One Month at a Time!!
Occasionally we hear: “Jewel is not user friendly.” “Jewel should let me do ____.” “Jewel is too complicated.” Or the opposite: “Jewel is too simple.” Usually it is from someone who does not understand how Jewel works, or why. Jewel is not perfect, but, like every software program, if you learn how it works and work with it instead of against it, it does exactly what it is supposed to do.
The most important thing to know about Jewel is that it only allows treasurers to work on one month at a time.
Look in the bottom left corner of your Jewel home screen to find out your current Jewel month. No matter what the calendar says, every offering you enter, every check you write, no matter what date you enter in Jewel, they will all end up being dated within that particular current Jewel month.
- Once you close a month, you cannot go back and fix anything in a previous month without assistance.
- Until you close your current Jewel month, you cannot jump ahead and work on a future month. Jewel will change any date you enter, posting it instead back into your current month. (The exception.)
There are several important reasons for this:
- Fraud prevention. It makes it much more difficult for someone to “cook the books.” Once entered and closed, the record is permanent, and auditors can track the entries and edits.
- Most treasurers are not professional accountants. So, locking down the past and the future keeps them from accidentally making permanent changes that could be catastrophic.
- Some treasurers are professional accountants, but may not understand the difference between church accounting and business accounting, and might not know IRS rules for non-profits or denominational policy. So, they also could accidentally make changes that would not be in the best interest of their church.
- IRS regulations require that the church board have oversight. Once the board votes to accept a financial report for a particular month, the contents of that report are not to be changed without good reason and without a paper trail. Auditors know how to do that correctly, so they are allowed to make changes if needed.
- Each monthly unit is designed to balance and reconcile. All the conference offerings that come in during a particular month, go right back out in the remittance check during that same month. The board at its monthly meeting is supposed to be able to trust that all the expenses and income for that month have been entered, reconciled with the bank, and are accurate. Jewel is designed to make that happen.
When Jewel won’t let you do something you want to do, there is a reason for it, usually having to do with something in the above five categories. Knowing this may help you with your frustration at not being able to delete something, change something, or make a certain type of transfer. Or maybe it won't help. But Jewel still won’t let you do things that shouldn’t be done.
Your auditors and tech support can "time travel" to previous months when a database needs attention. In fact, we like to tell new treasurers that there is nothing you can mess up in Jewel that we can't fix!
Once you understand how Jewel works, you can sail through the month in the proper order, with a minimum of fuss and bother. It will take time, but it will happen. And you will move down the road towards clarity, accuracy and simplicity.