Tracking/billing memberships in an Non-Profit Organization

Posted by Andrew on December 24, 2008, 5:37 pm

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Just acquired my first copy of Quickbooks Pro 2009 - I am the treasurer of a
NPO that has a membership of about 200 - many pay annual dues, many are just
on our email list.

Can I use QB to track/invoice/view the membership easily? I currently use
Quicken, but keep track of the membership on a side Excel spreadsheet that
keeps track of when they paid, how much, expiration date, email address,
etc. I use Mail Merge in Word to produce customized letters to mail
indicating their expiration date when their annual dues are due.

Any ideas (with specifics) would be appreciated, or pointers to articles on
the web that might deal with this - I am sure that this has come up many
many times before.

Somehow I get (after playing for about an hour) that the members would
become 'customers', and annual dues might be 'jobs' that I define? Does
that sound right?

--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Regards -

- Andrew

Posted by Laura on December 24, 2008, 6:39 pm

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> Just acquired my first copy of Quickbooks Pro 2009 - I am the treasurer of

> a NPO that has a membership of about 200 - many pay annual dues, many are

> just on our email list.

> Can I use QB to track/invoice/view the membership easily? I currently use

> Quicken, but keep track of the membership on a side Excel spreadsheet that

> keeps track of when they paid, how much, expiration date, email address,

> etc. I use Mail Merge in Word to produce customized letters to mail

> indicating their expiration date when their annual dues are due.

> Any ideas (with specifics) would be appreciated, or pointers to articles

> on the web that might deal with this - I am sure that this has come up

> many many times before.

> Somehow I get (after playing for about an hour) that the members would

> become 'customers', and annual dues might be 'jobs' that I define? Does

> that sound right?

Yes, your members are "customers". Include all known info (e-mail, address,
etc) in their profile so that you can take advantage of the built in letter
writing features that QB has.

Use the categories in Quicken to create the P &L section of your Chart of
Accounts. Add your bank accounts and any other assets the NPO has to your
balance sheet.

Create an invoice for each member's annual dues that are owed. As they pay
their dues use the Receive Payment task to clear their invoice from A/R. Put
the payments into Undeposited Funds and then use the Banking>>Make deposits
to group the checks to line up with your actual bank deposits. This will
help simplify your bank recs tremendously.

If you need to track the year of dues then I would use Classes instead of
Jobs. Think of Jobs as a sub customer. A good example of job would be a
family is the customer with each child in the family setup as jobs.

If you need to distinquish members from mailing list only you could setup a
customer type and enter that info in the "additional info" tab.

I found a link to a NFP website that you might look at for more help:
NFPAccountingHelp.org

Hope this gives you some ideas to play with. I would also suggest that you
find a Pro advisor that can help you directly.

Posted by Andrew on December 24, 2008, 8:42 pm

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Laura wrote:

> ...

> Yes, your members are "customers". Include all known info (e-mail,

> address, etc) in their profile so that you can take advantage of the

> built in letter writing features that QB has.

> ...

> Create an invoice for each member's annual dues that are owed. As

> they pay their dues use the Receive Payment task to clear their

> invoice from A/R. Put the payments into Undeposited Funds and then

> use the Banking>>Make deposits to group the checks to line up with

> your actual bank deposits. This will help simplify your bank recs

> tremendously. ...

Thanks Laura for the quick reply - Is there an easy way within QB Pro to
simply set up the membership so that upon some expiration date (job end
date?) the invoice is automatically 'created' for the new year? The use of
'customers' to keep track of members seems somewhat of a kludge to me....I
think I saw some NPO add on product that might handle this in more of a
straightforward method?

I really have been quite happy using quicken and excel (since 2001) to
manage the club's books and membership list. I am giving QB a try since, as
you know from the Quicken forum, I got this copy of QB 'free'. If there's a
LOT of hassle trying to cram what I'm used to using in the past, then it
isn't worth it. To me, having the membership list integrated into the
accounting system is what was attractive to me, but I don't want to go to
contortions to do it.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Regards -

- Andrew

Posted by Laura on December 24, 2008, 9:29 pm

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> Laura wrote:

>> ...

>> Yes, your members are "customers". Include all known info (e-mail,

>> address, etc) in their profile so that you can take advantage of the

>> built in letter writing features that QB has.

>> ...

>> Create an invoice for each member's annual dues that are owed. As

>> they pay their dues use the Receive Payment task to clear their

>> invoice from A/R. Put the payments into Undeposited Funds and then

>> use the Banking>>Make deposits to group the checks to line up with

>> your actual bank deposits. This will help simplify your bank recs

>> tremendously. ...

> Thanks Laura for the quick reply - Is there an easy way within QB Pro to

> simply set up the membership so that upon some expiration date (job end

> date?) the invoice is automatically 'created' for the new year? The use

> of 'customers' to keep track of members seems somewhat of a kludge to

> me....I think I saw some NPO add on product that might handle this in more

> of a straightforward method?

You can "memorize" a transaction such as an annual invoice for the dues.
With each member, enter the first invoice. Then select Edit>>memorize
Invoice. You can specify here how often you want the transaction to be
posted.

You might check this 3rd party tool:
http://www.bigredconsulting.com/aboutBatchInvoicer.htm to see if this might
help mechanize the invoice creation.

To get your customers into QB look under File>>utilities>>import>>excel
files. There are options here to copy/paste your customer information into a
excel template.

> I really have been quite happy using quicken and excel (since 2001) to

> manage the club's books and membership list. I am giving QB a try since,

> as you know from the Quicken forum, I got this copy of QB 'free'. If

> there's a LOT of hassle trying to cram what I'm used to using in the past,

> then it isn't worth it. To me, having the membership list integrated into

> the accounting system is what was attractive to me, but I don't want to go

> to contortions to do it.

The initial setup might take some time but I think you'll find it nicer to
use than Quicken for tracking your NPO.

Posted by Haskel LaPort on December 25, 2008, 10:51 am

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>> Laura wrote:

>>> ...

>>> Yes, your members are "customers". Include all known info (e-mail,

>>> address, etc) in their profile so that you can take advantage of the

>>> built in letter writing features that QB has.

>>> ...

>>> Create an invoice for each member's annual dues that are owed. As

>>> they pay their dues use the Receive Payment task to clear their

>>> invoice from A/R. Put the payments into Undeposited Funds and then

>>> use the Banking>>Make deposits to group the checks to line up with

>>> your actual bank deposits. This will help simplify your bank recs

>>> tremendously. ...

>> Thanks Laura for the quick reply - Is there an easy way within QB Pro to

>> simply set up the membership so that upon some expiration date (job end

>> date?) the invoice is automatically 'created' for the new year? The use

>> of 'customers' to keep track of members seems somewhat of a kludge to

>> me....I think I saw some NPO add on product that might handle this in

>> more of a straightforward method?

> You can "memorize" a transaction such as an annual invoice for the dues.

> With each member, enter the first invoice. Then select Edit>>memorize

> Invoice. You can specify here how often you want the transaction to be

> posted.

> You might check this 3rd party tool:

> http://www.bigredconsulting.com/aboutBatchInvoicer.htm to see if this

> might help mechanize the invoice creation.

> To get your customers into QB look under File>>utilities>>import>>excel

> files. There are options here to copy/paste your customer information into

> a excel template.

>> I really have been quite happy using quicken and excel (since 2001) to

>> manage the club's books and membership list. I am giving QB a try since,

>> as you know from the Quicken forum, I got this copy of QB 'free'. If

>> there's a LOT of hassle trying to cram what I'm used to using in the

>> past, then it isn't worth it. To me, having the membership list

>> integrated into the accounting system is what was attractive to me, but I

>> don't want to go to contortions to do it.

> The initial setup might take some time but I think you'll find it nicer to

> use than Quicken for tracking your NPO.

Wow your being so sweet I'm getting a cavity reading this post. The OP will
use any excuse to stay with Quicken so why waste your time. Anyone who is
familiar with both products knows QB is far better suited for the task. I'm
only guessing, but I bet the OP does not get paid for handing the books and
next year someone else will take over the job. It just may not be worth his
time learning a new product.

If he didn't get QB for free we would not be having this thread.