Our Fraud Awareness in the Church series continues with a 5-part series on Cash Disbursements. When churches finally get around to considering their exposure to fraud, they almost universally focus on the cash receipts or the inflow part of their cash processes. Without doubt, many churches have been hit by fraudsters skimming from the offering plates. But in […]
The purpose of Step Two is to allow church ministers and lay leaders to know “how much they will have to work with.” This is extremely important on two levels: If ministers are given too low a figure, they may become discouraged even before the fiscal year begins. They may begin to think and mull […]
Part 7 of our series on Segregation of Duties. In our recent Fraud Survey, we asked churches to respond to this statement: “Our church requires volunteers to collect, administer and account for special event receipts using a written report developed to properly account for such events.” Survey Results – Once again, a little over one-half of our respondents […]
The purpose of Step One is to make sure you are staying on “mission”. This is accomplished by reviewing the church’s mission, vision and strategy. Each church needs to know three things: – Who it is. (Values) – Where it is going. (Mission) – How it is going to get there. (Strategy) Without knowing these […]
Part 6 of our series on Segregation of Duties. In our recent Fraud Survey, we asked churches to respond to this statement: “We present a list of authorized check signers to the leadership team/elders, etc. for review at least annually.” Survey results – Approximately 55% of respondents reported reviewing their bank accounts and related signature information at least […]
There is no one way to do a church budget. There are a variety of approaches and for the most part, no one way is better than the other. Remember mission and vision? These two factors will also impact how a church goes about its financial planning. I do have to point out however, that […]
Part 5 of our series on Segregation of Duties. In our recent Fraud Survey, we asked churches to respond to these statements: “Our church has a formal policy describing the characteristics required for participation on the count team, including limiting related individuals and restricting the same individual from participating in more than one component of the process.” “Church […]
I ended the last post by asking, “Are these definitions sufficient?” Obviously the answer is no because that would be the end of this blog series! Keep in mind that the three definitions posted were all written by accountants… As a result, the main flaw with these definitions is that they appear to be about […]
Part 4 of our series on Segregation of Duties. In our recent Fraud Survey, we asked churches to respond to these statements: “Our church does not allow an individual who serves on the count team, is involved in check preparation, or is involved in general ledger and financial statement presentation to participate in the bank reconciliation process.” “Someone […]
Before launching into a study of anything, I like to make sure I have at least a basic understanding of what the topic is all about. So, before launching into church budget development I looked up a few definitions of what a budget is: An accounting device used to plan and control resources of operational […]