An important summary report for your congregation shows the organization’s activities (income and expenses) by fund, according to donor restrictions. This five-column report shows your usual budget in one column, other “off-budget” activity in three additional columns, and a total. Transfers between funds (for example, a 4% investment draw) will show as negative in one column and positive in another, so that the total is 0. This makes sure that the organization’s total income and expense are not under or overstated. This report is shown on page 70 of the Church Finance Handbook.
To prepare this report in QuickBooks:
FUNDS
- Print or save as pdf your usual Fund Listing (QuickBooks = “Class List”). You’ll need this to return the list to this order.
- Depending on your church, create four temporary funds (if you don’t already have them) and make each of your funds a sub-fund of one of them:
- General or Operating = your regular budget classes à some churches include missions here, others treat it as donor-restricted
- Other Unrestricted — This is everything that is not donor-restricted but isn’t in the previous fund. This will include any investments that are not legally restricted as endowment.
- Donor-Restricted — This is the spendable money with donor restrictions.
- Endowment — This is the both the permanently restricted original gifts and the temporarily restricted gains/losses.
CHART OF ACCOUNTS
- Use the same process as above if you need to re-group accounts so that, for example, all contribution income is a sub-account of Contributions.
- Our recommended chart of accounts includes the parent income and expense accounts in all Caps and matches the CFH page 70.
- The income parent accounts correspond to distinctions made by secular non-profits filing an IRS Form 990. For effective stewardship efforts, it is especially important to have all contributions on one line so that the generosity of the congregation is obvious.
- The expense parent accounts vary by church, but in general should correspond to the church’s major programs.
REPORT
- Now open your Statement of Activities – All Funds report use the buttons at the top of the report window to collapse rows and collapse columns.
- Download your report into excel to make any additional adjustments or formatting.
- When you’re finished, return your class list to its usual order for day-to-day bookkeeping.