Who needs a key to get into your church? You can probably think of a lot of people such as the pastor, the trustees, any staff, and certain key volunteers. Only people you trust AND have responsibilities that would make it necessary for them to have a key. Who needs a key to the church’s safe? That’s probably a shorter list that would include maybe the financial secretary and the church secretary. Again, it’s people you trust AND have responsibilities that would make it necessary.
For QuickBooks Online, the same principles apply. A larger number of people can have access to view reports. A small group can post transactions. An even smaller group has access to everything…including setting up users and security.
In the video, I show exactly how to setup a new user and select what access they have. I’m using QuickBooks Online Plus which allows for up to five users…plus unlimited access to reports. Here’s my suggestion for who gets keys:
- Company Admin: Someone who understands IT security should have this role. It doesn’t need to be an accountant. I would probably also give this role to the treasurer (the person responsible for the financial statements). That way you have a backup in case someone dies or gets mad at the church.
- Standard All Access: If the treasurer doesn’t have Company Admin access, they should probably have Standard All Access. This allows them to do Payroll, Journal Entries, and Bank Reconciliations.
- Standard Limited Customer & Vendors: I’ve seen churches with office managers that enter pretty much everything into QuickBooks. If you limit the access this way, you would have to have someone else to run Payroll, Journal Entries, and the Bank Rec. As an accountant, I’ve been invited to do this for a handful of nonprofits. This helps protect the church and the employees.
- Standard Limited Customers Only: Perfect for the Financial Secretary who is responsible for donor records.
- View Company Reports: This doesn’t allow people to run payroll reports, but they can run all other reports. If you are keep your donor records in QuickBooks Online, that may be a concern. You should set the expectation on who should and should not look at donor records. You should also periodically run the Audit Log to see if people are violating that expectation. With that in mind, I would be pretty liberal with granting this role to the people on the Finance Committee and others in leadership positions where they need access to budget reports in a timely manner.
Useful Links
- Guidance from QuickBooks: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/access-permissions/user-roles-access-rights-quickbooks-online/L66POfRrI_US_en_US
- Getting QuickBooks through TechSoup: http://jctaccounting.com/2023/02/17/buying-quickbooks-online-from-tech-soup-for-75/