How do I record bank deposits?
The 'Record Bank Deposit' screen is used for recording cash and cheque deposits paid into your bank account.
Note: You can record a bank deposit using the bank deposit module on the left hand menu, or by selecting 'Bank Deposit' from the drop-down menu during the bank reconciliation process. Find out more here about recording other types of income transactions.
This screen allows you to record a breakdown of a bank deposit, but you will first need to enter:
- a bank deposit date,
- bank account for the deposit.
You can choose to add information about:
- names of the people who have counted the money and who will make the deposit,
- a slip reference and description,
- upload a file as an attachment for example an offering counting sheet.
The screen then provides multiple sections to ensure different types of income are recorded correctly.
Enter the cash or cheques being deposited into the following categories:
- Named Donations - All named donations, regardless of whether or not they can be Gift Aided, should be recorded in this section. Gift Aid is determined by whether or not the donor has a valid Gift Aid declaration.
- GASDS Donations - For anonymous cash or contactless card donations under £30 in value. The total of all small donations eligible under GASDS (the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme) should be recorded in this section, usually with collections from differing dates being recorded on separate lines. Any anonymous donations over the £30 GASDS limit for individual donations should be recorded in the Income (Other) section.
- Invoice Payments - In this section you can record any invoice payments received by cash or cheque. See this help article for more details.
- Income (Other) - All other income should be recorded in this section including any payments for events, cafe or bookshop sales, etc. It is up to you how you choose to break down this information.
Each income line can be entered against your preferred fund and category.
The bottom two sections of the Bank Deposit screen allow you to record money retained as petty cash (in effect transferred from the cash collection to your petty cash account) or deposited to your bank as a withdrawal of petty cash.
Top tip: If you banked both cash and cheques in the same bank deposit, we recommend that you record separate bank deposits for the cash and for the cheque(s). This is because with some banks the cheque balance will appear a few days later on your bank statement, meaning you can't reconcile both transactions to the one bank deposit entry as they have different dates.
Reconciling a bank deposit
Once a bank deposit has been entered, it appears on the bank reconciliation screen and can be matched against the relevant bank transaction(s) once these have been uploaded.
User access to enter bank deposits
If a volunteer has a specific role to be purely responsible for Bank Deposits, (performing a cash offering or counting function), you can give them bespoke access to only this screen by customising their user role. See this help article for more details.
If your organisation uses Donor Envelope Numbers rather than donor names for cash donations, then on the manage donors screen, you have the option to assign donors with envelope numbers.
In the system settings, you have the option to hide donor names when entering bank deposits. This can help you keep the bank deposit process efficient whilst being sensitive to confidential donor information. Click here for more information about hiding donor names.
To help you better understand the Bank Deposit module as a whole, please visit the module overview page here.