Five Tips on Creating a Church Budget

Here we are already in January, and for many of us this is a very busy time of the year. I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed holiday because now it's time to get back to work.

In this issue I have the "Five Tips on Creating a Church Budget" with Free Budget Forms, Church Emergency Action & Recovery Response Plan, Valentine Church Quotes, Church Accounting Package and the Shepherdbase Special Sale extended through end of January due to popular demand. I also have instructions to easily fix a Shepherdbase error that you can download and print.

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed? Start your New Year out right with Shepherdbase that will save you a lot of time in your church office. Shepherdbase (Church Membership Database) is on Sale Now Through January 31, 2012. Shepherdbase will track memberships (unlimited), contributions, attendance and much more On Sale Now for ONLY $29.99 so Hurry & Enjoy these Savings!

Contents-At-A-Glance

Five Tips on Creating a Church Budget
Church Accounting Package
Shepherdbase Directory Report Error Instructions
FreeChurchForms.com New Web Pages with New Forms
Shepherdbase (Church Membership Database) Special Sale Through January 31, 2013
FCF (Free Church Forms) CD
Church Office Package – Special Limited Offer
Free eBook - ”Top 10 Tips on How to Organize Your Office”
FreeChurchForms.com Table of Contents

Five Tips on Creating a Church Budget

In this economy today, a church budget is very important. Here are five tips on "Creating a Church Budget":

• 1. "How Do I Start Building a Budget?" - The best place to begin is start looking and see if the church has any records of previous spending. If you can find several years of records kept than this is even better. With a number of years of history, the expenses can be averaged, and also the chance of regular patterns of spending should be very easy to capture.
• 2. Start with a One-Month Expense Time Frame - Begin with one month and see if there are any recurring expenses. They are usually the "fixed costs" of the church or organization such as salaries, utilities, regular maintenance, paper and office expenses. Generally, these expenses represent 90 percent of the church's spending.
• 3. One-Time Expenses - The rest of the spending can be on one-time purchases such as replacing old equipment, salary increases and maintenance. Most of the time there is not enough money for these items so a spending plan that extends over several ears for new purchases and salary increases has to be taken into account.
• 4. Create a Complete List of Accounts - If a chart of accounts already exists then each major item can be assigned a budget amount, if you do not have one it's good idea to create a complete list of accounts or spending categories and then assign a dollar amount to each item on the list.
• 5. Periodic Review of Actual Spending vs. Budgeted Spending - Once the budgeted numbers are in place, a periodic review of actual spending vs. budgeted spending can be produced. Many times, the spending sometimes takes place faster or slower than the time frame anticipated by the budget.

  When going over the budget, compare and contrast the specific spending to a year-to-date budget. So, if the spending is a lot less than anticipated, the money might be set aside to meet with known budget amounts that might occur toward the end of the budgeted year.

Church Accounting Package

The Church Accounting Package is a combination of the Basic Accounting eBooks Package and the Contributions Package which includes:

• Basic Church Accounting eBook provides you with a better understanding of the basic concepts of church accounting and has samples of church financial statements.
• Fund Accounting eBook includes information on exactly what a fund is and is not and two methods for setting up QuickBooks Pro for fund accounting...
• Contributions eBook provides you with vital information for receiving charitable contributions here in the U.S. along with IRS mandates for contributions, strict guidelines for donations, etc.
• Housing Allowance eBook includes what exactly a clergy housing allowance is and what it is not.
• Two MS Excel Spreadsheets includes "Tracking Housing Allowance Expenses" Spreadsheet and "Tracking Contributions" Spreadsheet.

Shepherdbase Directory Report Error Instructions

There was an error in the Directory Report that causes problems with members having the same last name. The simple illustrated instructions below will fix this problem quickly with separate instructions for MS Access 2007 and 2010. There are also instructions on how to widen columns on the reports if needed.

Click Here to Download the Shepherdbase Directory Report Error Instructions.

FreeChurchForms.com New Web Pages with New Forms

• Church Budget Request Form & "How to Plan an Annual Church Budget" with 2 Page Annual Church Budget Worksheet

• Valentine Church Quotes

• Emergency Action & Recovery Church Response Plan

• Request Letter of Membership Transfer

Shepherdbase (Church Membership Database) Special Sale Through January 31, 2013