Proper accounting of receipts for events

by Vince
(Mesa, AZ)

We have cases where a member pays for church event related items.

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Rather than seeking for reimbursement, they decide to just submit those receipts as donation towards that ministry for a tax deduction. How would that receipt/donation be recorded in QuickBooks?

One option our secretary suggested is to offset those receipts with any cash offerings received.

Is that the proper book keeping method?

Comments for Proper accounting of receipts for events

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Oct 22, 2015
 Proper accounting of receipts for events. . .
by: Lewis in NC

Your church board should have a firm policy allowing or NOT allowing this.

You can see what this writer favors by my capitalization of "not." The number one reason for not doing this is: the receipt is issued to the individual church members, not the church.

If lots of members did this it would be a bookkeeping nightmare, with all kinds of new ministries potentially being created.

My suggestion would be to leave the member with the responsibility of keeping up with the receipt and using that as their own documentation of their donation for tax purposes, and the church could be the backup to write a letter of acknowledgement for the donation if need be, or perhaps just a note to acknowledge the donation in the first place would be the way to go.

There is no way I see that you could record this member's transaction in QuickBooks anyway. Hope this helps.
Oct 22, 2015
 Receipts for events
by: D Fry

I agree - not a good idea to accept the receipts as some sort of donation. Reimburse the members for whatever expenditures were necessary, and encourage them to donate the reimbursement to the church.

It allows for a clean audit trail, and lets you keep track of what these events actually cost.

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