Using MyNetWorth for Parochial Church Council Accounts

29/11/2022; 671 words; 3 minutes to read.

As you may recall from my about page, I am the treasurer of a Parochial Church Council (PCC). For several years I used Gnucash to manage my PCC’s accounts. Gnucash is an open source multi-platform application that is sophisticated, capable and has some excellent report generating capabilities. However, it is really designed to support large businesses so I found that I was using only a small proportion of its full functions. I also found Gnucash a little cumbersome, it lacks the capability to record (and monitor) payees and I did not like the way in which it handles split transactions. So, I started using MyNetWorth as my PCC accounts manager at the beginning of 2022 and I have found it to be very suitable indeed.

Please note that my PCC has just one physical bank account and this has to host both our day to day funds and our Restricted Funds. One Restricted Fund (Payroll) exists to support the payroll of a single employee, who is paid for by our Diocese. The account for this fund contains the money received from the Diocese and the money paid out to the employee (salary), to HMRC (PAYE and NICs) and to NEST (pension contributions). Another Restricted Fund (Creditors) contains money that has been received for organisations, other than my PCC, and needs to be held in our bank account for later payment. For example, when a funeral is conducted in my Parish the funeral director pays a total fee to my PCC; however, much of that fee is due to the Diocese and the Diocesan element is paid to the Diocese quarterly in arrears. I also operate a number of online donation websites for our Benefice as a whole and donations made to Parishes, other than my own, have to be held in my PCC’s bank account. A third Restricted Fund (Fabric) contains donations received for the specific purpose of maintaining and improving the Church building and not for day to day expenditure.

Obviously, I need to keep a constant eye on my PCC’s net worth, which must be calculated from the total in the PCC’s bank account, less the money reserved to operate the payroll, less any amounts owed to the Diocese and the other Parishes and less the funds donated to maintain the Church Building. I have therefore set up the PCC’s bank account as an Asset Account and the Payroll, Creditors and Fabric Restricted Funds as Liabilities accounts. To see the PCC’s net worth at any time all I have to do is select the Balances View in MyNetWorth, where net worth is displayed as total Assets less total Liabilities. To reconcile my PCC’s accounts I simply compare the transactions listed in the PCC’s bank account in MyNetWorth with the transactions listed in the online statement on the website of my PCC’s bank.

Each year I have to prepare an annual financial statement and submit it to the Diocese. MyNetWorth’s Export to CSV function, combined with bespoke reports generated in the Reports View, supports this activity particularly well and I find the Pie Charts, generated in the Balances View, excellent for giving me instant oversight of where my PCC’s funds are coming from and going to.

I have tested the capability of iNetWorth to manage my PCC’s accounts and it is definitely a practical option for those that only have access to iOS devices; indeed, I use it frequently when away from my Mac Mini. However, I do find that the user interface of MyNetWorth and the larger screen size offered by a desktop or laptop, when compared to an iPhone or iPad, makes MyNetWorth my preferred option.