By Ed Steffes
UUFS is in the process of changing over to a new accounting system called PowerChurch. (Yes, that may be a strange name for a UU fellowship to use. We’re not particularly into power, and some of us don’t even feel comfortable being called a church!)
PowerChurch will give our financial operation stricter accounting, better organization, and easier reporting. It will also require us to observe a few new rules. Every contribution we receive will need to be identified with the name of a contribution fund. Three of our funds are donor restricted, meaning that we can only spend the money for the specific purpose for which it was donated. These funds are:
Ministry Fund, to help pay the minister’s compensation (plate collection once a month)
Into the Future Fund, the capital campaign to pay off our building mortgage (thus freeing up additional money for ministry)
Social Action Fund, supporting humanitarian causes selected by the Social Action Committee (plate collection most Sundays)
All contributions that are not restricted to one of these three purposes will go into our unrestricted fund, which we are calling the Stewardship Fund.
We are asking all donors to identify the fund to which you are contributing in the memo field of your check (or on the envelope if you are giving us cash in an envelope).
If you are making a payment on your annual pledge, please indicate “Stewardship Pledge.”
If you are making a general contribution without having made a pledge, just indicate “Stewardship.”
If you are making a payment on your three-year Into the Future pledge, please indicate “ITF Pledge.”
If you are contributing to the Ministry Fund, please indicate “Ministry.”
If you are contributing to one of the announced charities, please indicate “Social Action.”
Note that Ministry and Social Action contributions are not considered pledge payments.
Purchases of coffee, chocolate, books, or craft items are not donations and do not need a fund designation. Just indicate on your check what you are buying. For craft purchases, we need the name of the seller so we can share the proceeds. Please do not mix purchases and donations on the same check, as we need to process them in entirely different modules of the PowerChurch software.
The processing of weekly income has become much more complicated in the past several years, and we appreciate the cooperation of all our members and friends to make the accounting process go as smoothly as possible. Thank you!
Please direct any questions to finance@uufs.net.
