Creating Giving Categories

Donation Categories are used to identify the donor's intentions or what the donor wants the money to be used for. Categories are used for labeling donations on the Giving Screen, but they are also used for categorizing transactions and creating budgets on the Accounting Screen.

Creating Categories

You can view, edit, and create categories by selecting "Categories" on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Create a category for every donation opportunity for your ministry. To create a new Category, click the "Add" button.

You will first be prompted to give it a name. After you name the Category, you can list it as a subcategory of another Category, as tax deductible, and choose to use it for Online Giving. You can also assign category numbers.

Regarding subcategories, you may have a "Missions" category. You could then create subcategories for each missionary (i.e. "The Anderson Family" and "The Smith Family") to track donations made to each. To make a category a subcategory of another, simply select the parent category from the "Subcategory of" selection box.

Editing Categories

Click on the name of a Category or Subcategory to begin editing it. The edit menu will appear to the right.

If you need to delete a category, ChurchTrac will check to determine if that category is in use, either on the Giving Screen or the Accounting Screen. If there are donations or transactions that utilize the category, ChurchTrac will prompt you to reassign the donations in that category to another.

Categories can be moved into any order you prefer. To change your Category order, select and hold the up/down arrows to the right of the Category name and drag it to whatever position you prefer. Subcategories are sorted in alphabetical order by default.