Part 2: Receipts or Revenue or Income
The section listing receipts is always first in the R&E Statement and it is usually one of the smallest. There are several factors to consider as this section is made:
- There should be one line for every major revenue stream on which the organization depends. For most churches and non-profits this is one or two (sometimes three) lines such as gifts & offerings, bequests & memorials, and maybe endowment transfers (from your own endowment).
- Some churches have separate revenue line items for gifts from members versus non-members or gifts from members who pledged versus gifts from non-pledgers. Unless you are using that information for reports and to make decisions there is no reason to separate those gifts. They were given for the operating budget as undesignated gifts so put them all in one line (keep it simple).
- Small, inconsequential, and occasional revenues should be grouped together into an “Other Receipts” line which may or may not have a budget attached to it. Do NOT create a revenue line for every revenue source – it will make your document unwieldy.
- Revenues from sources for which there is a direct expense should be in the expense section netted against the actual expense or in a revenue line (actually it is a “negative expense line”) just above the expense line. For instance, many churches have weekly suppers; the receipts from the
- Transfers to the operating budget from designated funds should not be in the income section. This is not new money but merely a transfer of existing money to offset an expense. To show designated funds transfers as new money is disingenuous.
- Gifts to designated funds should always go through the appropriate fund on the balance sheet, not through the R&E Statement. To do otherwise will inflate the total amount of operating budget receipts of an organization and make it seem like there are greater revenues from its primary revenue stream than there really is.
- Budgeting receipts is not simple – you cannot take your annual expected figure for receipts and divide by twelve because every church and non-profit gets a significant bump in December. December is the 13th month because typically twice as much money is received in December as any other month (actually, for most churches the last week of December nets as much revenue as any other month). I created a spreadsheet to help calculate what you should budget for receipts for each month. Here’s how to use that spreadsheet:
- Go to www.financeforchurches.org and under Free Resources, open the spreadsheet titled Monthly Gifts & Offerings Budget Calculation
- Insert your church’s name in the title
- From the Annual Revenue Projections spreadsheet (template is also under Free Resources at www.financeforchurches.org) get the total giving by month for all the years for which you have data. Put that data in column B by the respective month.
- Delete the respective columns K through Z according to the total number of years for which you have giving data and that automatically changes the figure in column C (Total # of Sundays). (To delete a column or row – click on the column or row symbol which highlights it, then right click and select “Delete”).
- Make sure that column E has the correct number of Sundays for the current fiscal year (the formula gets the figure from the list of Sundays to the right on the spreadsheet)
- In cell I19, type in the annual budget for receipts. The spreadsheet will calculate the monthly receipts figure for your new budget year based on historical giving and number of Sundays in the current year.
- Take the monthly budget figures and put them into your financial software so that you know what an accurate figure for receipts is for each month, especially December.
When church finances get tight, the initial desire is to cut expenses. Most churches can cut their expenses by 5% without affecting their ministries too much for a year or two. However, the other side of the equation is receipts – most churches should increase their revenues by at least 10% if not 20% based on the financial ability of their members. But asking people to give more is harder than asking a few staff members to cut their budgets. I strongly encourage churches to do both/and: cut expenses AND raise income. It will make your church stronger in the long run.
Lead On!
Steve