How to reconcile ONE OFF Donations via Parish Giving Scheme (PGS)
This help guide article covers how to reconcile ONE OFF donations given via the Parish Giving Scheme. To find out how to reconcile regular donations via the Parish Giving Scheme, which has a different statement format, please switch to this separate helpguide article.
Parish Giving Scheme is a scheme offered to Church of England churches which is advertised as free of charge (except for a small fee that churches are charged for one-off gifts). This enables the true fees of PGS to be hidden from churches (as the diocese pays the fees and the churches pay the diocese through parish share).
For Churches that use ExpensePlus, ExpensePlus has a fully integrated LoveGiving online donations portal that includes the processing of Gift Aid which provides a far better solution, offers transparent low fees, is customisable, and provides a hassle-free alternative to accepting one-off donations.
If you are using Parish Giving Scheme for processing one-off gifts, then within ExpensePlus there are 2 choices for how to reconcile ONE OFF Parish Giving Scheme Income (you will need to pick the one that will work best for you):
- Option 1: Splitting payouts against donors manually using the 'mixed income' option - This is typically the best and quickest option where you have only a few people who give via Parish Giving Scheme, since it involves manually recording the different donations given that make up the payout received each time.
- Option 2: Splitting payouts against donors automatically by uploading payout transactions - This option is typically best for most churches using PGS.
NOTE: if you are reconciling regular Parish Giving Scheme donations, click here to switch to a separate help guide article about this.
Option 1: Splitting payouts against support donors manually using the 'mixed income' option
Parish Giving Scheme makes two payments per statement each month - one relating to donations, the other relating to Gift Aid (but the description they use doesn't differentiate between the two).
Reconciling Parish Giving Scheme DONATION payouts on your bank statement
When reconciling your uploaded bank transactions, select the payout from Parish Giving Scheme that relates to MONTHLY DONATIONS on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button and, within the popup that appears, select the transaction type as 'Mixed Income'.
Within the 'Enter Mixed Income' screen, enter the details for the transactions in the Parish Giving Scheme payout:
- Named Donations - for any named donations
- Less Expenditure - for the total of the fees deducted
IMPORTANT: When reconciling Parish Giving Scheme donations:
(1) You should always ensure the 'donation method' is set to 'Parish Giving Scheme'
(2) You should not record any donations as 'GASDS Donations'
Note: where donors give anonymously, you may wish to create a donor called 'PGS Anonymous Donors'.
Reconciling Parish Giving Scheme GIFT AID payouts on your bank statement
When you reconcile your uploaded bank transactions, select the Parish Giving Scheme on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button, then, in the popup that appears, select the transaction type as 'Other Income' and enter the transaction details for the Gift Aid income.
IMPORTANT: Parish Giving Scheme makes two payments per statement each month - one relating to donations, the other relating to Gift Aid (but the description they use doesn't differentiate between the two). Therefore, we'd highly recommend that you UNTICK the 'Remember this Transaction' box each time so that future donations payouts don't get wrongly auto-matched as Gift Aid payouts!
Option 2: Splitting payouts against support donors automatically by uploading payout transactions
Reconciling Parish Giving Scheme payouts appearing on your main bank account statement
When you reconcile your uploaded bank transactions, select the payout from Parish Giving Scheme on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen.
Click the + button that appears next to the transaction, and in the popup that then appears, select the transaction type as 'Payout from Payment Processor', and then select your Parish Giving Scheme account.
Note: you will need to set up Parish Giving Scheme as a payment processor account before you can do this - click here to find out how to do this.
If you are using Parish Giving Scheme for processing both regular monthly donations as well as accepting one-off donations, then you only need to add PGS as a payment processor once (unless you wish to set up both separately).
Note: Parish Giving Scheme typically makes two separate payouts each month (rather than one). I.e., you will need to reconcile two payouts on your bank account as 'payout from payment processor) per transaction statement that you import.
Importing Parish Giving Scheme transactions
Within the bank reconciliation screen, select your Parish Giving Scheme account and click 'upload transactions'.
Warning: You should NOT modify, resave or change the file type of the file sent to you by Parish Giving Scheme (otherwise the upload will not work).
The upload process works similarly to a regular bank account, except that, each line on the statement will show as two transactions within ExpensePlus - one relating to the donation income and the other to the gift aid income.
NOTE: As Parish Giving Scheme transaction files do not include a date column, you will be asked to select a date when uploading your transaction file. This will be used as the donation date for all transactions within the file you upload.
Once you have reconciled the two bank transactions each month that relate to your regular Parish Giving Scheme income AND uploaded your payout transactions, your Parish Giving Scheme account balance should return to zero (because the net total of the transactions INTO your PGS account on ExpensePlus that you've just uploaded, should exactly match the two amounts paid OUT as the payouts went from this account into your bank account).
IMPORTANT NOTE: If your Parish Giving Scheme account is not returning to zero each month - please see this separate help guide article
Reconciling Parish Giving Scheme transactions
The bank matching process works similarly to a regular bank account, with the ability to remember and quick match transactions.
This means that once you have reconciled Parish Giving Scheme transactions for the first month, you won't need to manually enter transactions for future months - but simply click the 'quick match income' button at the top of the match transactions screen.
Where transactions haven't been previously reconciled and auto-remembered:
Named Donations
The donation amount given should be reconciled using this option:
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen;
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction;
(3) select the 'Named Donation' option in the popup and enter the details.
IMPORTANT: When reconciling Parish Giving Scheme donations:
(1) You should always ensure the 'donation method' is set to 'Parish Giving Scheme'
(2) You should not record any donations as 'GASDS Donations'
(3) You should record the Gift Aid of a donation as 'income received' (not as a named donation, otherwise your donation reports will be incorrect)
Note: where donors give anonymously, you may wish to create a donor called 'Anonymous PGS Donations'
Income Received
The gift aid arising from a donor's donation should be reconciled using this option:
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction
(3) select the 'Income Received' option in the popup and enter the details
Card/Payment Process Fee
To reconcile Parish Giving Scheme fees (only relevant for one-off donations collected via PGS):
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction
(3) select the 'Card/Payment Processor Fee' option in the popup and enter the details
Why is my Parish Giving Scheme (PGS) statement not uploading?
Most likely, you have modified or re-saved the Parish Giving Scheme statement you have received (which you should not do). If this is the case, we'd recommend you download the file again.
For PGS Statements for one-off gifts, the headers, the file must contain ALL of the following headers (spelt exactly as stated below):
- Giver Name (each transaction must contain the donor's name)
- Gift (each transaction must contain a donation amount for the current month)
- Gift Aid (each transaction may contain a Gift Aid amount for the current month)
(additional columns can be present but won't be imported).
NOTE: there is also a 'transaction fee' cell that ExpensePlus also imports.
To better understand the Bank Reconciliation functionality, please watch the module overview video here.