Financial Responsibilities for Your Church Volunteers

Church volunteering is very rewarding! The compensation plan is out of this world.

However, it is important for your volunteer or paid church staff to understand exactly what is expected of them. Their duties and responsibilities should be clearly outlined in a written policy handbook or your church's policy and procedures book.

Proper handling of money is important to churches of all sizes. Internal accounting controls are essential in properly managing and caring for God’s resources.

If at all possible, the responsibilities and roles of your financial administration should be in writing, such as position descriptions.

Outlined below are some of the financial responsibilities that you might delegate to the staff at your church:

Counting Committee

Requires at least two unrelated persons to serve as the Counting Committee.

• Prepares a collection report, including a list of all checks received.
• Verifies that the amount written on the offering envelopes matches the contents of the envelopes and all checks are restrictively endorsed.
• Signs and dates collection report verifying everything recorded is correct.

Financial Secretary / Administrative Assistant

• Supervise the Counting Committee.
• Records the contributions to each family’s contribution record.
• Prepares journal entries and post them to the general ledger.
• Deposits the funds in the bank in a timely fashion.

Church Treasurer

Each church is unique and needs to outline which duties each staff member will have. Just remember...the individuals counting the offering should not record the contributions. The person writing checks should not reconcile the bank statement and the person reviewing the bank statement should not have any access to the funds.

• Process all checks, recording them in the appropriate accounting software program.
• Signs checks
• Process all payroll checks, Tax Form 941’s, W-2’s and other government records required in a timely fashion.
• Insure that computer files are backed up weekly, at a minimum monthly, and the back-ups are stored off premises.
• Prepares the monthly and annual finance report.
• Supervise daily cash balances to insure sufficient funds are maintained.
• Maintains filing system and storage system for all financial records and banking records for easy retrieval.
• Prepares records for annual audit
• Maintain historical data, and establish a retention system for old financial records in accordance with government requirements (minimum of 5 years).
• Files all the required federal, state, and local tax forms.
• Assists in the preparation of the annual budget.

Financial Adviser

This position is titled many different ways and there may be different tasks assigned. Your church treasurer may perform several of these duties. Just make sure there is a separation of duties with who writes the checks and the following tasks:

• Perform bank reconciliation each month in a timely fashion.
• Verify that all checks have been properly signed.
• Verify that the bank balance reconciles to the bookkeeping records.
• Verifies that the beginning balance equals the ending balance of the previous month both in the checking account and the general ledger.
• Signs and dates the reconciliation report.

Confidentiality of Information

It is very important that anyone who has access to the contribution records of individual donors keep this information strictly confidential. Try to keep the number of people with access to individuals' contribution records to a minimum.

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Additional Resources

Resources include: an easy-to-understand overview of basic accounting principles an extensive explanation of tax regulations options for monthly and annual financial reporting a general job description for the church treasurer record keeping form for taxes, accounting ledgers, individual contribution records, budget worksheets, the offering, and more advice for handling payroll, housing allowances, and other compensations for the pastor and staff tips on communicating with the church board, the pastor, and the financial committee ethical guidelines for handling money

This is a very good article on Preventing Volunteer Burnout.

If your church is discussing the potential of laying off staff in order to reduce personnel expenses and the budget. Please read this article first: Before Reducing Church Staff

Youth Directors! Here is a great article on Engaging Youth in Worship- Give Them Ownership

www.church-musician-jobs.com "Church Musician Jobs" improves your heart and your art.

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