Do You Need Church Management Software or Church Accounting Software

Feb 062009

One of the more recent issues related to church accounting software that we have seen is the level of integration between the traditional church accounting software and the more modern church management software. There are lots of questions about what the difference really is, and which one does your church really need?

The traditional church accounting software helps with keeping track of the finances of the church. Some more generic programs will let you build in limited information about who makes a donation or possibly some information about your members for tracking. However, most of the specialized church accounting software doesn’t have the full range of functions that the church management software applications have.

If you are primarily focused on organizing your churches finances for budgeting and keeping track of income and expenses, then you probably just need church accounting software to accomplish that task. Many of the basic accounting software programs that you can buy online or in stores can handle the functions that the church would need, however use caution as some of them can be overwhelming to learn and setup for your church.

Church management software is a more robust and full fledged software package that will allow you to track numerous things. One of the main reasons that many churches have gone with the full management software is because most of them incorporate accounting into the software. The church management software will allow you to keep track of members, their donations and tithes, building and assets, inventory, different ministries and outreach programs, church fundraisers and more.

Often times the main benefit to selecting a church management software program over just the accounting software system is integration and flexibility. Many of the more current versions that you can find offer a great benefit over store bought systems. They are still database driven systems, however you can define a lot of different fields and information yourself.

When the full church management software was first coming out, there wasn’t much flexibility built into the system. You got what they gave you as far as what information would be stored and how things were organized. Now, many of the systems are a basis for you to start with and create, modify and organize how ever you desire. Not to mention that you can now dump several different programs that wouldn’t talk to each other, or you had to export data from one program into another to get a report, church management software has come a long way.

In order to decide which software solution is best for your churches needs, you really need to take an inventory on what you currently have in place. How well does it work? Are you able to expand easily? Are your reports easily generated or do you have to export and import several times from several programs to get the final result? If your answers are “not well”, “no” and “Yeah right!” then maybe you should begin looking into some of the different church management software packages that are available.

Just remember, if you are a smaller church or just need to functions of keeping track of your tithes, payroll and other expenses, then maybe your best option is to look into what church accounting software programs you should use. However, if your church is growing or you are tired of all of the fuss over different programs, seriously considering church management software could be a wise investment.

What Church Accounting Software Should You Use

Nov 052008

What is accounting and why does it matter to your church? Accounting is the measuring and disclosure of information related to finances. This can often be used by the leaders of the church to determine the financial status of the church, but more importantly, it also discloses the abilities of the church to manage its assets that God has provided.

So, what accounting software should you use for your church? Does it really matter if you use an outside accountant or should you make the investment for your own accounting software package?

One of the most beneficial aspects to accounting is the wide variety of accounting programs and software packages that are available to churches these days. Since many computer programs are in use, data can be quickly transferred and shared now more easily than it ever has been able to.

One of the most important decisions that you need to find out about is what type of accounting will your church follow. There is the cash basis (most churches use this), the accrual basis and some variations of these two. With computers, the spreadsheets and programs that are in use now make it a lot easier to keep track and categorize the various functions that are specific to a church.

Accounting is tied to the invention and dissemination of the double entry bookkeeping process.Different Accounting Software Solutions available today:

ACCPAC web-based accounting, launched the ACCPAC Online web site in 1999 which allows end users to run ACCPAC from a simple browser for a small monthly rental fee.

Intuit’s QuickBooks for the Web represents a new product from scratch. Microsoft Small Business Manager is a new player on the block which is a scaled down version of Great Plains Accounting Software. Netledger centralized net computing renamed Oracle Small Business Manager Peachtree. This product was the older Peachtree Office Accounting product and is also a web-based solution. In 2000, Peachtree added a web-based module to its’ flagship Peachtree Complete Accounting product called Peachtree Web Accounting.

SAP mySAP – web-based accounting featuring a limited number of SAP modules.

So it appears that there are 2 different types of Accounting Software:

Web Based Accounting: which is one application on a Web Server running everybody’s application.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to this type of application, immediately coming to mind is confidentiality and the security of the Servers being used as well as possible breakdowns.

While each church has different needs and requirements depending upon their financial status, there are just as many financial and church accounting software programs that can be used. When in doubt, each person and church should really check and explore what each package has to offer and see if it is cost effective to learn the software and some accounting basics, or just hire an accountant and let them worry about the software.

Church Accounting Software For Fundraisers

Nov 052008

Fundraising for your church has come a long way. In the “good ol’ days” you could just put some tables in the fellowship hall or out in the parking lot and pretty much do what you wanted. Now that most churches are under more scrutiny with their finances, how can your track your fundraiser expenses and income easily?

With most simple spreadsheets or basic accounting programs, you can easily account for your money that was spent for advertising or setups and your income. The problem can arise if your fundraising software doesn’t integrate with your church accounting software.

With so many different accounting software packages being sold to churches, finding one that will allow you to easily integrate fund raising into it can be troublesome. Sometimes you can get away with not using the accounting software to specifically track your fund raising efforts, but this can create another problem with sending tax donation letters, etc.

If you are looking into what you need for your fundraising software for your church, there are a few questions that you need to ask.

First, is this fund raiser something simple like a yard sale or bake sale that won’t require tax letters due to the small “donations” that are being bought? When most people buy something at a bake sale or yard sale, they don’t expect a donation letter for their taxes. However, the people that are donating the goods might. Can you quickly account for the value of the donation and the sales?

The second thing to consider is can you track income and expenses into the church budget easily? Will you have to work on one program for the fund raiser and then write out the numbers only to have to input them into the church accounting software package? This can take extra time and allows for other mistakes.

Another consideration if you are using your accounting software for tracking the fundraiser is will your software categorize the assets and liabilities of the fund raiser. Will you have to pay anyone for their services for the fundraiser? If you are doing a cookbook fundraiser for the church, will you have to pay for printing costs or delivery or shipment costs? Just something to consider.

If you are looking for church accounting software for fundraisers those tips are just a few of the things to consider. If you already have software for your church’s accounting needs, check it out further and make sure that you can use it for your fund raiser tracking.

© 2011 ClockWork Accounting Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha