---

                            TO:   All Interested Onliners                                                                                 FROM: Jim Bramer. Retired CPA-Auditor
                                                                                                                                                                 FILE:  0916-03/fwi

                             RE:  Do It Yourself - Improve your Fiscal Admin                                            Originated in April 2002

---

    "Today's "Ax to Grind"   

         As a retired CPA with a vocational background of working with Christian Ministries, it is my passion that Ministries,  especially smaller Churches,  be as fiscally righteous as humanly possible .... or you must be good administrators of your fiscal affairs. You need to have in place sound financial policies, procedures and appropriate financial internal controls. In general, you need to exercise prudent fiscal judgment and be good stewards.

        Probably you already know this, but due to your limited resources you simply can not look to outsiders to provide you with  FLAGABLEs,  or wave "red flags"  in areas that need improvement. So, as we encouraged you in our inaugural 1999 editorial, you have to do the bulk of this by yourself.  We trust you are set up to remind yourself about these matters in a regular disciplined manner.

        It is my prayer that the resources on  www.bcidot.org   are "self" usable for such fiscal administration improvement purposes. And further,  I trust it is clear that our resources do NOT include the need to contact a CPA-like person to understand and make the desirable changes/improvements. Recently someone, in an obvious attempt to encourage us, used the term " mind boggling" about some of our   www.bcidot.org content . I do not view this as a compliment.  As much as possible, I want the content to be so that you can both understand and use it yourself for self improvement purposes, etc.

        Many web sites out there these days do NOT encourage interaction by snail mail, email or phone ....  I will not go that far in our case. But, as a result of such a philosophy, they usually have excellent FAQs and info that, if you and I apply ourselves, they will answer virtually all of our "how to, or how come" questions. I hope our THRDs (xxxx-02) and FAQs (xxxx-06) Onliner docs are responsive and you can, by yourself, use such resources and efficiently make needed cost-effective improvements.

        For example, I trust that a portion of your annual Board retreat includes some fiscal administration self exams. I trust the content of the  www.bcidot.org  web pages listed below provide "fodder" for such an effort.

        But let's face it, often a Smaller Ministry/Church knows what they should do and simply do not commit the necessary time/effort resources to do it. This is poor stewardship and not good .... please do not let this happen to you. It is vital to your overall health to appropriately carry out your fiscal administration responsibilities, etc.

        Please share with me at   Jim@bcidot.org  if you have any comments or questions.

L i s t   of  W e b  p a g e s:

A>  Financial Internal Control -- Self Effort

B>  If Jim B were the volunteer Treasurer -- Sharing

C>  Self Exam Resources

D>  More Helps re Self Grades
 

K E E P   L O O K I N G   U P !!

     Click here for a list of of our "For What it is Worth" Editorials or Online documents..

---

UPTD: April 27, 2008

HOME  |  ABOUT  US   |    OUR PURPOSE   |   SITEMAP   |  COMPUTER FUND ACCTG  |  HELPS  |  GLOSSARY

---