Church use of Quickbooks for accounting

I have had the experience using QuickBooks for church/non profit use, prior to QuickBooks designing and releasing a not-for-profit edition. It is difficult to settle for the terminology the QB Basic and Pro generate. You may want to look into the Not-For-Profit edition if you are unsatisfied. Generally exporting to excel and a little manipulation of titles can do wonders.

Jeff
Jeff
www.jbmcpa.com

I was unaware that there WAS a non-profit edition. We are currently using QB Pro. The handbook has about 2 sentences about non-profit applications. The previous edition's (QB 97) had the advice that non-profits should track things w/ monthly fund balances and left it at that.

I need to adjust the current value of the building (since we just spent close to $2M on a new structure) along with reflecting the land appreciation value. I realize that I need to journal in the values but am uncertain as to what other [type] of account will be involved (other than our buildings and grounds acct) in the transaction. Any suggestions?

thanks in advance

Sallie in Reno

Sallie,
This is explained in the help system of QB. Go to help, help index, type in depreciation, accounts to track. Of course appreciation is handled in the same way as depreciation, only increasing in value rather than decreasing.
Hope this helps you
Eddie

Do you know of any sites that can help me? I am setting up a nonprofit company in QB Pro that is a retreat for children with special needs?

Sallie in Reno,

Any appreciation in land or building values are NOT recorded in the books! Check with an accountant to verify this!! This is in keeping with the accounting principle of conservatism. All assets such as these should be recorded at cost (including cost to construct).

Hi,
I am an experienced quickbooks user, but not in a charity environment. The charity company I work for has just installed quickbooks pro 2005 as not for profit no longer available here. I am unsure as to whether I should set up the fundraising events we run as customer/jobs? I am unsure because we have regular supporters who attend our fundraising events and they often want to be invoiced for a table at the event or for an item they bid on at our auction, so they would also need to be set up as a customer.....right?

I am also lost as to the use of classes? can anyone help...please?

Lisa

Use your Customer:Job designation for your donors/patrons/contributors, etc. Use Classes for your individual 'programs' or areas of income/expense. Fundraising would be a Class to which you allocate expenses. Use Sales Receipts to record donations, sales of tickets, etc. Use Invoices for pledges or payments to be received later.

I am a new user to Quickbooks Basic. My church has a General Operation Fund and other savings accounts. Each week, a check is written from the GOF and deposited into a savings account. Each account is set us as a bank account. When I record the deposit to the savings account, it shows up as a transaction in the General Fund. The savings account is not a sub-account of the general fund. I did not want to use the transfer account because I want the check written for the savings depost to show up in my income/expense report. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Joyce

This transaction is moving funds from one asset (GOF) to another (Savings), so it won't show up on your P&L.

Folks,
New to Quickbooks....running Quickbooks Pro and the Church wants to set up separate accounts for Special Funds that will not add into the General Fund and the monies dispersed will not come out of the General Fund. Any ideas?

Hello everyone. I'm a Quick Book Basic Newbie. We have a small accountablity group that formed from a few members of our church. The group became a non profit organization. Currently we have NO assets, we will gladly accept small grants and the only source of income comes from our monthly dues. @$100/mo. Our expenses are minor G&A items. I've been reading a lot about church and non profit General Operation Funds etc. When setting up our small group, is this the accounting structure we need to follow or because of our small size, going with the basic boiler templates Quick Books Basic have is sufficient? The actual software was a denotation from a relative in which I haven't received yet. It was order 2 days ago. I know this software is probably far more than what we need but we like the automation, it was a gift to us and we would like to at least give it a try. Any/All suggestions welcomed

1. Create Income Accounts called General Fund Income and Special Funds Income. Set up Expense Accounts called General Fund Expense and Special Funds Expense.
2. Take all your income accounts and make them subaccounts of General Fund Income. Make all your expense accounts subaccounts of General Fund Expense.
3. Set up income accounts as subs under Special Funds Income and the same for expense accounts as subs under Special Funds Expense.
4. Set up an Equity account called General Fund Equity and one called Special Fund Equity.
5. Do a General Journal entry to transfer the balance in Retained Earnings to General Fund Equity.
6. Set up two memorized reports, one selecting all General Fund Income and Expenses and one selecting all Special Fund Income and Expenses.

Don Glenn
A Quickbooks User

Thank you Don Glen. Sorry to bother but in creating the two funds/expenses and the two memorized reports does that create two separate p&l statements? Also, what about the balance sheet? Is quickbooks basic even capable of doing that, if so is there any special way i need to set that up?

Instead of moving Retained Earning to a new equity account named General Fund, just rename the Retained Earnings account as General Fund.

Please explain "Use Classes for your ...areas of income/expense".

Doug:

Setting up the two funds does not automatically set up two P&L statements. Quickbooks only does one P&L. What you will need to do is to break them apart by seleting the Income and Expenses for one of the funds through Modifying the Report and then Memorizing it. Do the same thing for the second fund. The total for each of the funds P&L will equal the total Quickbooks P&L.

Don Glenn
A Quickbooks User

I've set up a church's books in Quickbooks non-profit edition. I set up donations to go into Undeposited Funds and to be deposited into a General Funds account, a sub account of their bank account. Because neither of these are Income accounts, when I do an Income and Expense report, there seems to be no way to show donations as income, or to show them on a report at all. There doesn't seem to be a way to put donations directly into an Income account. How can I either get summary report of donations, total for the month? Or get donations to show up as Income? Thanks.
-Larry Sankey.

You should be using an 'Item' for donations which is linked to the 'Donations' income account. Go to
b Lists>Item List
then click the 'Item' button at the bottom, then select New. Set up the Item as a service-type item, and use the Donations income account.

When you record Donations, go to
b Customers>Enter Sales Receipts
and record the donor name and other information - use the 'Donation' item you just created. When you save the Sales Receipt, the amount is automatically recorded to the Income account, and also the Undeposited Funds account. Then you can deposit it to the General Funds 'bank' account.

Now you can do a report on Sales>Sales by Item (detail or summary) to see the total donations. Or you can do a report on Sales>Sales by Customer (detail or summary) to see the total donations by donor.

Thank you. I had an item set up this way originally to go into an Income account called General Funds. But when I was adding donations, nothing ever showed up in the account. Is it that the funds only show up there after you make a bank deposit? I'll give that I try. I did change the accounts back to Income accounts and now it does show up as income. Thanks again.
-Larry.

Larry: In reviewing your thread, you stated that you set it up to go into "General Funds account, a sub account of their bank account". Do you have an account as a sub account of the bank account called General Funds. The bank account is an asset account and not income. Any subaccount must be the same characteristic as the main account. An Item (as described by Joni above) that is to be deposited (as a donation would be) should be tied to an income account. When you use the Enter Sales Receipt window, it will post the amount to the bank account selected on the screen. The item tells QB where to post the income. QB actually posts the money to the Undeposited Money account and to the income account, which means the income is recognized when the money is first posted. The Undeposited Money account is an asset account to hold all money received until deposited. When you use the Make Deposit screen, QB moves the money from the Undeposited Money account into the particular bank account. Check to be sure the item is set to post to an income account, not an asset account.

Don Glenn
A Quickbooks User