Recommended procedures for the processing of daily Offerings and Accounts Payable are included in this topic in order to provide a complementary set of applications and procedures designed with audibility and security in mind.
Offerings:
(See Offerings & Income for details on how offering is entered).
Before you are able to process your offerings, you must have established your Family table. In this table. If you intend to use envelope numbers to process the donations, you must also assign envelope numbers.
When the offering has been received, the Counters are responsible for processing the offering. Normally, counters work in rotating teams of at least two. In our procedures, they have two responsibilities:
| To count the income and |
| to provide a record of all gifts. |
(They may also be responsible for preparing a night/weekend deposit bag, depending on your operations.)
In handling the collection plates, the counters will write on the face of the check (upper left corner) the envelope number of the donor if the check is received in an offering envelope. If cash is received in an envelope, the cash amount is noted and initialled on the envelope near the printed envelope number. Special designations, if any, for offerings are marked on the check or on the envelope. The counters should sort the checks and/or envelopes into groups based on the purpose of the gifts. Normally, most will be straightforward pledge payments, but it is very helpful to separate out those intended for other purposes.
The counting includes a tape total of all cash and checks.
At this point, for audit and control purposes, a "Xerox" copy is made of all checks, and all cash-bearing envelopes, and any notes as to special handling of other cash (e.g., a special collection for the day, or cash other than plate collection). This copy may easily be made by laying the checks and envelopes on the copier window. If you have a zoom feature on the copier, that improves the capacity.
At this point a deposit can be prepared, since the copies of the original materials is available for input into CB/DB.
Normally, on the next work day the secretary or other person responsible for stewardship and income records will process the offering from the copies.
The details of the Offering Process are outlined in that topic. Procedurally, the most efficient way to proceed is to batch like items. Cash envelopes should be processed together, special offerings, and pledge/checks. The reason for this is that the Offerings dialog is constructed so that in most cases, you only have to enter the giver's number and the amount. This is because ChurchBook will "remember" the previous gift's Income Account (The FOR field), and the Offering Type (Check or Cash). As long as neither of these changes, you can Tab through the duplicated fields and accept the duplicated elements.
Whenever you finish entering offering, and "Close", a register of the day's offering will be automatically generated. You can also request a Deposit Slip listing of checks. If you have reconciled to the counters' totals and deposit slip, and are really through, you should print a copy of this register and file it, along with the Xerox copy of the offering instruments, your copy of the deposit slip, and the bank's imprinted receipt for the deposit, in your Income file folder for the month.
Accounts Payable:
The Accounts Payable (A/P) procedure is designed to assist you in paying your monthly bills. You will normally have three types of bills:
1. Those that are for a fixed amount, each period (month or quarter), e.g., salary
2. Those that are regular every month, but in varying amounts (e.g., utilities),
3. Those that are irregular both in amount and timing.
There are different functions provided for these types, which we will discuss in order. However, the consistent thing about all of them is that the intent is to generate a record (A/P) that will eventually result in the creation of a check to resolve the obligation. In the meanwhile, the record should assist you in scheduling your bills for payment, and provide listings that will keep you advised as to how much money is required to pay them.
Regular Monthly and Quarterly Payments:
These types of obligations can be entered into the system once, then used painlessly until something about them has to change. In creating the record initially, you must fill out the A/P record just as though you were writing the check. This will include entering the Payee's name and Supplier/Employee number, a "remarks" section that indicates what the payment is for, and the distribution of the total amount of the check into any number of Expense Accounts. You can use the Due Date field if this assists you, and sort your records into this sequence. CB/DB doesn't do anything with it.
Additionally you must indicate the frequency with which the check is to be issued. For this type payments, you click on "Monthly", "1 Mo Qtr", "2 Mo Qtr", or "3 Mo Qtr". Monthly means each and every month.
See the topics for Accounts Payable Records and Accounts Payable Monthly Review for a complete explanation of how these operations work.
Monthly Procedures:
At the end of the month, print off a list of unpaid accounts payable to ensure that any bills carried forward are handled properly in the following month.
After the first of the month, invoke the Monthly Review application and validate the regular payments in the system. If any of the unpaid bills from last month are "Regulars", ensure that the total and distributions are corrected to account for the cumulative effect. It's a good idea, if the space allows, to enter an new row of distribution account/amount for the new month to remind yourself that this is a double payment.
During the month, the person responsible for posting Payables will batch bills as they are received. Perhaps on Friday of each week, these bills are entered into the system to be available for the Treasurer to consider. The Due Date will help in scheduling the payments.
As these newly arrived and processed bills are entered, they will be picked up on the Payment Selection form. Here, you will be able to deal with all Marked for Payment records, as to whether you want to pay them now or not.
This process will give you a running total of the checks marked for check writing. When satisfied, you can then proceed to write the checks. Once the checks have been written, you can generate a Check Register, and list the remaining accounts payable as of that point in time.
From an audit and control perspective, it is best if the posting of Accounts Payable and generation of the checks is separated from the signing of the checks if possible. Similarly, the check reconciliation function should be performed by someone other than the person who signs the checks. See the Audits and Controls topic for further information.