Annual Financial Report - When should you give it out?

My husband and I are the Youth Pastor's at our church and we just had our Annual Review meeting for our church (Febuary 2010). We were given the Annual Financial Report for 2008 (not 2009). The lady handling our books advised us that legally she cannot give out the 2009 report until next February.

It didn't make sense that we would have to wait 2 years to see an annual review. I have never encountered this in any other church either.

In the past we always received the prior year’s report and we were allowed to take home a copy. However, she made us turn the papers back in and would not allow us to have a copy.

This just seemed a little off. Can you advise as to when we should be receiving the previous year’s report and if we are allowed to keep a copy?

Thank you.

Answer

I have never heard of any law that would prevent you from giving out an annual review until 2 years later. I am not saying she is wrong...just that I have never heard of it before.

I do my church's annual review in Feb. or March of the following year.

As far as not letting you keep your copy...maybe she was worried about confidentiality. Just guessing???

I would feel very uncomfortable with her method myself. Do you have internal controls in place?

Have you spoken to the pastor and the board about your concerns?

You could consult a CPA regarding her methods to be completely sure. Also...it might be good to have an external audit done by a CPA.



Church Accounting Package


www.freechurchaccounting.com

Comments for Annual Financial Report - When should you give it out?

Click here to add your own comments

Sep 27, 2010
Monthly Financial Reports
by: Anonymous

I'm a member of a small church that has about 30 members total and since about june of this year 2010 we had our first finance report meeting in August and it showed no details of where the money is going it only shows a total that is suppose to be made for that month and then it has a colum of outgoing but no beginning for things like such...lights,gas,ect.and no ending balance all we see is a bunch of numbers on paper. I would just like some feedback on what a real church financial report breakdown looks like.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Church Accounting FAQs.

If you want to DIY your payroll, I highly recommend you look at using Gusto! It is very user friendly and their support is awesome! Plus they know how to set up and maintain payrolls for churches and nonprofit organizations.

Note: I am a "partner" of Gusto, but as I have told you before ... I never recommend anything that we or our clients have not tried and love =)



Share this page:
Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.