The Church Treasurer's Handbook. Robert Leach

      Almost every amount listed on this page is analysed by a single figure in one column, but there are a few exceptions.

      On 16.7.12, someone bought a book from the bookstall for £17.95. He paid by a £20 note and, when no one had change, he said that the church could keep it. Arguably, you could say that the bookstall has made £20 worth of sales because the customer was prepared to overpay. It is probably more realistic to say that the extra £2.05 was a donation, which is how the item has been recorded.

      On 18.7.12, John Smith came to the parish office to pay £60 to hire the hall for a birthday party. He noticed a book on the stall for £5, and gave one cheque to pay for them both. So his cheque for £65 is analysed as two figures.

      On 23.7.12, you mistakenly entered the collection as £106.44 instead of £104.66. You don’t alter the entry you have already made in ink. You reverse the entry below it, putting brackets round the figures to show that they are the other way round; they are negative numbers. The original wrong entry and the matching correction are indicated by the contra symbol ¢ to make clear what has happened. Contra entries should still be analysed. The correct entry is then entered without any crossing out, scribbles or opaque correction fluid.

      On 24.7.12, David Jones paid £100 in respect of his wedding fees. Of this £40 was the balance to hire the hall for a reception, and £60 was to pay the organist. This latter payment goes into ‘Other’ as we do not have a column for organist fees. If we had an ‘Agency’ column (see above), this payment could go there, as the whole £60 is paid out again.

      On 30.7.12, the refreshments team took £16.31 but the supervisor took out £10 to buy some more coffee. This is not good practice. The supervisor should pay in the whole £16.31 and the treasurer provide funds for her to buy more coffee. However, that is the ideal world rather than the real world. The treasurer banks the balance of £6.31 and analyses that the takings were £16.31 and then shows £10 with brackets round. This means that the figure is the other way round from normal. Instead of this being money coming in, it is money going out. It is a negative figure. That is why the total for ‘Other’ is £50. You have added £60 to minus £10.

      Each column of figures is added to give a sub-total. A sub-total is a sum of numbers which is itself to be added to other numbers. It is advisable to write all these sub-totals in pencil. The sub- totals for the columns from ‘Collections’ to ‘Other’ when added together should equal the total under ‘Amount’ as both figures represent the total of all the numbers you have entered in the cash analysis. The problem is that often they do not. This means that you have a mistake which must be found.

      Sometimes the entries will not fit on a single page of a cash book. When this happens, the sub-totals, known as running totals, are produced for the first page. When balanced, as explained below, these sub-totals are marked ‘Carried forward’, commonly abbreviated to ‘c/fwd’. Exactly the same numbers are entered at the top of the next page with the narrative ‘Brought forward’, commonly abbreviated to ‘b/fwd’. This process can be repeated indefinitely over as many pages as needed.

      It is advisable to add up figures using an adding machine which produces a till roll. This way you can check that your entries are correct. When using an adding machine, you may find a selector switch which says something like ‘A0234F’. The setting should be on ‘A’ for adding machine. (The numbers indicate the number of decimal places in arithmetical calculations, where F means full display for as many decimal places as the machine can display.) There may be another selector switch with positions P and NP for print and non-print. You should set it to P. You must remember that whole amounts of pounds are entered using the ‘00’ button, so £12.00 is entered as 12. At the end of each addition, you press the key marked * which produces the total, even though this may already be displayed. If you do not press this key, the old total may be added into the next total. A further complication is that on adding machines and calculators the keys are in a different order from a telephone, with 1, 2, 3 at the bottom rather than the top. All these disciplines soon become second nature.

      Before adding machines were invented, book-keepers developed considerable mental arithmetic skills, and could calculate sub-totals in their head in a few seconds. Even though such skills are not needed now, it is still good practice to check that the sub-total is credible. It is easy to enter the hall hire figure of £280.60 as £28060.00, which would give a ludicrous sub-total £28,280.00 for hall hire for the month.

      If you have produced a till roll, it is a simple matter to check that all figures have been entered correctly. It may console you to know that when the author first typed the sample page above, the sub-total for ‘Amount’ was 11,048.98 because the figure of 65.00 had been entered as 6.50.

      If the mistake cannot easily be found, there is an old bookkeeping skill called difference-finding. You find the difference between the total under ‘Amount’ and the figure from adding the other sub-totals together. If the difference is a multiple of 9, this can indicate that two numbers have been reversed in the cash analysis, such as analysing £753 as £573. If you divide the difference by 9, you find the difference between the two figures which have been reversed, and the number of zeros after this figure tells you where that difference occurs. In our example, the difference is £180, of which one-ninth is £20. This indicates that there is a difference of 2 between the hundreds and tens digits. Your eyes can scan the page for figures where there is a difference of two between consecutive digits in that position to see if they have been correctly analysed.

      If the difference is a multiple of 10, this can indicate that a digit has been incorrectly written in the analysis. For example, suppose you analysed £358 as £368. You check down the page to see if all the figures have been correctly analysed.

      If the difference is a specific figure, say £27.81, this can indicate that you forgot to analyse that figure. You scan the page to see if that figure appears.

      These short cuts, which are simpler to understand than to explain, are effective in dealing with a single obvious mistake. If there is more than one mistake, these methods may not help. Sometimes a page of a cash book refuses to balance. You can become ‘number blind’ in hunting for the difference as the eyes start to see what they want to see. The procedure for a page which will obstinately not agree is:

      These disciplines may appear not to be necessary in the modern world of computer accounts programs. However, these disciplines can still be needed. Difference-hunting can be needed when performing a bank reconciliation in Microsoft Money, for example.

Petty cash

      It is reasonable and quite acceptable for a church to have a petty cash account, provided it is properly controlled. These controls are:

      Petty cash is operated on either the float basis or imprest system. Under the float system, a cheque is periodically cashed at the bank in whatever notes and coins are appropriate and added to the box. Under the imprest system the box is topped up by the value of vouchers since the last top-up. Thus the