If you are a ministry financial administrator, you understand that accuracy and organization are paramount when it comes to your ministry’s finances because your congregants trust you to manage their donations appropriately. Managing church financial transactions, records, and important documents can be daunting, often involving manual processes and endless paperwork. Earlier this year, we provided you with the ability to attach documents to employee records. Today, Realm Accounting‘s Transaction Attachments feature allows you to further streamline how you manage supporting documentation for your ministry’s overall financial operations.
In this blog, we’ll share the key benefits of Transaction Attachments in Realm Accounting and how they can help streamline your ministry’s accounting workflows.
Key Benefits of the Transaction Attachments Feature
Replace Manual Document Management with an Electronic Solution
With this new feature, you can say goodbye to manual document management. This feature enables you to attach scanned documents to various elements within the system, including transactions, invoices, vendor records, and employee records. Your important documents will be securely stored in one place with just a few clicks. This saves valuable time and eliminates the risk of misplacing or losing critical documents.
Immediate Access to Supporting Documents
When it comes to financial audits, transparency and easy access to documentation are essential. Transaction Attachments in Realm Accounting provide your ministry with immediate access to supporting documents right when you need them. Whether it’s auditors conducting a review or a staff member searching for important information, this feature allows you to quickly obtain supporting documents without having to sort through physical documents or wait for someone to send them digitally.
Detailed Descriptions for Clarity
This new feature allows you to add descriptions to all attachments, ensuring that anyone with access to financial information in your church can view the attachments and quickly understand their significance. Descriptions provide context and clarity, which is especially helpful for staff, auditors, or anyone else who may not be familiar with the document in question.
Types of Supporting Documents You Can Attach
Ministry decisions often rely on accurate data and records. With Transaction Attachments, you can empower your staff with appropriate permissions and easy access to important details contained within supporting documents. Some of the documents you can attach to a transaction, invoice, vendor, or team member record include:
- Invoices
- Receipts
- Contracts
- Other vital documents relevant to your ministry’s operations
Here are some file types that can be uploaded using the Transaction Attachments feature:
- Microsoft Documents (.doc, .docx, .xls, .ppt, etc)
- iWork Suite (.pages, .numbers, .key)
- Other (.pdf, .rtf, .csv, etc.)
- Media (.jpg, jpeg, .png, .gif)
When uploading an attachment, you can view a complete list of allowed file types.
Using Transaction Attachments to Streamline Your Church Accounting Workflow
Now that you know what Realm’s Transaction Attachments feature is and how it benefits your ministry, let’s show you how to add attachments.
Adding Attachments to a Vendor Record
In the Ministry Hub menu, select Realm Accounting → Vendors → + Add Vendor (to add a new vendor) or click on a previously added vendor.
Once you click on the vendor, you will see the Attachments tab.
To add a new attachment for your selected vendor, click on + Add Attachment. Next, you will be prompted to upload your file and enter details about your attachment, including a name for your attachment and any notes. Once you’ve entered your details, click Save.
Within the attachments tab, you can also see previously uploaded files.
You can also add an attachment to a vendor from the Vendors list screen. Click on Vendors → +Add under the Attachments column on the right-hand side.
Adding Attachments to General Ledger
You can add files within the General Ledger when adding an Expense, Income, or Other. You can also add an attachment to any open or posted transactions. You can add or view previous attachments from here by clicking + Add or the paperclip icon under the Attachments column.
When adding an attachment to a new Expense, Income, or Other, you will first need to enter the details of your transaction before being able to add attachments.
You can also attach files to transactions that have already been posted.
Adding Attachments to Invoices
From Invoices you can attach files to Unpaid and Paid invoices. To attach a file when creating a new invoice, click +Add Invoice, enter all the details for your invoice, and then click the Attachments tab to upload supporting documents.
You can also attach or view previously attached files from the Unpaid or Paid invoices list by clicking the +Add or the paperclip icon under the Attachments column.
Deleting an Attachment
If you upload the incorrect file(s), you can always delete and upload the correct one. To do this, click on the file you want to delete, click the …, then click on delete. If you don’t want to delete a file but need to edit the file name or notes for an attachment, you can click on edit.
Convenience and Efficiency in One Place
Managing ministry finances often requires accuracy, efficiency, and transparency. Realm’s Transaction Attachments helps you streamline your financial operations, replacing loads of paperwork with an electronic solution to store important supporting documents.
About Lily Oliver
Lily joined the ACST team in 2020. She worked six years at a large church in Atlanta, GA, as the Business Systems Analyst. Lily understands the mission and challenges of the church. She spent her time in ministry utilizing Realm to help solve those challenges. She is passionate about helping our Ministry Partners leverage technology to fulfill their mission and grow their ministry impact.
