IconCMO Blog

Membership

Must Know #1: (Household or Member)

Understanding the difference between a Household and a Member is important and is defined as follows:

Definition of a Household: A Household is a physical location where people reside and the name of the household represents the adults that are responsible for the loaction. It does not represent an individual.

Definition of a Member: A Member is a person that resides at the location. Every member of a family should have a member record in the system.

Whenever you are doing something in the system ask yourself the question: Do I need this for member(s) or household(s). Example: I need to create mailing labels for people that receive the newsletter. Are these labels going to be sent to individual members or to the households? Chances are they are going to be sent to the Households. If this is the answer then you would go to People -> Groups -> Grp-Households. Create a category called Mailings and a sub-group called Newsletter. Add the households to the group and print your labels. Or you can go to People -> Households -> Hse-Reports -> Household List and select to print labels for all Households belonging to one or more status groups.

If you are adding a new Person in the system that is the only member of the new household, one household record would be added refelecting the location and one member record representing the individual living at that location.

For a married couple the household name should contain both the names of the parents. The household ‘First Name’ would be something like John & Mary. Once the household is created both John, Mary and any kids they might have would be added into the household as members.

Must Know #2 (Running Reports using Multiple Status Codes)

Many of the reports give you the ability to select status codes. Multilple status codes can be selected by holding the “Ctrl” key down on the keyboard. While the Ctrl key is down use the mouse to click on the status codes you wish to use. When done selecting release the Ctrl key and run the report.

Must Know #3 (Adding Status Codes)

Status codes are used to define the relationship of a household or member to the church. When the system is initially loaded it contains the default status codes Active, Inactive, Visitor and Delete. However, you can add additional status codes by going to Organization -> Preferences – Church Membership. Locate the field “Select Drop Down List”. Click the down arrow and select Status. Go to field “New / Modified Value” and enter the new status code and click “Save New/Modified”.

Please Note: It is not a good practice to define a new status code if a household or person can fall into more than one status code. Example: Adding a status code of Choir and Usher would be bad because a person could belong to both groups as be Active. In this case the person should have a status of ‘Active’ and belong to both the ‘Choir’ group and the ‘Usher’ group. Use the Groups section to classify Choir members and Ushers.

The most common Status codes we see are: (This field has a maximum of 15 characters so some of these are abbreviated).

• • Active
  • Inactive
  • Visitor
  • Delete
  • Active NonMem ( Abbreviation for Active Non-Member )
  • Associate Mem ( Associate Member )
  • Friend
  • Prospect
  • Shutin

Accounting

Must Know #4: (Contribution Funds Vs Accounting Funds)

This section talks you through the process of setting up the link between the Contribution system and the Accounting system. In order to use this link go to Organization -> Preferences -> Church Membership. Set the “Link to Fund Accounting” to Yes and click save. This tells the system that whenever contributions are posted the system should also update the accounting system accordingly. This is a powerful feature of IconCMO and can be used to insure that activity in the contribution section is always recorded in the accounting system.

There are two different types of Funds that can be created in IconCMO.

1. Contribution Funds
2. Accounting Funds

Contribution Funds (C-Funds) are funds that people contribute to. Contribution Statements are printed from information that is posted to C-Funds.

Accounting Funds (A-Funds) are funds that are defined by the financial group in the church for the purpose of managing the finances of the church. For example: In addition to the ‘General Fund’ (which is a required fund) the board might have a Building Fund and a Charities Fund. A separate ‘Statement of Activities’ (sometimes referred to as a Profit and Loss statement) and a ‘Statement of Financial Position’ (sometimes referred to a Balance Sheet) can be run for each fund defined as well as for all accounting funds combined. It is important to note that all contribution funds must direct its donations into one of the accounting funds. First, the bank account that receives the donations is defined and second, the Contribution Revenue account is defined.

Below is Example:

Your church offers the church four different c-funds which they can contribute to.

1. General Fund
2. Building Fund
3. Memorial Fund
4. Flowers Fund

Each of these C-Funds will be defined by going to Contributions -> Management -> Cont-Maintenance and adding the C-Funds names. You want to print a Profit and Loss for General, Building and Charities but you would like the Flowers Fund to appear as Revenue to the Charities Fund. You need to create three A-Funds by going to General Ledger -> Funds -> Fund Maintenance. From the Fund Maintenance window you will add the Building and Charities Funds (The General Fund already exists). Then go to General Ledger -> GL -> Chart of Accounts. There needs to be at least one Contribution Revenue account to define where the revenue is coming from. In this case let’s define three revenue accounts and call them:

1. General Contributions
2. Building Contributions
3. Memorial Contributions

Note that we use the term ‘Contributions’ instead of ‘Revenue’. This was done simply to demonstrate that these are chart of account names and not funds. In addition to the the Contribution Revenue accounts we need at least on bank account. Let’s call that ‘Checking’.

Now we need to create the links between the C-Funds to the Accounting system. Go to Contributions -> Management -> Cont-Maintenance, select the General Fund in the left scroll window and press the button titled ‘Accounting Link’. A window opens displaying the fund selected and three drop down boxes. The example below shows how we might make the assignments. Notice how contributions to the ‘Flowers Fund’ is directed to the accounting fund called Memorial. Revenue from the Flowers Fund will appear in the Statement of Activites’ for Charities.

General Fund (C-Fund)

• Accounting Fund Affected = General Fund
• Bank Account = Checking
• Contribution Account = General Contributions

Building Fund (C-Fund)

• Accounting Fund Affected = Building Fund
• Bank Account = Checking
• Contribution Account = Building Contributions

Memorial Fund (C-Fund)

• Accounting Fund Affected = Charities Fund
• Bank Account = Checking
• Contribution Account = Memorial Contributions

Flowers Fund (C-Fund)

• Accounting Fund Affected = Charities Fund
• Bank Account = Checking (whatever checking or savings account you want the money deposited)
• Contribution Account = Memorial Contributions