We handle the bookkeeping for a local church. It works great for that aspect of their operations. We use the “Customers” for the actual church members to record donations they make. The church now is going to open a book store which raises a question. Setting up the appropriate Income and Expense accounts isn’t a problem. Our problem is how to now be able to track the Customers from the new book store sales and the Church Members and keep them separate. My question is this - Is there a way to have more than one “Customers” type list and name one “Store Customers” and the other “Church Members”.
I hope that I understand your question well, because English is not my native language.
If it is no problem that one customer will be twice in the customers listing then you could use the [Code] to differ the two groups.
Like Ms. Ann gets [Code] SC0001 because she is a Store Customer and Ms. Ann gets [Code] CM0001 because she is also a Church Member.
You could also make a Custom Field like:
If you don’t want the same person twice in you customers listing then you may make a Custom Field in the Sales invoices so that when you make an invoice you brand the invoice as a “Store Customers” invoice or a “Church Members” invoice.
You could also make a separate sales account so that when you make the invoice the sales for the Store goes into Sales Store account and the Members invoice into the Sales Members account.
Just some ideas, maybe they will bring you on the right track.
I appreciate the feedback. I’ve thought of that and to some degree it would work. However, by doing that, we still have Church Members bunched along side regular book store customers. It’s not always the same church person who records Church Member Donations and I can see how it would be real easy for things to get messed up. I don’t like doing it but I see the only real safe solution is to set up a completely separate client account for the book store and then record the income and expenses of the book store into the churches main bookkeeping account.
I think you need to create the book store as a separate business. That may even be required by local law. In one case, you have contributions, expenses, but no inventory or sales. In the other, you have inventory, sales, probably walk-in customers, as well as different sorts of expenses.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, but you have already seen the potential for problems.
I just got off the phone with the church pastor and explained the possible problems that could develop by having everything in one set of books and he agreed with me that is what we are going to do. Thanks for the feedback.