All Leaders

  • 1.  Policy Manuals

    Posted 08-10-2023 01:23 PM

    Hey everyone, 

    Our church is under the policy-based governance system and our Board is looking to compare and contrast our policy manual with a few others.  I've reached out to the churches in our area, but thought I could open it up to brothers and sisters from around the country.

    Would you please send me your policy manual?  

    Much appreciated!  Blessings



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    Ben Burge
    Senior Pastor
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  • 2.  RE: Policy Manuals

    Posted 08-11-2023 05:53 AM
    WE have a church treasurer, but we are considering paying a bookkeeper to do the books.
    Does anyone use a bookkeeper or some financial type of person? And if so, how do you pay this person?
    Please give any information you may believe is helpful.

    Thanks,
    Jerry Mueller





  • 3.  RE: Policy Manuals

    Posted 08-11-2023 12:09 PM

    Hi Jerry,

    If you need to pay a bookkeeper, I have found companies may either charge you a flat monthly fee, an hourly fee based on time spent (these can range based on the company and the credentials of the person doing the work), or fees based on the number and type of transactions (or sometimes it is a combination of these fees).

    If it helps, I did want to mention Concordia Plans can help ministries with bookkeeping.  I work there and am on the team that provides these services (along with a few others like payroll, benefit admin, HR etc).  It's a new program we recently started to help support ministries.  Info can be found here: My Admin Partner (concordiaplans.org).  

    Beth



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    Beth Jones
    Christ Our Rock
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  • 4.  RE: Policy Manuals

    Posted 08-15-2023 03:42 PM
    I am the Treasurer at our church, King of Kings, in Mason, Ohio.  We also have a preschool.  We use an outside CPA firm to do our books, pay bills, reconcile our accounts monthly, and provide monthly financial reports.  The CPA takes payment from our checking account on a monthly basis since they have access to our accounts to pay bills.  The CPA uses QuickBooks Desktop for our financials.  Honestly I am looking at a different vendor for a couple reasons.  One the CPA firm is small and only has a couple employees.  When one person is not at work, our monthly reports are delayed several days.  Two, during tax season, our account takes a back seat to the customers that need taxes done.  Again this delays our monthly reports.  Third, QuickBooks Desktop does not allow me timely access to our account to look at transactions and see what is going on if I need to check something. We do not have the staff in house to do our financials internally and it is currently less expensive to use an outside resource than to pay a full time employee with benefits.  
    I have spoken with two other firms to obtain proposals for providing the service we desire.  Both outside firms are recommending we use QuickBooks Online--the cloud based version so that anyone in the church can be granted access to look at numbers and details for transactions.  I am not familiar with QuickBooks, but I understand that there are online webinars I can attend to learn QuickBooks.