Churches are most at risk if they lack internal controls. A person outside your financial system can reconcile your bank accounts, track and verify your deposits, and make sure your checks are paid. This will increase the security of your congregation's assets.
While you focus on getting to know your community and growing your organization, we'll work to make the accounting function easy and ensure that your financial records are maintained correctly and accurately.
So why consider outsourcing? For some smaller to medium-sized churches, having an outsourced bookkeeper can increase expertise & accuracy, lower bookkeeping costs, and provide a missing link in internal controls. Let’s take a look at these one-by-one:
Even if you have a church member who is a certified accountant or bookkeeper, hiring a specialist for your church's bookkeeping needs will likely be a large investment. We recommend that you make this an important priority. Three ways that investing in your church will benefit you are:
Set up a church bookkeeping system that not only tracks expenses and income, but also tracks your assets and liabilities.
Sometimes congregations find themselves stuck with bookkeeping issues or need to outsource their bookkeeping. FT Walton Church Bookkeeping LLC offers bookkeeping services that are specifically tailored for churches.
Maintaining a check register is not a reliable church bookkeeping system.
Here is a quick breakdown of some of the most common tasks you will need to accomplish when doing your church bookkeeping.
Enter Income And Expenses. ...
Track Contributions And Prepare Bank Deposits. ...
Pay Bills. ...
Journal Entries. ...
Complete A Bank Reconciliation.
seven years
Financial Records are traditionally kept for seven years. This relates to the laws of tax audits and the number of years back the IRS is allowed to look when determining an organization's tax liability.
Churches and religious nonprofits must maintain highly accurate accounting and bookkeeping records in order to maintain their nonprofit status, budget accurately, and provide reporting to government entities and their parishoners or members.
The IRS may begin a church tax inquiry only if an appropriate high-level Treasury official reasonably believes, based on a written statement of the facts and circumstances, that the organization: (a) may not qualify for the exemption; or (b) may not be paying tax on unrelated business or other taxable activity.