The most vulnerable area for churches is their internal controls. The safeguarding of your resources is increased by having someone outside the financial system reconcile your bank account, track your deposits, verify them, and verify your checks.
Financial health of any church is dependent upon accuracy and expertise. A skilled and qualified bookkeeper will ensure that your reports are accurate, understands federal and local requirements, as well as being able to accurately record the entries.
However, every church needs to manage finances. Weekly tithes, offerings and taxes are due. There are bills to pay and needs to meet. And, of course, salaries to be paid. It's hard to keep track. Even if your Excel skills are not great and you don't understand how to tell a debit from credit, church accounting software can help you navigate the terrain.
The problem is that neither the Pastor nor the good hearted volunteer may know how to set up and maintain a proper accounting system, so you end up with an ineffective church bookkeeping system...and may not even realize it...until you have bills not being paid, or doubled paid...or financial records that nobody can make sense of...or make proper financial decisions with.
The cost of having someone on staff for bookkeeping in a small church often means combining the role with another role to make the job enticing enough. For other churches, it means hiring someone part-time who may not have a great deal of experience. Yet, for many others, it means asking a volunteer treasurer to maintain the accounting. Hiring someone who is trained and does bookkeeping for many churches means they can give you higher quality work at an affordable price.
Atlanta Church Bookkeeping LLC has been providing the best church payroll services for churches, religious groups and individuals for almost 40+ years. BBB rates us as A+ and our customer service ratings are amazing at 4.9.
When reconciling your bank statements and your credit card statements, you'll find errors such duplicates and missing transactions, bank errors in rare instances, and amount discrepancies.
Diocesan Canons state that treasurers and other officers of a church parish, mission or other institution be “bonded” according to Episcopal Church Canons. Episcopal Church Canons require that treasurers be “adequately bonded.”
seven years
Financial Records are traditionally kept for seven years. This relates to the laws of tax audits and the number of years back the IRS is allowed to look when determining an organization's tax liability.
The IRS may begin a church tax inquiry only if an appropriate high-level Treasury official reasonably believes, based on a written statement of the facts and circumstances, that the organization: (a) may not qualify for the exemption; or (b) may not be paying tax on unrelated business or other taxable activity.