- - And the Lord direct your heart in the love of God as you faithfully serve Him  - -

 TO:  Interested Onliners or Ministries                                                                                 FROM: Jim Bramer, Retired CPA-Auditor
                                                                                                                                      FILE:  0202-03/jrnl
   
 RE: J I Ms  J R N L  for the month of February 2003                                                                            Originated:  February, 2003  

PURPOSE:  To help your  Ministry Finance Team  be more effective:

Busby, Dan (2)

        Dan is a fellow CPA who is a Vice President at  ECFA.  Some of his writings at www.forministry.com  are shown below;  I hope you enjoy.
 

Directory of Content Articles Coping With Risk Financial Accountability: Going the Second Mile Fringe-Benefit Planning: Maximizing the Take-Home Pay for Your Church Staff Help! Our Church is Growing Too Fast!

        Also see below where you can obtain his books as published by Zondervan:

http://www.zondervan.com/Books/Detail.asp?ISBN=0310243297
http://www.zondervan.com/Books/Detail.asp?ISBN=0310243289

         Another article by Dan is found at:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/yc/9y3/9y3060.html

Buying Using Plastic (5)

        At  0041  I recommend that Churches, in particular, do their buying via the appropriate Credit Card, or Plastic process .   Factors include the following:   1>  The Ministry now pays one vendor  2>  Use of "Purchase Orders"  are not practical in a Volunteer buying environment like a Church 3> The Department head controls who has the Plastic and therefore the buying 4>  those small Credit Card/Plastic purchase slips MUST be provided. Please  Click Here  for information about the  Debit Card  option.

Christian Ministry Resource via ChurchLawToday.com (4)

        Please be aware of this Online resource.  This includes a free Discussion Board.  When you go to www.churchlawtoday.com  you will find that certain Legal and Tax resources will be free of charge during March 2003.  

Church Business Administration (CBA) Resource- (1)

        Please be aware of the new CBA resource provided by CBAer Ron Chandler.   http://www.churchadminpro.com/  The master index is via the following:   http://www.churchadminpro.com/master_index.htm

Ministry Leaders (6)

I picked up the following somewhere and I am quoting someone else, but it sounds good to me.  

        "All nonprofit organizations should: "

• Practice Sound Management
• Develop comprehensive by-laws
• Make conflict-free business decisions
• Consider legal standards and industry practices
• Create a culture of integrity at all levels
• Establish codes of business conduct
• Institute compliance programs
• Role and Responsibility of Senior Management

 "Senior managers are responsible for the daily operation of a nonprofit organization. The Chief
Executive Officer, the most senior manager, is ultimately responsible to the Board of Directors
for operations of the organization. Senior managers are responsible for the following:"

• Effective and ethical operations
• Business and budget planning
• Risk management
• Financial reporting
• Public relations

 

Nicholaou, Nick (3)

        I reference Nick Nicholaou in  0645.    Please see his web site at  www.mbsinc.com. He and his CPA wife Grace have much to offer Christian Ministries --  including the following info from their web site.

http://www.mbsinc.com/DSN/wwwmbsinccom/content/pdf/sharing.pdf  
 http://www.mbsinc.com/DSN/wwwmbsinccom/content/pdf/chart.pdf 
 http://www.mbsinc.com/DSN/wwwmbsinccom/content/pdf/cpaschl.pdf

Online or Credit Card Transactions (7)

        Matters concerning this topic include:

>>  Ask me at JimRetCPA@bcidot.org for a copy of a Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) agreement in Word Doc format.  Also for a list of  Online Credit Card  providers
 >> A Church was apprehensive about letting their people use Credit cards to pay them, so they came up with a "Plastic Vow" that is somewhat like that found in  4040 .

Payroll Resources (8)

        Many of you are small Ministries.  Payroll record keeping and reporting is a challenge.  Has anyone used the Online resource available at  www.paycycle.com   in a Ministry setting --- especially Clergy matters?

Poll from Churches re their use of Finance Software Products (9):

        The result of Brad Pendable's survey out on   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/churchadmin  as to what Church Finance software was used by different sized churches resulted in the following:

Church's Annual revenue:  $1,000,000 or more
            34 use Shelby
            17 use ACS
            03 use QuickBooks
            10 use Others

      Annual Revenue: $500,000 to $999,999
            08 use Shelby
            05 use ACS
            06 use QuickBooks
            06 use others

      Annual Revenue: $500,000 or less
            01 use Shelby
            09 use QuickBooks
            07 use others

Prayer regarding Ministry Business Administration matters-

   Dear Lord ....  As indicated by some of my Onliner Publications this month ( 0923  and  0924 ), I have been exercised in mind and heart about Ministries caring for non-money tangible assets like People, Facilities and Computer Systems.  My prayer is that they would carefully look into these matters and be better managers of such resources.  Please bless the "self exam"  tool in the 0923 above.  Again thank you for Jesus who is the source of all our material and spiritual blessings.  In His Name I pray.  Amen.

Righteous Personal Finance and Churches (10)

        As expressed within  5005  I believe that every Church should have some tools for their people with regard to their personal finance management.  Be sure to check out the Crown Ministry resources at  www.crown.org  as your  MFTeam   develops a strategy for such helps..