Update from Finance

Update from Finance & Planning

Off to a start of another year

Kelly low smile.jpg (11056 bytes) By Ronald Kelly

But what kind of start? You have all heard of those good news bad news scenarios?

Well, reporting income for January is one of those. The good news was that our income for December was relatively good—almost equal to the same month in 2000. But, I think you also realize, that to keep our expenses at a manageable level, we have had to minimize the personnel in our mail processing area.

Thus it took more than half of January to tabulate, bank and receipt all the mail for December. In January, we also had to close out our year-end books, prepare W-2s and do a number of other accounting and banking functions.

Of course that’s not bad in itself, but that caused us to fall behind in the January mail processing. In other words, what I have to report this month does not really reflect the final financial picture for January. However, we have editorial deadlines to meet, so I’ll bring you up to date with what has been tabulated at the moment of writing this month’s update.

As we close the books on January, we have received just more than $901,000 in donations. We have also received about $252,000 from all other sources, making a monthly total of $1.153 million.

The bad news is comparing statistics with last year. When we do, total income is down a significant 28 percent. However, keeping in mind that we will be processing much of the January donations in February, our overall picture should improve as we catch up. In fact, some of our other staff members are training to process the mail so we can do a little better during our heavy workload weeks.

As I mentioned last month, we closed the books on 2001 on an upbeat note. That kept our reserve funds at a satisfactory level. So even though we were unable to process in January all the mail that we received in January, we feel good about the start of a new year.

I wish we could predict when escrow will close on the Pasadena property, but that remains an elusive date. City hearings and public input continue on a regular basis. But it seems each expressed concern delays the project. At any rate, we don’t hold out much hope to close escrow before summer. And it could stretch out even longer. So please hang in there with us.

As we prepare to implement a new financial model for local church finances, we have enrolled six congregations in a pilot program to work out any bugs we might find before fully bringing all our 450 U.S. congregations into the new model.

So far, our pilot congregations are excited about how smoothly their work has gone. Working off Internet-based software, local member lists and donation records are inputted by the local church treasurer or financial secretary. Church budgets are prepared and maintained using Quicken software.

After an initial learning curve, pilot churches tell us it takes only a short time each week to process local contributions. Having this pilot program will help us have an even smoother implementation process when we reorganize our financial procedures after the property sells.

In the meantime, if you would like to know more about how the new financial model will function, I suggest you plan to attend your district conference when it comes your way. Our staff has a three-hour presentation on local church finances that we think will not only help you understand how the new model will work, but will also excite you about the possibilities for the future of your congregation.

The next conferences will be in Portland, Oregon, April 26 to 28; Lexington, Kentucky, May 17 to 19 and in Denver, Colorado, June 7 to 9. We hope to see many of you there. And we hope our February report will find us caught up with our mail processing.

Statement of Income and Expenses for WCG and PTM combined for January 2002

For the Month For the Year-to-Date

Income

    Mail Income                                             $ 901,000                 $ 901,000

    Other income                                                252,000                     252,000

        Total income                                            1,153,000                 1,153,000

Expenses                                                        2,150,000                 2,150,000

Net gain (loss) to bank reserves                     $ (997,000)         $ (997,000)