Churches commonly receive in kind, non-cash donations and need a place to properly record their receipt. Good tracking procedures and receipts enable churches to account for items received and to credit individuals for contributions at tax time.
In Kind Donation Receipts
A church might want to consider giving out non-cash donation receipts instead of tracking them as part of individual contributions. Most churches and non-profit organizations will give out a donation receipt for physical goods at the time of donation. This reduces the burden on your staff because they don’t need to record the in kind donation. The individual can then hang on to the receipt and record it as a physical goods donation at tax time.
You can download a template for donation receipts from Microsoft Office here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/donation-receipt-TC006089148.aspx
The easiest way to handle it would be to print up a bunch of blank receipts and have your financial secretary fill them out as needed when people drop physical donations off.
Church Management Software
While it isn’t required by United States tax codes, physical donations can be recorded in church management software to keep a record of items that were given to the church.
Recording non-cash donations in Church Office Online can be accomplished by going to Admin → Contributions Category, and then add a category called “Non-Cash Contributions”. When inputting individual contributions you will now have the option to select non-cash contributions. It is the onus of the contributor to properly determine the cost of the non-cash contribution, so enter a value of “0” in the amount field. Enter a description of the item in the “Notes” field When you run reports, it will now properly show your categories and attribute contributions to the appropriate individual.
We hope this article helps you manage in kind donations for your church. Please let us know if you have any question or comments.
Thanks!
Tim Wall
Church Office Online