club treasurer software recommendations

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ukwildcat

Dryer sheet wannabe
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Feb 9, 2018
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I am the incoming treasurer for local Lions Club. Current treasurer is using QuickBooks. Current treasurer owns a small business using QuickBooks so in need of new treasurer software. Local Lions Club will have a treasurer for the club and a separate treasurer for 501 foundation.

Need recommendations for club accounting software. Google search came up with Alpos, but that costs $480 per year. MoneyMinder and ClubTreasure came up as well as free club software.

I am not a computer whiz so need something simple. However, need to be able to track all revenue and expenses, create a monthly report for both club and foundation.
Recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
 
Wouldn't it be easiest for the club to just buy a copy of Quickbooks? Alternatively, you could use Quicken.

I'm treasurer for our lake association and I have been using GnuCash which is a free download. It's ok.... I'm a retired accountant and long-time user of Quicken so it wasn't all that hard to figure out. The reporting is quite primitive but I just download trial balance information to LibreOffice Calc (a free clone of Excel) and use LibreOffice Calc for pretty reports.
 
Stick with QB. You will have a lot of grief porting the QB data file to any other software and, to the extent you use CPAs or tax preparers, you will probably have to pay to educate them about any oddball system you might choose. Free is not free; you will pay in other and possibly painful ways.

I was treasurer for our flying club for many years, using QB. We billed about $350K/year and were able to take advantage of emailing of statements for flying time and dues. If you do decide to go some other path, I'd suggest that you make sure you have emailing capability.

To be clear, I am no fan of Intuit. I think it's a pretty slimy company but they own the market. I grit my teeth every time I recommend QB, but I recommend it to my SCORE small business clients frequently.
 
When I was the bookkeeper for PTA we used an online version of Quickbooks. This made it easy when we changed officers and no need for a dedicated computer.
 
I despise Intuit, but QuickBooks is the correct answer.
I used QB for 17+ years for my tiny business until switching to AccountEdge (Mac only). The move from QB to AE was painful.
You cannot use Quicken for a business. It is not designed for that.

Just use QuickBooks and bite the bullet.
 
davebarnes said:
...You cannot use Quicken for a business. ...
Click to expand...

As a long-time user of Quicken and retired CPA, I respectfully disagree... especially if all one needs is a general ledger and don't need billing or accounts payable. I could have easily used Quicken for the lake association but I wanted to get some experience with GnuCash as a potential substitute for Quicken.

I agree that Quickbooks is preferable, but you can use Quicken for a small business or non-profit.
 
I've been using Quicken 99 for my rental business since 1999, presently 7 doors, 3 units. No problems here, although I bought Quicken 2018 and am too lazy to import the info over. I believe I have to take my data and put it in Quicken 2004 first then import it to 2018.
 
I was in the same position and we stuck with Quickbooks. Once I got the hang of it, it worked really well. Years ago, Quicken was used, but it just didn't have all the features needed for business reports. Now that the nonprofit has 15 years of history in QB, there is an extensive history of transactions that could be lost moving to a different system.


Quickbooks has a much richer reporting function. I especially found the reporting to be very helpful to fill out the tax 990-N. Quickbooks can also be easily set up for special accounts (a scholarship fund, for example) and integrate into the balance sheet properly.

Someone above said, "Bite the bullet." Yep, that's what we did. You are welcome Intuit. Grumble...
 
Last edited:
pb4uski said:
Probably not in Quicken, perhaps in Quickbooks but I don't know for sure.
Click to expand...
Yes, set up a "customer" data base of members, and create invoices for each of them. You can customize the invoice to say "Dues" instead of the sterile default.
 
ukwildcat said:
What is difference between Quickbook and Quicken?
Click to expand...
They were different products at one time, and once Intuit marketed them, they both got the name "Quick" in them. They share almost nothing in common from a user interface standpoint. Now that Quicken has been spun off, I expect they'll diverge further.


Quicken can be used for businesses, sure. Quickbooks, however, is made for business reporting. It has built in customer and vendor databases. Balance sheet and other reporting is nearly automatic, as long as you set up your accounts properly.


Quicken focuses on the personal finances and investing. Quickbooks is all about the stuff businesses do. Of course, they do share some things in common, such as tagging expenses to categories or writing checks.
 
Like many have said, go with Quickbooks.


It is easy to use and many more people can use it... you have to think about who will replace you at some time...
 
Texas Proud said:
Like many have said, go with Quickbooks.


It is easy to use and many more people can use it... you have to think about who will replace you at some time...
Click to expand...
This is good advice. Quickbooks is what the next treasurer accountant will prefer. As a volunteer, you do well by saving time. If you change to something else, it requires training and support. Quickbooks is the devil you know.
 
Thanks for all the helpful replies. Most replies indicate QuickBooks would be the best choice. We want software that has been around and will be around for many years. I should add we have a Lions Club treasurer(me) and will have a Lions Club Foundation treasurer also
 
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