Your First Month
Welcome to your first month using Jewel! In this section, we will discuss one of the most common duties you have as a treasurer - entering the church offering from week to week. We hope you will see how Jewel has made a fairly complicated process quite simple - it only takes a few steps to complete the offering every week. We will also discuss what you will need to do - and what Jewel does for you - at each month end.
Receiving and Handling Offerings
Counting the Offering
The very first step in the weekly duties of the treasurer is to have the church offering counted. This is a critical step that must be done following Internal Controls to prevent dishonesty, help avoid accusations, and to catch potential counting errors. Dual Counting is a critical part of those controls.
The offering must be counted by at least two Church Board-approved individuals (one of which may or may not include the treasurer). It may either be counted immediately after collection, or at a later time during the week. If it is to be counted later, the offering must be kept under two different locks until it is counted and taken to the bank for deposit. It is of utmost importance throughout the process involving the physical cash and checks, that the principle of dual custody is followed. This means that the money is always to be handled by two people. At no point is the money ever to be in the hands of only one person. This is meant as a safeguard to you the treasurer, as well as to anyone else involved in handling the money. It is a means to prevent dishonesty, help avoid accusations, and to catch potential counting errors.
Regardless of when the money is counted, and who is counting, these are the steps to follow:
Note: Steps 6 through 10 can be done with the Deposit Slip in Jewel. See “Deposit Slip” below.
- Offering is collected and taken to a secure place (either under lock or counted directly).
- Carefully count the amount of loose cash in each offering and make a tithe envelope listing the amounts for each offering.
- Alphabetize tithe envelopes, with the envelope just made for loose offering on the top.
- Open the envelopes one at a time, ensuring that the amount written on the check and/or the amount of cash is the same as written on the tithe envelope. This is the most important step in the process!
- It is important to know how much cash is in each envelope and if there is a check. On each envelope, we suggest writing a “C=” followed by the amount of cash. Make a check mark, = followed by the check number.
- Pool all the cash and coins from the envelopes and the loose offering together and count the total. The total should be equal to the sum of individual offerings and envelope cash.
- Next, add up all checks.
- Grand total should be equal to the sum of all bills/coins plus the total from the checks.
- Using an adding machine make a tape of the totals of all envelopes to determine the total of the deposit. Write the offering date on the tape, bundle and store with these envelopes.
- Make a Deposit Slip and deposit the money in your church's checking account - this should be done as soon as possible.
Typically, the point at which the treasurer's job begins is at step 6. Steps 1-5 is taken care of either by the deacons or two other approved individuals. Details of this process may vary from church to church, so just use these steps as a basic guide.
Start New Offering - Recording Offering in Jewel
To begin entering a new offering, click the NextStep button when it reads “Start New Offering.” In the window that opens, select the date the offering was collected. Jewel automatically brings up the offering date of the Sabbath after your last offering entry. If you need to change the date, use the up and down arrows or type in the appropriate date manually.
Note:Offerings MUST be entered in chronological order. Jewel will not let you enter offerings out of order.
If you are not using the Deposit Slip feature of Jewel, enter the offering total here, as calculated by counting the offering and then click OK. If you ARE using the Deposit Slip, click OK now and the offering total will be calculated in the Deposit Slip.
Deposit Slip
The deposit slip in Jewel is a great way to simplify the counting process. At this point, as seen above, you will have all the cash pooled together, an alphabetized stack of checks, and the empty tithe envelopes. The goal now is to recount all of the cash to ensure that no mistakes were made in the first steps of counting. You will come to a grand total, which should equal the total already arrived at by the previous counting.
On the Deposit Slip Screen in the upper left corner, note the offering date, date of deposit, and the bank you will be depositing into and change if needed. Now, notice there are columns for coins, bills, and checks. Enter in the total number of pennies, dimes, dollar bills, etc in the respective text box. The same happens with the checks. Enter each check, pressing enter after each to make a new field and Jewel will calculate the check total. Entering the check number is optional, but can be helpful when entering contributions. As you will see in the right hand side of the screen, Jewel will then calculate a grand total for you. Compare this with the sum of the totals from the previous counting, ensuring that they are equal. Once finished, you can click Print Deposit Slip in the upper right hand corner. Use this deposit slip when depositing the money in the bank. When you have finished and printed, click OK. You should not have to make any changes if everything was entered correctly, but if for some reason you do need to change a value, you will still be able to return to Edit Deposit Slip and make changes. Click OK to save changes.
Contribution Entry
In this step, you will be entering the data from each individual tithe envelope. Jewel will use this data to make financial reports (thereby keeping track of budget and cash flow) and to make receipts at the end of the year for each donor. If you entered the offering date incorrectly, you can correct it in the box in the upper left. Check the Edit box, then make your date change. Your envelopes should now be empty, and in alphabetical order with the loose offering envelope on top.
Follow these simple steps for entering envelopes:
- First, select the donor. Your first envelope will be loose offering, so select the appropriate loose offering ID Church or Sabbath School) either by typing in the name, or clicking the small down arrow at the end of the text box and selecting from the list. You may also go back and add donors at this point. Simply click the (+) sign next to the down arrow. This will take you to the "Edit Names" screen where you can either make changes to existing donors or add new ones. Click OK after making changes, and you will be returned to the Contribution Entry screen.
- Next, select the appropriate account(s) this envelope is for. Example: First, you are entering the Sabbath School Loose Offering. You will likely have two accounts - SS Expense and SS Missions. Entering one at a time, select SS Expense and enter the respective amount donated. Then select SS Missions and enter the respective amount donated, and so on for any other accounts. Press Enter on the keyboard after entering an account to open another account line. As with selecting the donor name, either type in the account name (or number) or click the down arrow and select from the list. You can also Edit/Add accounts by clicking the (+) sign, which takes you to the Edit Accounts screen. Click OK to save changes, and you will be returned to Contribution Entry.
- Jewel will automatically start a New Envelope as soon as your fund total matches the total amount in the envelope. If you try to select New Envelope before the totals match, a text box will come up informing you of the difference. Make the appropriate adjustment, and then it will allow you to start a new envelope.
- Follow these steps for all envelopes, being very careful to enter the correct amounts into the correct accounts.
Trial Deposit
If your envelope total equals the offering total, a trial deposit may not be necessary. However, if an adding or entry error has been made, Trial Deposit will aid you in finding that error. Note that Jewel will alert you if there is a difference between the envelope and offering totals. Click "Trial Deposit" in the upper right corner of the Contribution Entry screen. Compare the adding tape (from counting) with your envelopes with the Trial Deposit screen, which will show you all the envelopes you have just entered. Once you have found the error, click the "Make Corrections" button in the middle of the screen. This will return you to Contribution Entry. Scroll through the envelopes using "Next Envelope" and "Previous Envelope" buttons and make the necessary adjustments. Once the corrections have been made, the offering total should equal the envelope total and you are ready to Make Deposit. You may also want to review the Trial Deposit even if there is no difference between envelope and offering totals, just to make sure that no other errors have been made. Review the screen, then click "Make Deposit" once satisfied that all data has been entered correctly.
Make Deposit
This step completes the process of entering your offering. When you click "Make Deposit", the Jewel software makes the appropriate accounting entries according to the envelopes you have entered. Jewel will enter the total into your checking account record, and distribute funds into your church and conference funds as indicated on each envelope. The envelopes entered will not actually appear on your records in Jewel until this step has been completed.
On the Trial Deposit screen, click Make Deposit in the upper right corner. Be sure to check your numbers--Jewel will not allow you to complete the deposit until the offering/envelope totals are equal! You can still make changes on this screen, if necessary. Clicking Make Corrections here also takes you back to Contribution Entry. Review the information shown on the Make Deposit Screen. You can change the deposit date, memo, and checking account information if necessary under Deposit Info. If all information is correct, click "OK" in the upper right corner. This will complete the recording of the deposit in Jewel.
Note that it is not necessary to "Make Deposit" in Jewel before physically making the deposit in the bank. The purpose here is that Jewel now knows which funds the money (taken to the bank) belong to. To finish making the deposit later, click on "Cancel" and it will return you to the main screen.
Month End
There are five steps to follow at the end of each month. These are:
- remit to conference
- make budget allocations
- reconcile bank accounts
- print monthly reports
- back up data
There are two ways to begin the month end process. The easiest and most common is that after you have clicked "Make Deposit" for the last Sabbath of the month, a text box will come up asking if this is the last offering of the month. If it is, click 'Yes' and you have begun the month end process. The next step button will say "Remit to Conference". However, if you mistakenly clicked No, or if you have had to make changes after the last offering, you will need to tell Jewel that you are ready for month end. There are two ways to do this. Click the next step button (which says Enter New Offering at this point). You will notice a gray box in the middle which says "No more offerings in (current month)". Click this button to start the month end process. You can also go to Offerings in the top menu (Menu Bar) and select "No more offerings."
Remit to Conference
At the end of each month, after the last offering has been entered, you are to send to the Conference all Conference funds which have been collected over the month. Under no circumstances are funds intended for conference use to be removed and used for local church purposes. To complete this step in Jewel, click the Next Step button (which should say Remit to Conference). The screen which comes up is very similar to what you will see in the section "Write Checks." This is the actual check you will send in to the conference. Jewel has already calculated how much you owe the conference for this month, as well as how the funds are to be disbursed at the conference (note list of accounts with respective values in bottom half of check). You should never need to change the amount! Make sure your printer is turned on and is connected to your computer. Also, check to make sure the appropriate check-making paper is in the printer. On the Remit to Conference screen, ensure that the "Print Check" is check marked, then select OK. When you click OK, your check will print AND be recorded in Jewel. Now, sign the check and it is ready to send in, along with the check stub showing disbursement of funds. If you write your checks by hand, you will still want to print this check (on plain paper) as it provides the remittance report for the Conference.
NOTE:Do NOT try to write your remittance check under "Write Checks". Multiple problems can occur if you try it this way. For one thing, you will not be able to select Conference Funds in the "Write Checks" screen. "Write Checks" is ONLY for local funds. Also, if you mistakenly make your Conference remittance check in "Write Checks" you will notice it being deducted from Combined Budget. Again, this is because "Write checks" is only intended to be used for your LOCAL church funds - not conference funds. So, when making conference remittance, your only two options are to use the check Jewel makes out for you at the end of each month (NextStep → Remit to Conference) or go to Accounting → Make Manual Remittance.
Manual Remittance
manual remittance make manual remittance At times, you may need to make your Conference Remittance at another time than Month-End. For example, your conference may need funds from your church before the close of the month. In order to do this, you will need to make a manual remittance. Go to Accounting → Make Manual Remittance. As with the end of month remittance, Jewel will automatically calculate this remittance check based on the funds you have received so far in the current month. You can change the check amount if desired. Jewel will deduct this amount from the regular month-end remittance. Once you have entered the appropriate amount, or confirmed the calculated amount, make sure "Print this check." is marked, and click OK. The remittance check will be recorded and your check will print. You will still be prompted to make another remittance at month end to pay the remaining balance to the conference.
Make Budget Allocations
If you set up a budget at the beginning of the year, your next step will be to confirm those allocations for the next month. This screen shows the budget for the next month based on what you have entered. It is now asking you to confirm your budget. Simply click OK. Jewel will now disburse the money from Church Expense into each of the accounts listed for the month you are closing. If you do need to make changes click Cancel, go to the menu bar at the top of the main screen, select Maintenance → Budget Allocations and make necessary changes - only after changes have been approved by the church board.
Reconcile Bank Accounts
For more information, see Bank Reconciliation in the next chapter.
Print Monthly Reports
Next, a text box will pop up stating that you are about to print monthly reports and close the month. Typically, the monthly reports you will need to print include: Contribution Report, Deposit Report, Checks Written, Transfer/Allocation Report, Financial Summary (month AND year-to-date). Jewel is pre-set to print these reports. However, you can always change which reports will print by going to Properties → Reports Tab (see Chapter 7). Check with your Church Board to find out which reports they require.
As noted in the text box, you cannot make any changes after the month has been closed. Make sure you have entered ALL contributions, and written all your checks for the month BEFORE completing this step. The only way to make corrections would be for you to make a correcting entry in the following month, or have your auditor make the correction for you (see Appendix). As with printing your remittance check, make sure your printer is turned on and connected and that it has enough regular printer paper. When you are ready, click Yes in the Month-End reports text box. The month end reports will now print. In the next text box, click Yes once you are satisfied that the reports have printed correctly. Depending on your conference requirements, you may need to send a copy of some of these reports with your remittance check. Ask your auditor which reports they require. You are to keep a copy for your records as well, though you will still be able to access them in Jewel.
Back Up Data
Your next step is to make a back up of the data you have entered for the month. This will ensure that, even if something goes wrong with your software or your computer, you will have your data stored elsewhere, so as to not lose it. You can use any storage method you would like, such as a CD-ROM or memory stick. Simply insert the storage device into the appropriate space on your computer, then click Back Up Data by the NextStep button. Jewel will now write your data to the storage device. Keep your back up devices in a safe place but NOT with the computer.
Send Back Up to Conference
If Jewel is set up with your Conference, you will also be sending a back up to your Conference. This is your report to the Conference and just one more assurance that you will not lose your data. You will need to have an Internet connection. All you need to do is click the NextStep where it says "Send Back Up to Conference", and your backup will automatically be sent. If it does not come up at the NextStep, go to Maintenance → Properties → Internet Tab, check the box next to "Send Month-End Backup to Conference Server". It should now be brought up in NextStep during your Month-End process.
FAQs
I am at Month End, but my NextStep button still says "Start New Offering." How can I start my month-end procedure?
Click on Start New Offering, then check “No more offerings”. Click OK, and your NextStep button should now be on "Remit to Conference.”
How do I back up my database to a memory stick/flash drive?
In Windows, go to Computer and find what letter (usually F, G, or H) the computer is assigning to your flash drive. It will be under "Devices with Removable Storage." Then in Jewel, go to Maintenance → Properties → General Tab and change the letter in the Copy to Disk Path to match the letter the computer assigned (E:\). Click OK to leave. Now when you click on Backup on the NextStep button or click on File → Copy to Disk, the backup will go to your flash drive.
I accidentally closed the month too soon. Can it be reopened?
Yes. Contact your auditor/tech support. They can reset your NextStep button and allow you to finish and reclose the month.
My monthly remittance did not make it to the conference, or otherwise need to write a new remittance. How do I reverse the first check and write a new one?
If you are still in the current month, you will first need to Void the lost check. To void the check, go to Reports & Graphs → Check Report and select the lost conference remittance check. Click on the Edit Check button and type “Void” by Pay to the Order Of. Click OK. Now that the first check is voided, go to Accounting → Make Manual Remittance and write a new conference remittance check. Jewel should calculate the remittance to be the same amount as the voided check (unless further contributions have been made in the current month). Check to make sure the calculated amount is correct, and complete the remittance by printing the check and selecting OK.
If the month has already been closed, you will need to use a different process to reverse the lost check. To reverse the conference remittance, go to Accounting → Make Manual Remittance and Edit the check that comes up so it reflects the accounts and amounts of the check you wish to void. However, all amounts should be negative (minus in front of the amount). Remember we are reversing the lost check. Click on Electronic Payment and finish by clicking OK. Now go to Accounting → Make Manual Remittance click on Edit Check and recreate a new check with all the accounts and amounts of the lost check. Edit memo to state that it is a replacement of check #____ and Conference Remittance for the month of _______.
When printing my month-end reports, I found a duplicate deposit (same deposit twice). What do I do?
You may have accidentally entered the same week twice. In any event, call your auditor/tech support.