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Account Titles for new bookkeeping position in Sunday School

Hello! My church has very little financial organization. We are very small and have never organized our finances using accounting techniques. I have been asked to fill the position of treasurer for our Sunday School Department. Currently they are recording Sunday School offerings in a regular wide ruled notebook. I took an accounting class in college and i would like to help them organize it using modern accounting techniques. However, I'm not sure what account titles I should be
using in my journal. The bank account used to deposit Sunday School offerings is the same account used for the entire church treasury. I have no real balance to bring forward. Any help is tremendously appreciated!!! Thank you!!

Comments for Account Titles for new bookkeeping position in Sunday School

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Jan 29, 2014
 Account Titles
by: MarcusNTexas

I am also a church treasurer and we have been using the Quick Books accounting system at our church since 1999. We have three separate bank accounts. The largest is the General Fund, and then we have a Building Fund bank account and also a Benevolence / Memorials Fund bank account. Our regular "undesignated" offerings are what we consider as the weekly tithes and offerings. When I post the transactions in the QB system I use the account title "Regular Offerings" and when I record the deposits in the QB system I designate them as either "Regular Offerings -- Sunday School" or "Regular Offerings -- Worship Service" although they are all accounted for in the "Regular Offerings" account. However, if there is a question later, I can call up from the QB system the deposit transaction and see how much was from Sunday School and how much was from the Worship Service for any specific weekly offering. It is not complicated.

Jan 30, 2014
 Set up Fund Accounting
by: Vickey

Even on paper, you can set up fund accounting and be able to distinguish between unrestricted and restricted funds or general and designated funds such as Sunday School funds. See this page on fund accounting: https://www.freechurchaccounting.com/fundaccounting.html

Or better yet, get my book on the subject:)
Basic Fund Accounting

If possible though, some kind of computerized accounting system would be best. With your small church, my free accounting spreadsheets would probably work...even though like Marcus, QuickBooks is my software of choice for churches:)

I have tried to make my accounting spreadsheets as user-friendly as possible, so maybe you could talk them into using them:)

Here is a description of them:https://www.freechurchaccounting.com/freespreadsheets.html

Here is the download page:
https://www.freechurchaccounting.com/newsletter-bonus.html

P.S. I am in the process of revising the spreadsheets and should have the new ones available when I send out my newsletter, Stewardship, next week:)

Side Note: Marcus have you seen Lisa London's new book: QuickBooks for Churches? I found some tips from this CPA that helped me in QuickBooks:)
If you are interested in it you can get a 10% discount by putting "freechurch" in the coupon code:)
Jan 31, 2014
 Quickbooks for Churches
by: AnonymousMN

Thank Vickey for the reference to the 'Quickbooks for Churches' I have used simple PC Quicken for years and found it quite adequate to track our Church income and expenses. I also used Intuit Online Payroll and found it was extremely valuable.

But I was interested in having Cloud support so 'upgraded' to QBO and Payroll in July. I have found that QBO and Payroll difficult to get them to provide the simple function that I feeling I need to track $750,000 each year.

Will the book you recommended be helpful for QBO or just for the PC version ?

Why do all these publication seem to be very expensive? I hesitate to spend that much of my Church's money just for my education.
Feb 03, 2014
 AnonymousMN
by: Vickey

Sorry for just responding. Comments go live without notifying me first, so I didn't see it till just now.

The book was written for the pc edition, but has tips for all versions of QuickBooks. However, I don't think there is anything regarding payroll in the book.

If you would like to ask the CPA that wrote the book questions about her book, use my contact form or email address and I will forward your inquires on to Lisa.

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Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Church Accounting FAQs.

If you want to DIY your payroll, I highly recommend you look at using Gusto! It is very user friendly and their support is awesome! Plus they know how to set up and maintain payrolls for churches and nonprofit organizations.

Note: I am a "partner" of Gusto, but as I have told you before ... I never recommend anything that we or our clients have not tried and love =)



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