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To: Pastors, Business Managers, ParishSOFT Administrators and Bookkeepers
From: Susan Shirley, Parish Systems Administrator, Office of Finance
Even though we are still in the season of Advent, it is time to begin planning the print and distribution of contribution statements (End of Year Statements for tax purposes) for your parish families.
ParishSOFT has provided helpful video lessons with easy-to-understand information about this process. While the instructions are very accurate and complete, you may notice reference to certain procedures, which we, in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, have standardized, but may not be standard across all dioceses. For example, the training videos will mention that it is not critical to close your batches after posting – this is correct information but not complete information. Indeed, your statement will print if the batches are not closed, but our standard procedure in Atlanta is to close balanced batches as soon as possible to protect the integrity of the data. For any accounting questions, especially regarding employment status (1099 vs. W-2), please contact the Office of Finance.
It is highly recommended that you review this online information and register for upcoming webinars to help you understand this process more fully. Links to online resources and webinar registrations are at the end of the attached instructions.
Before Running Statements:
1. Audit Funds: Ensure that all of your funds in ParishSOFT are coded correctly regarding tax exemption status. Please remember that funds such as Mass stipends, Christmas or Easter flowers, All Souls Novena, Georgia Bulletin donations, etc. are tax deductible. The Peter’s Pence along with distributed funds from a foundation, 401(k), IRA and
matching contributions are NOT tax deductible by the individual donor.
2. Audit Mailing Information: Make sure that you do not have any missing data (addresses, mailing names, zip codes) by exporting your Family List to an Excel spreadsheet and looking for any blank or improperly formatted fields. Pay close attention to the following fields as they are the ones used to fill in the address block on the mail merge that creates the statements – Mailing Name, Primary Address, City, State, and Postal Code. The Post Office is less likely to declare a piece of mail “undeliverable” if you have the proper abbreviations for street names (with no punctuation marks). For more information about properly formatted addresses, please visit www.usps.com and search “street suffixes.”
3. Work with your Pastor and/or Business Manager to agree on the text that you wish to have printed on the statements. This message usually includes a “thank you” to the donors for their support of the work of the church. The form allows for up to 1,500 characters of text.
4. Obtain a digital signature from your Pastor, if you choose. We recommend that this signature not be a perfect replica of the signature they use to sign checks. For instance, instead of “Very Rev. James R. Smith, OFM” it might just read “Fr. Jim.”
5. Determine whether your pastor wishes to sign or write individual notes on any of the statements. At some parishes, the pastor chooses to include a note on all statements or on certain top givers. His decision will determine your print order in case you need to group the statements by contribution amount.
6. Make sure that all contributions received in 2018 are posted correctly to the donor’s record and that all batches are either closed or committed.
7. It is wise to run a Contribution Summary Report for calendar year 2018. When reviewing the data, you may find postings that were made to an improper fund (it is common to have some errant offertory postings to prior year’s funds). These should be corrected before preparing your statements.
8. Remember to order sufficient quantities of #10 double window envelopes (or single window printed with your parish return address) and paper or stationery.