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Contents

• Introduction
• First of All, Gather Your Data
• Step 1: Add Funds
• Step 2: Add Categories and Subcategories
• Step 3: Add Financial Accounts
  • Important When First Setting Up Your Accounts
• What's Next?
• Learn More

Introduction

The ChMeetings Accounting module lets you keep track of your finances, providing the essential tools you need to manage accounts, record transactions, run reports, and more. This guide takes you through the initial setup required to be able to use ChMeetings Accounting.

Please check our guide to Accounting Terminology if you need to catch up and haven’t checked it already.

Now, let’s see the steps to take to get ChMeetings Accounting set up for success: 
 

First of All, Gather Your Data

To set up your Accounting, you must first gather your data, then make the necessary configurations within ChMeetings. 

So, before doing anything in your ChMeetings Accounting, please begin by gathering the data you require to start tracking your finances with us. You will need the following:

1. A list of Accounts and their Balances, which you can get from Bank Statements or Financial Reports (from your bank or previous accounting tools). Please ensure that there is no additional transaction between the time you generate the statement or report, and the time you begin tracking with ChMeetings. You must have the most recent data to start with the correct balances. 
2. A list of Funds and their Balances so you can maintain continuity by adding them to ChMeetings. If you have several balances allocated for specific goals, but you are not calling them “Funds” necessarily; these would become Funds in ChMeetings. Not to be confused with “Budgets”, which you can learn more about here.
3. A list of Income and Expense Categories (and Subcategories as needed), again, to add them to ChMeetings and keep your books consistent. 
4. An OFX, QFX, QIF or QBO file containing any transactions that you may want to import to ChMeetings. This is not required if you do not want to import transactions. 

To set up your accounting in ChMeetings, you must first create your Funds, because you need a starting balance for each fund when creating your Accounts. Categories/Subcategories also need to be assigned to a Fund upon creation. Here is the setup order we recommend:
 

Step 1: Add Funds

ChMeetings comes preconfigured with a General Fund, which you cannot remove. You can use this as a catch-all for your transactions or create additional Funds according to your needs.The General Fund can be used for unassigned amounts of money in this case. 

Unless you require very detailed reporting, we recommend limiting the number of Funds you create, to reduce complexity.

To add Funds, go to Accounting > Funds, and click on Add Fund.
 

Name your Fund and click Save. 

Alternatively, you can import Funds from your Contributions section, if you have created them there already. 

Note that Funds in Contributions and Accounting are not the same: one is for tracking your giving activity, and the other is for accounting for the money coming from that giving. For example, when donors choose the Fund to give to, they choose the one from Contributions, not the Accounting Fund. You will use the corresponding Accounting Fund when you record the money flow. It’s useful to have the same Fund Names in both areas because you can more easily track money used for specific purposes. The Fund Balances will be different, too, because the Accounting Fund will also include what you spent, not just what you received. 

Learn more about working with Accounting Funds.
 

Step 2: Add Categories and Subcategories

Categories are the equivalent of a Chart of Accounts that you may be familiar with from other accounting systems. 

ChMeetings comes preconfigured with two default Categories: 

1. General Expenses - meant to be used for expense transactions.
2. General Offerings - meant to be used for giving transactions and other income being received into your accounts.

These Categories cannot be removed, but you can edit their name and associated Fund. You can use these as a catch-all for your transactions or create additional Categories according to your needs. Unless you require very detailed reporting, we recommend limiting the number of Categories you create, to reduce complexity.

To add Categories, go to Accounting > Categories and click Add Category.

In the Add Category window, configure the following: 

1. Name the Category. We recommend using a short, suggestive name.
2. Select a Type: This determines whether the Transactions you record under this Category represent income or expenses.
3. Select a Default Fund: This is the Fund that is preselected when adding a Transaction to the Category. You can leave this blank and any transactions associated to this Category will default to the General Fund, 
4. Save your Category when ready. 

Subcategories serve to organize your financial transactions more granularly, within specific Income or Expense Categories. To add a Subcategory, go to Accounting > Categories. 

There are two ways to add Subcategories: 

• From the Add Subcategory button at the top of the list of Categories.
  • Click the Arrow next to Add Category on top of the Categories list.
    
    
  • Select the parent Category under which you want to add the Subcategory.
  • Name your Subcategory.
  • Save when done.
    
     

Once added, the Subcategory will display in the Categories list, under the parent Category (which you can expand or collapse using the arrow next to it). Subcategories will also be available to select in any dropdown lists where you must choose a Category; as well as in all relevant Accounting Reports: Income Statement, Category Overview, Detailed Category Transactions, and Category Fund Statement.

Learn more about managing Categories and Subcategories. 

Step 3: Add Financial Accounts

As a reminder, a Financial Account is only used for accounting purposes and does not actually hold your money - that’s your bank account doing so, 

To get started adding a new Financial Account,  go to Accounting > Accounts, and click Add Financial Account. 


 

In the Add Financial Account window, follow the steps below: 

1. Account Information: 
   1. Name: Give your account a name, such as “Checking”, “Savings”, etc.
   2. Type: Select whether this is an Asset or Liability account.
      • Asset represents what you own - such as a bank account held by your church.
      • Liability refers to what you owe - such as loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc.
2. Starting Balance: Add the balance from the day before you began tracking transactions in ChMeetings Accounting as the starting balance. You must enter a starting balance for each of your Funds. If you did not use Funds previously and do not want to use them moving forward, then your Account balance should be allocated to the General Fund. Otherwise, please enter the starting balance for each Fund within the Account creation screen. You must have previously created the Funds within ChMeetings to be able to enter balances for them..
3. Start Date: Add the day when you begin recording transactions in ChMeetings. This is your accounting start date for the account you are adding. 
4. Save when ready.

What's Next?

• Configure Rules for Transaction Imports

• Import Transactions

• Work With Transactions

• Link Your Bank Account

• Configure Accounting Access Permissions

Learn More

This is everything you need to get started managing your accounting within ChMeetings. Please explore the other topics within our Accounting Help section to learn more about how to work with each feature in detail.