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Manage My Shul

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Pledges & Receipts

Enter what each member pledged; the system bills them, receipts them when they pay, and chases what is still open.

Introduction

The accounting system is simple to set up and simple to use. It has been designed primarily to manage pledges, receipts and membership notifications. The system sends out emails and SMS notifications.

Please note: the SMS needs to be configured with a Twilio account. The configuration for this is not included, as I do not know how to do it — it was handled by my developer.

File: open a copy of the Google Sheet.

Set up

Step-by-step setup instructions to get started.

  1. Open up the sample Google Sheet.
  2. File > Make a Copy…
  3. You now have your own copy of the sheet.
  4. Make it yours — go to the Settings tab and enter your information.
  5. To pull in the member information from the members’ spreadsheet tab:
    1. In cell A1 type =IMPORTRANGE("your member spreadsheet URL here","Members!A1:P1000")
    2. Press enter and allow sheet access.
  6. Set up the triggers that will send out the messages:
    1. Tools > Script Editor
    2. Set up triggers as per this screenshot
    3. Hit Save
    4. Click OK on the prompts
  7. To use SMS, add your Twilio credentials in Utils_TwilioSMS.gs.
  8. Done.

Pledges

This is the main value of this system: billing for pledges and simplifying payments.

Understanding the Pledges tab

  1. Column A: choose a name from any member that is listed on the Members tab.
  2. Columns B–Q: enter up to 4 pledges.
  3. Columns R–S: used by the system to know when to send or resend bills; explained below.

Using the Pledges tab

  1. Simply enter the information.
    1. Amount is the amount due.
    2. Paid is used after the pledge is paid.
  2. To send out a bill or receipt:
    1. Automated — notifications will automatically go out on a schedule.
    2. Manual — if you want to send out the notification before it would go out automatically, use Utilities > Pledges:
      1. Process Bills — sends out the bills.
      2. Process Receipts — sends out receipts and moves the line item to the Transactions tab.
      3. Process Payments — moves the line item to the Transactions tab and does not send a receipt.

Messaging

The messaging behavior of the system once it is set up.

Billing and receipts

  1. When a new pledge is added a bill will be sent out.
  2. If a new item is added to an existing bill a revised bill will be sent out.
  3. If a line item is changed a revised bill is sent out.
  4. When payment is applied a receipt is sent out.
  5. When a bill is fully paid the line will be moved to the Transactions tab.

Reminders

  1. A reminder is sent out every 30 days, from the last time a message was sent for this bill.
  2. To generate a new reminder within the 30 days, just remove the date stamp from the “bill sent” column.