Behind the Curtain
Larry Fournier, October 2016
I’m baaaack! And with news on how we pay our bills each month. Maybe more detail than some would like to know, but isn’t that the point? So assuming that the money is in the bank…
99% of our utility bills are set up for electronic billing and payment. They are scheduled throughout each month so that they are fairly evenly spaced out over each month. Makes my job easier and bills don’t get overlooked!
Our largest “bills” are those associated with employee salaries & benefits. We pay salaries on the 15th and end of each month. The payroll module in PowerChurch (our Church Management system) handles all the daunting payroll items… calculating payroll amounts for each period and all the various withholding amounts and handles Direct Deposit of the payroll checks.
…and here’s something you may not know… UMC pastors are employees of their Conference, and a contractor for our accounting purposes. With that arrangement, we pay their salary & benefits and they pay their own Social Security & Medicare (both Employer & Employee shares). PowerChurch contains all the special items associated with clergy payroll, benefits, Direct Deposit & monthly Federal & State tax deposit & reporting.
The few remaining bills are paid the old fashioned way… paper invoices are received in the mail and a paper check is cut and mailed back when the invoice is due.
That brings us to the Expense Reimbursement requests submitted each month for necessary items purchased for the Church. There is a form for this… of course! (Maybe someday an app???) The forms are hidden in the Finance Room/Data Center in the center area between all the filing cabinets. Pretty simple…Name & address, check the box for the area and code to “charge” for the expense, enter the amount at the bottom of the form, attach the receipts and submit to the Church Office. Notes on the back. The form will be forwarded to the appropriate committee chair person for approval. Once approved, the form gets entered into PowerChurch and you get a check.
But what if you would like to donate the expense and have it show up on your donation statement at the end of the year? Same process… except write “DONATION” on the top of the expense form. When the Church Office receives it, they will forward it to me and I will cut a check for you to endorse as a donation. The endorsed check will be deposited into our General Fund as a contribution from you and will be listed along with any other contributions on your giving statement. The chairperson of the area involved will also be advised of the expense and donation.
And how do we keep track of all this good stuff? As the bills are received electronically, they are saved on a PC and backed up in the cloud. Electronic payments are recorded in PowerChurch as “Manual Checks”. Paper invoices are entered into PowerChurch as “Invoices”. When PowerChurch prints a paper check, a record of the transaction is kept in PowerChurch as payment on an Invoice and the paper check and invoice are scanned and saved on a PC and backed up in the cloud.
So if you should ever need to track an invoice or payment, the records are readily available!
– Thanks for reading… look for my column again next month!