Questions re Accepting Credit Cards (part 2 of 5)

Posted on October 24, 2017 Written by

Churches which do not have online giving often have several questions which hinder them from proceeding. Here are some of the concerns I’ve run into over the past few years:

  • Portal Fees
    • Digital donation providers themselves have a fee which usually depends on the size of the church (number of Sunday morning worshippers).
    • This is the fee paid to the provider their services
      • A portal that makes is easy and friendly to give
      • Back office assistance to post contributions
      • Help in creating categories for gifts
      • Continuing training to existing and new staff at the church
      • Ideas for successful marketing and implementation
    • This fee is to the digital donations provider just as we’d pay the plumber for their labor (that is, the portal fee) and we also pay for parts (that is, the credit card fees) – two different expenses paid to two different companies.
  • Debt by members
    • Some churches are concerned that members will get deeper in debt by using their credit cards to pay their tithe. There are two ways to address this within the church:
      • Encourage people to use a debit card or an ACH transfer (bank to bank). These are cheaper for the church and don’t create credit card debt.
      • Have a class teaching members wise money management using materials from Financial Peace University and/or from Crown Ministries. These classes can really help people get their financial house in order AND tithe.
    • But some people want to use their credit card to earn rewards points and they will pay off their credit card balance each month.

 Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: accounting, budget, church finances, generosity, leadership, strategy Tagged: , , , , ,

Questions re Accepting Credit Cards (part 1 of 5)

Posted on October 17, 2017 Written by

Churches which do not have online giving often have several questions which hinder them from proceeding. Here are some of the concerns I’ve run into over the past few years:

  • Online Giving (itself)
    • Making financial transactions online has been normalized by society in the past 10 or 15 years. Amazon and other online businesses have made us comfortable with spending money online and using our credit cards on our computers and smartphones.
    • In 2016, our society spent more on restaurants than groceries; in 2015, we spent more electronically than we did using cash and checks. We have moved inexorably into the age of electronic transactions.
    • I predict that by the year 2025 (maybe 2030) we won’t even be using credit cards anymore – transactions will be made using Apple or Android pay or some other electronic financial exchange system which is being created even now.
  • Fees paid by the church
    • All credit cards have fees ranging from about 2.3% to 5% of the transaction. VISA and Mastercard have lower fees while American Express has the highest. Most VISA and Mastercard providers have fees in the 2% to 3% range.
    • Remember that banks have fees on every check and cash transaction they process, albeit about 25 to 30 cents for each one and that is lower than credit card fees.
    • Fees on credit cards is very much a “cost of doing business” in today’s world. Just as every church has a copy machine and air conditioning, fees on credit cards are just part of being “in business” for a church.
    • Frankly, the fees aren’t that much. If a church gets as little as $10,000 in online gifts during the year, the fee for that is about $250 which seems pretty small when weighed against the $10K that came in.

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: accounting, budget, church administration, church finances, generosity, leadership, strategy Tagged: , , , , , ,

First Time Donors

Posted on October 10, 2017 Written by

Coming to a church for the first time is frequently celebrated. People are encouraged to introduce themselves, provide contact information, and are even given coupons for coffee or food. These are good steps whose goal is to encourage the people to return again and again.

Churches can take another step which is to send a thank you note to all first time donors. The first time someone gives to a church is a big deal. It is one thing to come but it is an even bigger step to pull out your wallet and financially support the church. That action should be acknowledged.

Every first time donor should get a thank you note from a church leader – the pastor, the treasurer, or the church administrator. This simple act will take about 3 minutes per card and cost a dollar or two including postage. But the benefits of that expense will be enormous – people will comment about that for a long time and they will be genuinely surprised and grateful.

Take the time to write a thank you note. It is a big deal.

 Lead On!

Steve

 

 

Filed Under: church administration, church finances, communications, generosity, leadership, strategy Tagged: , , , , ,

Nest Camera

Posted on October 3, 2017 Written by

A few months ago I bought a Nest Camera for $200. Nest Cams are linked with a smartphone. I bought it for one specific reason but I’ve come to see a multitude of additional benefits. The camera is located in my office window and is pointed to the parking lot.

 

I bought the camera for this benefit (and why I encourage you to get a Nest Cam):

  1. Bad weather: I live in Virginia and I wanted to see from the comfort of my house how much snow had fallen at the church and whether I needed to close for the day or postpone opening the building. I even got my facilities manager to create a snow gauge so I could see how many inches had fallen. (Here’s the irony, this first year of the camera we’ve had two snow events, each of less than an inch!).

Here are the unexpected but very cool additional benefits:

  1. It uses the church’s Wi-Fi and electricity. When either the power or Wi-Fi goes out, I get an email stating the camera is offline. Wherever I am, I will know that something is wrong at the church and I need to address that problem.
  2. The camera is pointed at trailers in which we have a lot of expensive equipment for our multisite location. If someone steals the trailers, the camera will capture the vehicle that took our equipment and that will help the police. For a fee, Nest will store video from your camera. Currently (2017) I pay $10 per month for 10 days’ worth of recordings.
  3. My facilities director has access to view my camera, too. He’s getting one for the other side of building so we’ll have everything covered. Multiple people can have access to the same camera.
  4. The camera has a microphone and a speaker. It captures conversations inside my office (though the audio is very bad). Be careful with how you use captured conversations because there may be legal issues with that. The speaker on the camera can be fun – from my smartphone I can talk and whoever is in my office will hear my voice. I haven’t done that yet, but I could really scare someone!
  5. When the lights in my office are off at night, the camera easily captures everything going on outside in my lighted parking lot so I can see if there are any cars that shouldn’t be there in the evening.
  6. When the custodian comes into my office and turns on the light, the camera catches his reflection in the window pane. I also hear his conversations! This allows me to “spy” on my staff – as if I have time.
  7. Speaking of spying – some of my staff realized that my camera captures when they come to work and they believe (despite my instance to the contrary) that I monitor when they come and go. I could do that, but, I don’t have time and I really don’t care.
  8. Last month there was a violent storm. Using Nest Cam’s recording feature, I captured a seven minute video of the storm which I was able to show to my insurance company during the claim process. The video helped the insurance company understand why I was making the claims – and we’re getting a new roof!

 Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: buildings, church administration, church safety, church security, facilities Tagged: , , , , ,

Good churches need good manuals – Finance Manual

Posted on December 14, 2016 Written by

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A finance manual is critical. Church finances require the utmost level of trust from the donors and members toward the pastors and finance staff. A finance manual establishes the policies by which the church’s money will be governed and used. Parts of this document are a legal requirement but most of it is designed to ensure confidence in the handling of funds.

 

If a church does not have a finance manual, it can create the appearance of lack of integrity and a haphazard attitude towards donated money. That is not the biblical standard. Paul tells the Corinthians to do all things in their church “decently and in order.”

 

A good finance manual will address accounting, banking, record-keeping, software and hardware, document retention, communication with donors, accounts payable, financial reporting, audits, gift acknowledgement, and too many other things to list here. These policies ensure that even though staff may come and go, the practices within the Finance Office remain constant and completely above-board.

 

A personnel manual is a living document – it must be reviewed every year and updated at least every other year. Not doing that minimal step is a failure by management. Most policies will remain the same such as contribution processing, payroll, or accounts payable. But as times change, new policies must be written and old policies changed to address changes in the law or accounting standards regarding overtime, designated funds, and PP&E (property, plant, & equipment).

 

The finance manual template at www.churchbestpractices.org has

  • A Gift Acceptance Policy to help the church know what gifts can be accepted without question versus those which require research
  • A policy for using church-issued credit cards and reporting the expenses charged on the card
  • Fundraising ethics standards to ensure the church abides by IRS rules

 

This manual is only $30. It is updated annually to ensure its compliance with the latest legal and tax changes.  This manual is a great starting point for churches needing to develop a manual scratch or to update their current one. It will save hours of research and writing. By using this manual, a church will need only to add sections that are specific to their situation and/or remove non-legal policies which don’t apply to them.

Filed Under: accounting, church administration, church finances, leadership, planning, strategy Tagged: , , , , ,

Good churches need good manuals

Posted on November 30, 2016 Written by

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All churches need policies. Some churches make policies in reaction to an event. That is backwards thinking. Churches must be proactive in their policies so that staff and members know what is expected and what lines cannot be crossed.

 

Every church needs a personnel manual and a finance manual to establish the legal and ethical boundaries within which the staff and members will operate. Violation of these policies often violates legal, ethical, or moral boundaries. Breaking a policy will always result in a conversation and sometimes in the termination of a staff member.

 

Some churches need guide manuals (not policy manuals) to establish the parameters for their budget, endowment, or internal operations. These manuals determine the boundaries within which the staff and committees will function. Straying outside those limits may be permitted but only after a conversation about why and how.

 

This site provides churches with templates they can use to create their own manuals. There is no need to “re-invent the wheel.” These manuals were developed by an administrator with over 25 years of experience in half a dozen churches. These policies comply with all current laws and are the best practices of healthy churches.

 

The manuals available are:

  • Budget
  • Finance
  • Finance Office
  • Endowment
  • Personnel
  • Financial Statements
  • Financial Planning for Ministers
  • Generosity Strategy
  • Written Communications

 

Filed Under: church administration, church finances, leadership, planning, strategy Tagged: , , , ,

Overtime Laws

Posted on October 28, 2016 Written by

2016 03-March 29 (8)

On December 1, 2016 new overtime (OT) rules as approved by the US Department of Labor go into effect. Actually, most of the overtime laws are over 30 years old. In May 2016 the DoL altered one major component of the OT laws but almost everything else remained the same.

 

The major change is that salaried employees must make over $47,476 (just round that to $47,500) to be exempt from OT. Salaried workers who are below this dollar threshold and who do not make executive-level decisions should keep track of their work hours. While tracking hours worked each pay period is a pain, it is necessary in order to know if the employee should receive OT compensation.

 

Some other information about DoL laws:

  • Hourly workers are never exempt from OT
  • Contractors must truly be from an independent company that has several clients and not just an outsourced former employee or two

 

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: accounting, budget, church finances, church staff Tagged: , , ,

Workers’ Comp Insurance – a primer (part 1 of 3)

Posted on September 16, 2016 Written by

2016 05-May 24 (5)

Workers’ Compensation Insurance is legally mandated for employers. In Virginia (and probably in most US states) it is required for all employers with more than two employees. That means that ultra-small employers (like mom & pop companies) do not need WC insurance but everyone else does.

 

WC insurance covers the medical expenses of employees who are injured or killed while working. It pays for most work-related injury expenses. However, I have seen work-related accidents which were determined by the insurance company to be non-work-related.

 

When a person goes to the hospital with an injury, especially the emergency room, one of the questions is, “Was this caused by a workplace accident?” This question should always be answered truthfully – never try to protect an employer from claims or insurance price increases by lying about the nature of the accident. Employers must encourage their employees to claim WC insurance especially on injuries which could cause chronic pain or prolonged recovery. Those long-term consequences can be expensive if the employer or employee pay for them.

 

WC insurance is obtained from the insurance company which handles the employer’s property & liability insurance. It is typically not expensive and it is based on several factors:

  • The work performed by the employee
  • The employee’s actual wages
  • A discount or premium charged based on prior claim history

 

After the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 the insurance industry lobbied Congress which permitted a non-negotiable terrorism fee which is assessed on all WC policies.

 

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: budget, buildings, church administration, church finances, church safety, facilities Tagged: , , , , ,
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