User Support Forum

It has been explained to me that, since we are a church, we use the Cash basis of accounting. And that is why we do not keep track of all our staff's credit card charges as they occur through out the credit card statement period.

It was explained that we are only to record the credit card charges when the credit card bill is actually paid by us.

We have 1 account that has multiple staff credit cards off of it. So when we record the payment of this one account, that once-a-month payment requires 1 accounting entry that has many debits & credits.

The problem is that if, and when, someone determines that a correction needs to be made to one of these huge transactions.

Considering that these credit card payments is recorded in the Accounts Payable module, shouldn't I reverse the original transaction within the Accounts Payable module, and re-enter the corrected entry in the Accounts Payable module ?

My only complaint about that is when I would be reversing & re-entering a transaction that has as much as 14 debits & 5 credits, it seems to be a lot of headache when you're ultimately making a correction that only affects 2 lines.

I was told that I could just make a 2-line correcting entry, and leave the original transaction alone. Should that be done within the Accounts Payable module ?

That doesn't seem possible, based on my particular need:

The type of correction I'm needing to make is to show that the payment for a particular charge was to be taken from the Women's Ministry checking sub-account, instead of the General checking sub-account that I had originally recorded it as coming from. This correction does not involve any "Payee" name for me to make a 2-line correcting entry into the Accounts Payable module.

Should I reverse the whole transaction,
or is there some way that a simpler 2-line correcting entry can be made?

Should the correction be made in the Accounts Payable module,
or is it sufficient to make a correction in the Fund Accounting module?

I am assuming that the expense accounts have been posted to correctly. I am also assuming that you have a "main" checking account (e.g. 01-1110" and then multiple sub accounts under the main checking account (e.g. 01-1110-120, 01-1110-130, etc.).

If these assumptions are correct, given the scenario you describe, I would recommend that you do an entry in Fund accounting to debit the General checking sub account and credit the Women's Ministry checking sub account for the charge. I would also recommend that you use the same reference number and date on the entry as on the original posting and include a note on the entry explaining the reason for the adjustment. This way the entries will be linked together.

Churches generally use the cash basis of accounting. But in the case of credit card purchases I think it is wise and good internal control for a church to record these as expenses and liabilities at the time the charges are made and not wait for the monthly bill to come in before recording them. Then when the bill is paid create an invoice in Accounts Payable and just make a two line entry to debit the liability account and credit the checking account. Given what you describe, I think taking this approach will help resolve the problems you describe.

Hello... I have somewhat of a same question about Credit Cards:
I have set the Credit Cards under the Liability Area, and enter the Transactions in the 'Enter Transaction' Windown: CREDIT CARD - 12/1514
Then Post these when I get my statement! We have 5 Card Holders, and when writing the Check, I have up to 5 Lines with Totals for each, which total the total bill.
However... this month, we use the Redeem Credit Rewards, which is subtracted from the Total Statement. I'm having trouble trying to find a place to record this. I need to show the expenses, but also need to show the Credit without Lower the expenses for each fund!
I was able to do this in QuickBooks, as they have a Credit Card area just like you would with a Bank Account. I wish PowerChurch would do this.
Can anyone suggest a way for me to do this without a big mess?
Thanks,

GFCOfficePC wrote:Hello... I have somewhat of a same question about Credit Cards:
I have set the Credit Cards under the Liability Area, and enter the Transactions in the 'Enter Transaction' Windown: CREDIT CARD - 12/1514
Then Post these when I get my statement! We have 5 Card Holders, and when writing the Check, I have up to 5 Lines with Totals for each, which total the total bill.
However... this month, we use the Redeem Credit Rewards, which is subtracted from the Total Statement. I'm having trouble trying to find a place to record this. I need to show the expenses, but also need to show the Credit without Lower the expenses for each fund!
I was able to do this in QuickBooks, as they have a Credit Card area just like you would with a Bank Account. I wish PowerChurch would do this.
Can anyone suggest a way for me to do this without a big mess?
Thanks,

I see you've gotten your answer on how to do this in another thread. As far as Powerchurch working like Quickbooks, probably won't happen considering that all the double entry in Quickbooks happens in the backend using categories.

What you do in PCPlus is perform the double entry yourself, and thus you have MORE control over the system and how you can split expenses/payment accounts, etc.

The other difference is that Intuit has 100s (if not 1000s) of programmers, Powerchurch has 5 to 10. You also do not have the integration between Membership/Contributions and the direct updates to Funds Accounting from Contributions.

So while it appears to be 'easier' using Quickbooks, it is actually harder to integrate for a church.