Social Media Engagement for Churches – Is it Important?

The short answer – YES!!!

The longer answer is more complicated and dives into what makes people tick or respond to information. People interact more than any other creature in the world through verbal, physical, or non-verbal communication. As people moved further away from family and friends to accomplish their dreams, today’s technology have allowed them to still stay connected. Instead of sitting at the local café like past generations and catching up on everything in town, we each log into a computer to share pictures, blogs, life stories, etc. at a personable level through Social Media.

Why are people attracted to this?

Social Media shows the human side of people just as if you were sitting in that café many years ago. In other words, people want to know that they are just as average as the pastor in the church is — he has struggles, triumphs, and questions just like anyone else. When the human side shows through communication channels, people will respond. Does your church show the personable side in its ministry to others inside and outside your organization?

We noticed this through our own company postings on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and our blog on WordPress. More responses came from personal things like pictures of our first snowfall in the Upper Midwest, a picture of a box of chocolates that we received, and our team at the company Christmas party. Although many of our blogs discuss important aspects of church software and have pictures, the response rate is lower. Why? The blogs are viewed as information to consume; people learn from them and move on. People are more likely to respond to a personal story about Icon Systems and its employees or a friendly client interaction.

What things does your church do to show the personal side of the organization?

You asked, we listened!

We made a couple of changes to the contribution entry window:

Speed Contributions Entry:

The contribution entry screen has been slightly rearranged and modified to allow for fast keyboard access. The “currency type” option was moved up, and you can now use the “Enter” key to move between fields on the entry screen.

Allow EFT and Non-Cash Gifts in Contributions:

To enable churches to more accurately record contributions, we’ve added the ability to choose “EFT” and “Non-Cash” as currency types on the contributions entry screen. Posting journals and other contribution reports were modified accordingly. Non-Cash allows you to record gifts in kind with a zero amount as per IRS guidelines. Additional reports were added to give the church a record of all non-cash donations by date range.

Also in response to the many requests we received:

Icon Systems is happy to present the 2011 Year End Processing Tutorial Video. We are planning to create more tutorial videos down the road, so any comments or suggestions you have are most welcome! As always, the Year End Processing Guide is also available under your Getting Started menu in IconCMO or you can click here for a copy.

Church Bookkeeping Software vs Church Accounting Software

Church Bookkeeping Software vs. Church Accounting Software

Is there a difference between bookkeeping and accounting? If so, what is it?

Businessdictionary.com Definitions

Bookkeeping:

The systematic recording of financial aspects of business transactions in appropriate books of account.

Accounting:

The practice and body of knowledge concerned primarily with:

1.    Methods for recording transactions
2.    Keeping financial records
3.    Performing internal audits
4.    Reporting and analyzing financial information to the management
5.    Advising on taxation matters

It is a systematic process of identifying, recording, measuring, classifying, verifying, summarizing, interpreting and communicating financial information. It reveals profit or loss for a given period, and the value and nature of a firm’s assets, liabilities and owners’ equity.

Accounting provides information on:

1.    The resources available to a firm
2.    The means employed to finance those resources
3.    The results achieved through their use

Summary

From the lengthy definition, it is obvious that accounting is somewhat more complex than bookkeeping. Basically, bookkeeping is the tedious task of entering the amounts and dates of revenue and expense transactions (i.e. contributions and purchases). Accounting is the bigger picture: an accounting system uses the bookkeeping information to create reports that can be used by decision-makers and for tax purposes.

Most church software applications accurately handle the bookkeeping part: tracking member donations and spending, even the printing or emailing contribution statements to members and generate giving total reports. Unfortunately, many of these applications fall short when it comes to the most important aspects of having accurate accounting records and providing the reports required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. For more details, please read our post Fund Accounting Methods Compared.

Conclusion

All businesses, for profit or not, need accurate bookkeeping software to avoid negative consequences (e.g. fines, damaged reputation, having to close the business). These repercussions tend to be magnified for nonprofit organizations; they face losing their tax-exempt status, and the loss of credibility can prove to be devastating since the general public tends to hold churches and nonprofits to higher standards.

Icon Systems understands the value of accounting standards, and we make every effort possible to provide you with the tools necessary to ensure your church is in compliance with FASB guidelines. We even hired an outside CPA firm to certify our software, IconCMO, meets these standards!

Church Donation Software 4 Key Elements.

When churches are looking for church donation software, they should make a list of the specific functionality they want immediately. Additionally, what needs exist in the next 5-10 years for the church donation software? Smaller organizations and church plants may not be ready for online donations however; the availability of this option later is crucial.

Entry of Data – Technology has helped contribution entry in various ways to get data into church donation software. Church donation software should include manual data entry, data file upload, and the ability to update donors records for online and EFT donations seamlessly. Additionally, mistakes happen and contribution corrections should be easy to make. The process should allow you to modify the giving date, fund assignment, check/cash tracking, comments, amount, or remove the transaction completely. Integration into the church accounting module from contributions removes additional key entry mistakes and time for double entering during posting.

Pledging – Pledge tracking by fund(s) is an important way for the church to know how much can they expect to come into the organization. Pledging can tell churches when people are falling behind throughout the year. It can also advise overall how much donations are ahead or short of the total pledge for the year. Pledging on multiple year funds with various donor commitment date ranges is essential.

IRS Statements – Entering data is useless if the system cannot provide an IRS statement for donors. Churches should be able to print or email statements, with the later saving on postage. Other options on statements include the pledge amount, church logo, different formatting styles, a personal message and comments. Criteria for producing the statement can vary such as: status codes, date range, sort options, funds to include, people that have given, non givers, people that have pledged but have not given, etc.

Tax Type Categories – Tax Exempt, Taxable or IRA, should categorize all the funds to allow removal of certain fund during IRS statement preparation. The organization should be able to add or change the fund names at any time but still maintain the category. A taxable fund example is money collected for coffee or donuts on a Sunday. A tax-exempt fund is money given with no return of good or services and donors expect a donation statement. Additionally, the IRA contribution is when someone donates his or her IRA proceeds to the organization.

Church donation software is an important aspect to any church and should have the most streamlined processes in place. It should also include some of the basic concepts above for starters and additional features like a link to an acceptable fund accounting package. Additional features include transferring monies from one envelope to another, ability to change envelope numbers, print deposit slips, and create reoccurring batches. Icon Systems’ IconCMO can help churches with this process and we look forward to hearing any comments you may have on this topic.