August 10, 2010 – 6:21 pm
Power Church is based on cash accounting, not accrual accounting. You can google the two terms to see what the difference is.
The idea of keeping track of “receivables” comes with accrual accounting.
There is a module in PowerChurch called “Accounts Receivable”. This differs very little from the Contributions module, except in terminology. It has “customers” instead of envelope numbers, etc. The “billed” money in the Accounts Receivable module is recorded in the Fund Accounting module until the money is actually received by the church or organization.
There is no Fund Accounting record of how much money is due the church in Accounts Receivable, any more than the Fund Accounting module is aware of how many pledges are outstanding …
Envelope numbers can be added “on the fly” in Contributions / Enter Contributions.
At the far right, in the center of the “Enter Contributions” screen is a green plus sign (PowerChurch version 11) that will open a window and allow you to enter a contributor.
The envelope number picked will be the next in the sequence. The sequence beginning can be changed under File / Preferences / Contributions Setup, in the General Tab.
An envelope number can be edited after it has been assigned by going into the Membership module / Personal Profiles / Modify Personal Profiles, on the first tab (Profile Information).
Note: This post has been added to the Frequently Asked Questions about PowerChurch Plus.
I am starting to compile a list of frequently asked questions that people ask on the forum about PowerChurch Plus.
To begin with, there are basics, like “What is a double-entry accounting system?”, and “What are debits and credits?”.
I will refer to this page in future posts, so that this forum will not be redundant.
Here, I will tackle more current issues about Power Church software.
The “View Posted Transactions” menu in Fund Accounting is a handy tool for making corrections in Power Church Plus.
Transactions can be searched for with the “Filter” and an automatic reversal entry can be entered when you click on the “Reverse” tab.
The Transaction notes can be view in the Transaction Detail tab.
It is worth exploring this menu option. There is a lot of useful information there, and it is not typically an item that is used a lot. PowerChurch has many unused useful features, it seems.
Simple depreciation entries can be made by taking the purchase price of an item and dividing it over the number of years that it will be in use. There are some guidelines for “length of use”, but nothing written in easy-to-read language, so use good judgment, and you will be fine.
When you buy a depreciating asset, you Credit your checking account and Debit the new asset account. You also Credit an asset account called “Accumulated Depreciation” for a fraction of the item’s value. (The value of the item divided by the number of year’s of use). You Debit the expense account called “Depreciation Expense”.
Note: the “Accumulated Depreciation” asset account will always be a negative number. …
Since making backups on PowerChurch Plus is a fairly simple operation, please do so frequently.
Our backup routine involves backing up after every use (our administrative secretary enters the contributions weekly, and our bookkeeper cuts checks weekly). That’s at least two backups every week.
They backup to the network drive (which is allowable after PowerChurch Plus version 10), and then they email me a copy of the backup zip file. That puts the backup file offsite immediately. The whole backup procedure takes about two minutes.
There are no more excuses. Do you backups often!
Regularly recurring payments can be set up as a repeating item in the Accounts Payable module in PowerChurch Plus.
In version 11, the payments can be made either weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, etc. instead of just on a monthly basis.
Even if payment amounts change slightly from time-to-time, setting up the vendor and the default accounting information in the repeating items menu can save you a lot of time. After releasing the payment into the Open Invoice section, the amounts can be adjusted.
If you have an electronic payment to record on a regular basis, choose the option to release the repeating item as a Manual Check instead of an Open Invoice. The payment will be recorded, but no check will be …
A simple time-saving step when entering checks is to enter the default account information directly into the vendor record.
In the vendor record, there is an “Account Information” tab. By entering the checking account and the usual expense account here, it will automatically appear when you select that vendor in Accounts Payable / Maintain Open Invoices.
If the account information needs to be changed from the usual expense account, it can be easily edited in the Open Invoices window.
In PowerChurch Plus version 11, when you are reconciling bank statements, there is a check box at the top of the second screen. It says, “only show items dated before statement date”.
It is checked by default.
If you absolutely cannot find an item that shows up on your bank statement (especially correction entries), try unchecking this box.
This reminder comes after a post on the help forum reminded me of my experience.
Also, check out the new Frequently Asked Questions about PowerChurch Plus
The rule of thumb I have used to determine whether or not an activity needs its own fund is this: Are there (many) more than income account associated with this activity, and are there (many) more than one expense account associated with this activity.
Obvious candidates for having their own accounting funds are things like missions accounts, building funds, church schools, etc.
Some activities that may need their own funds are investment accounts, summer programs, or large book ministries.
The most important test if you are unsure is the number of income and expense accounts associated with the activity.
