Every church should have a
budget. But not all churches are able or willing to implement one.
In those cases, the treasurer can, after securing the
consent of the board, distribute the Church Budget funds to the expense
and ministry accounts that need them.
There are churches that look like they have tens of thousands in
Church Budget, but have so many negative ending balances in various local
funds, that their Church Budget fund should actually be thousands of dollars in
the negative. If the board conducts business as if they have a large
balance, when they really don’t, it can ultimately affect the church’s
financial health.
NOTE: There are times when the board needs to be
able to see that, though the “Church Budget” has a balance at the end of
the month, that there is no money to spend, because things like “Rent” have been
paid, but the Church Budget Ending Balance does not reflect that fact.
- Once ALL the deposits have been entered and the checks have been
written and your next step is “Print Monthly Reports,” click “No,”
because you are not ready to print those reports.
- Click on “Reports and Graphs,” then “Financial Summary.” Print the
“Financial Summary.”
- Underline any negative balances in the “Ending Balance” column on
the right side. Underline all the way across, including the name of the
account, to avoid posting to the wrong fund.
- Go to the Jewel home page, click on "Transfer Funds." To fill out this
page correctly, you will enter:
- “Date:” the ending date of the current month
- “Memo:” “To zero xx/xxxx (month/year) negative ending balances”
- “From Account:” Church Budget (ignore the amount box for now)
- “To Account:” enter the name of the first fund with a negative
number on your report. In the "amount" box, enter the Ending Balance
amount as a positive number.
- Press “enter” on your keyboard to produce a new line, and enter the
next underlined account.
- Continue until you have entered all the funds that have
negative amounts, putting the amount in the “Amount” box as a positive
number.
- Find the "Running Total" box to the right of the "To Account(s)".
Enter that exact amount in the amount box of the "From Account"
line.
- Click the green “OK √” in the top right to save and leave. If your
“Church Budget” contains less than the transfer, you will get a warning
message. Click “Yes” and continue.
- Go back to the Financial Summary and see if all the negative numbers
in the “Ending Balance” Column are now zeros. If you have missed an
amount or entered a wrong number, go back to “Transfer Funds,” click on
the red arrow that says "Previous" to get back to the transfer you just
made, then click on "Edit Transfer" and fix the numbers until everything
on the “Financial Summary” is as you want it.
- Once you are finished with it, go to the “NextStep” button, and
print reports to close the month.
Not every church needs to do this, but it can be helpful for some.
The church board may be startled to see the change in the Church Budget
numbers, but it will enable them to make more informed financial
decisions.
Click
here for more topics related to Cleaning Up and Ensuring
Accuracy
The original version of this page was provided to Jewel by the
Georgia-Cumberland Conference Audit Team. Created by Linda McCabe.