the Final Frontier Fund that ends on December 31, 2001. Let's assume that most individuals have decided to make new pledges to this fund for January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2002. To create these new pledges, all you have to do is click on Year End Pledge Processing, enter the number for the Final Frontier Fund, enter the end date of the current pledge (December 31, 2001) and then type in the dates you want the new pledge to be for (January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2002).

After this, just go through and change any pledge for people that changed their pledge amount, delete the pledges for the people that aren't pledging again and then manually add ones for the individuals that didn't have pledges last year. Then, sit back and enjoy a nice bowl of gagh and think about all the time and effort that Version 8 just saved you.

Just keep in mind that this procedure creates new pledges for the fund. It doesn't change the existing pledges, it adds new ones.