The Church Treasurer's Handbook. Robert Leach
is that the treasurer has an in-tray or ‘pigeon hole’ or similar in the church from which all documents are collected once a week. This avoids losing a scrap of paper which you absent-mindedly thrust in a pocket while thinking of something else.
A simple system is to have weekly, monthly and annual routines, and to set aside time for these routines. You may set aside an hour or so every Sunday afternoon for the weekly routine, for example. It is advisable to have an ‘in-tray’ at home so all the sundry pieces of paper which come to you are immediately put where you can easily find them. You can waste many frustrating hours searching for a scrap of paper that Mrs Jones gave you after a church service. If told things, write them down as soon as possible, but discourage verbal communications.
Almost certainly, the treasurer will need to spend some time every week on his duties. This is not a task which can be done in a few days before the annual report.
The weekly routine may include:
banking the week’s collections
entering income and expenditure into the records
paying bills.
The monthly routine may include:
reconciling the bank statement to the cash book
running the payroll.
The annual routine may include:
preparing the annual accounts
submitting the year-end tax return
submitting an annual return to a central church authority
writing an annual report for church members.
Purpose of treasurer
A church prepares accounts so that it knows how much:
income it has received
expenditure it has incurred
money it has at the year end.
If in doubt on how to proceed on any issue, consider which way best meets those objectives.
As with all jobs, there are laws and other rules which must be followed. However, the task is not onerous for a person with the appropriate aptitude and willingness. Most rules can be understood more clearly if you consider why they were made.
A treasurer should not be paid for his work. This is specifically banned in the Church of England and many other denominations. The treasurer should usually be a member of the church council and any standing committee. The treasurer must have easy access to the minister and to all other leaders in the church.
In some cases, it may be appropriate for the church to engage the services of a paid professional accountant. Such examples could be to fight a tax appeal, negotiate a debt or oversee a major contract. This is quite proper, and such an accountant is not the church treasurer but someone answerable to the treasurer.
It is good practice for every church to appoint an assistant treasurer who can deputize in the treasurer’s absence. It is also good practice for at least two people to be aware of all financial matters connected with the church.
In addition to the treasurer, every church should have a separate person as auditor or examiner.
Duties of treasurer
The duties of a treasurer include:
recording income and expenditure of the church
looking after the funds
reporting the financial position.
Income and expenditure are reported for an accounting period, which is usually a year to an accounting date. The only exceptions are in the first and last years of the church’s existence, and if the church should change its accounting date for any reason. The Church of England and most other denominations require that the accounts are prepared for the calendar year, that is the period from 1 January to 31 December. Other bodies may prepare accounts for different financial years. For example, many companies prepare accounts for years from 1 April to 31 March.
Depending on the church, the treasurer may have other duties, possibly shared with other officers. Such duties may include:
counting the collection
banking the collection
paying staff
recording pledged giving
reclaiming tax on giving
arranging insurance cover
administering trust funds
preparing budgets and forecasts
running a stewardship campaign
keeping an assets register.
Some churches prefer to give some of these tasks to other people. It is common for stewardship and pledged giving to be administered by separate officers, and for churchwardens (or their equivalent) to keep the assets register. The treasurer should be clear at the outset, exactly what his duties are. All of the above are covered in this book.
Support
The treasurer, like all church officers, should have access to training and support. Increasingly, dioceses and other bodies are now offering training in both basic disciplines of being a church treasurer and in specific topics such as new legislation as it arises.
It is useful to know another experienced church treasurer who can help with sudden problems. Often a diocese or other central body will have someone who can help.
You can keep up to date in matters concerning church treasurers by joining the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers (ACAT).
2. Record Keeping
BASIC PRINCIPLES
Objectives
Record keeping must be:
simple
understandable
accurate
timely
accessible.
An efficient system of record keeping is at the heart of being an effective treasurer. The exact form will depend on the size of the church, the circumstances in which you work, the exact scope of the treasurer’s job, and your own preferences. But remember that the system works for you; you do not work for the system.
The treasurer can decide whether to use a manual or computer system. The principles are the same. Computer systems simply mechanize the manual processes. They even use similar terms such as ‘folders’, ‘documents’ and ‘cut and paste’.
It is good practice for the treasurer to put all financial transactions through a bank account. Avoid transactions being paid in cash from the collection as this makes the disciplines and audit of the accounts difficult. If ready cash is needed by the church, operate a petty cash system where funds are drawn from the bank and properly controlled (see Petty Cash). In churches where casual financial arrangements exist, such disciplines may not be welcome; they soon will after you and the auditor have included a note in the annual accounts that they cannot be sure these accounts are reliable because of a lack of financial control!
Simple records
A common failing of treasurers is to set up a complicated system capable of producing a vast amount of analysis which is not needed.
The function of the treasurer is to record income and expenditure, and analyse each under main categories. It is unlikely that a church will need more than ten main categories of income and fifteen categories of expenditure.
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