The Church Treasurer's Handbook. Robert Leach
paid advertising. It is a trading activity even if priced so that it cannot make a surplus. Other trading activities may include concerts, fetes, hall lettings, refreshments, training and bookstalls. Each trading activity must be separately disclosed.
In the church accounts, the income and expenditure must be shown separately. It is not acceptable to net off these figures and show just a single figure of profit. An exception is if the income and expenditure is immaterial. If the youth club raises £4 for church funds by earning £5 from washing cars and spending £1 on materials, only the £4 needs to be added to income.
While this is clearly the correct accounting, it can lead to the objection that the accounts do not state how much profit or loss has been made by each trading activity. This is an area where accounts presentation must compromise between competing criteria. It is considered more important that church members can see the total income and total expenditure of the church. Seeing whether an activity is profitable involves no more than seeing if one number in the accounts is bigger than another.
MAKING PAYMENTS
Checking invoices and expenses
Before paying an invoice, the treasurer should check that:
the items or service were properly ordered by the church
the items or service were received by the church and are satisfactory
the price agrees with what was quoted
the arithmetic on the invoice is correct
The huge variety of invoices which can pass to a treasurer makes it almost impossible to produce prescriptive guidance which is sensible in all circumstances. The treasurer should decide how far he is satisfied that the first three conditions have been met. If necessary, the treasurer should ask another church officer to confirm the details and note this on the invoice. This may be a churchwarden confirming repairs to the boiler, or the Sunday school leader confirming an order for materials.
If goods were not ordered by the church at all, they are legally unsolicited goods, for which the law is explained below.
In practice, a more likely problem is that a church member simply decided to order goods without appropriate authority. It is not unknown for clergy, church officers and non-officers simply to order goods without bothering to get authorization. In such circumstances, the treasurer should not pay the invoice but refer it to the church council (or equivalent body) to see if they will authorize the expenditure retrospectively. If they do, the invoice can be paid as normal. If the council decides not to pay the invoice retrospectively, the council could find itself in a legal dispute with the supplier, as explained below. However, this is not an issue for the treasurer. The use of budgets, as explained below, is a simple way to prevent such problems.
Checking that the goods were received and are satisfactory may mean checking with the officer who received the goods. In such a case, the details must be noted on the invoice. This may be a handwritten note saying ‘4.7.12 (John Smith) confirmed goods received OK’.
Checking the price quoted may mean checking against a purchase order or quotation for larger items. For many bills, this may be part of the same process as checking that the goods were received and are satisfactory.
Payments with order
Sometimes a cheque needs to be sent with a document where there is no invoice. Examples include insurance premiums and taxing vehicles. The treasurer should simply ensure that he has a photocopy of whatever document is completed and should use that as the invoice equivalent. The principle is that no cheque is issued without a document readily identifiable explaining what the payment is for.
Advances and IOUs
Sometimes a church may need to provide someone with funds before they have incurred expenditure. This may be to buy materials or as a float to pay for incidental expenses on a church outing.
An advance is perfectly acceptable in such situations, provided the ultimate expenditure is authorized and budgeted. The person to whom the money is advanced should be given a reasonable sum which may be slightly in excess of expected spending. The person should sign for the advance. That person should provide details of expenditure as soon as possible. Any excess funds should be returned to the treasurer. Any shortfall should be paid by the treasurer.
An advance is a remittance in its own right and should therefore have its own voucher. When the person has accounted for the expenditure, that accounting is another remittance or a receipt for which a separate voucher is prepared. This should be cross-referenced to the paperwork for the advance.
An IOU is when an individual borrows money. In general, IOUs should be discouraged. The church is not a money lender. Unless expressly authorized otherwise (which would be unusual), no one should borrow money on an IOU unless the minister or treasurer or some equivalent church officer has expressly authorized it.
If, say, a church employee finds that she has insufficient funds for her bus fare home, an IOU is probably tolerable, but this should not become a habit. In the High Court case Sinclair v Neighbour [1967], the manager of a betting shop who earned £22 a week borrowed £15 from the till without permission. He put in an IOU and replaced the money the following day. When the employers discovered this, he was summarily dismissed (that is, without any notice and without any payment in lieu of notice). This was upheld by the court. This was a financial irregularity, and any financial irregularity from a person in a position of trust justifies summary dismissal.
A chuch should normally never lend money to an individual, but the church may consider a donation as explained below. Many personal loans to help individuals are never repaid, which can cause difficulties to both parties. If made as a gift, the individual always has the option to repay.
Regular payments
All payments must be supported by paperwork sufficient to identify their nature and purpose. Some items, such as bank charges, appear on the bank statement without any supporting paperwork. Here the bank statement is the supporting paperwork. Other regular payments, such as leases or rent, may not have paperwork for each payment, but have a document in the treasurer’s file to which the regular payments relate.
Analyse payments
The expenditure side of the accounts should be analysed into the categories you have already determined. You should be reluctant to create new categories.
The process of analysing expenditure can itself be problematic because most items of expenditure can be analysed in two ways:
1. by nature
2. by purpose.
For example, the wages of a youth worker could be analysed as either ‘Wages and salaries’ or ‘Youth work’. Organ maintenance could be analysed as either ‘Church maintenance’ or ‘Music’.
You should remember that the accounts are painting a picture. You must decide which is the more helpful analysis for church members. Are they more likely to be concerned at the total amount paid in all salaries or how much youth work costs? The answer is the latter. So, if you really cannot decide, choose a purposive analysis.
Cross-casting
The traditional method of analysing income and expenditure is using columns in a cash analysis book. Each (vertical) column represents an item of income or expenditure. The first three or four columns will give general information. This is:
date (of payment or receipt)
payee or payer, or nature of payment
total amount of payment or receipt.
Sometimes a fourth column is added to relate it to the voucher number.
Each (horizontal) row analyses the total amount into the categories of income or expenditure. In many cases, the analysis will be to just one column.
Figure 3 is an example of what a page in a cash book may look like recording receipts.