Finance Issues

Saturday, January 5, 2019 Hey Fletch … Do I need to pay unrelated business income tax on my parking lot? I heard a lot of noise about this last fall but what was the final [...]

Friday, January 4, 2019 Hey Fletch … Do you have any policies or procedures which outline appropriate spending? Our SP has a credit card but we haven’t ever put limits on spending. We are [...]

Wednesday, December 12, 2018 Hey Fletch … We are in an unusual place. Many times new churches rent or lease space from public school systems. Our county school system is seeking to lease classroom space from us [...]

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 Hey Fletch … Anything on your radar regarding 2018 tax law that is calling for non-profit organizations to file a 990-T for tax on parking spaces provided for employees? Our [...]

Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Hey Fletch … We are considering outsourcing our financial roles. Any insight on this? Pros / Cons? DRF—I answered a related question on August 29, 2018 in “Would We Save Money [...]

Friday, November 2, 2018 Hey Fletch … I read the question about receipts being turned in to the church within sixty days of the expense. We also have a staff member who is turning in [...]

Tuesday, October 16, 2018 Hey Fletch … A licensed professional marriage counselor who attends our church wants to rent a room so he can see clients in a location that is on the opposite side [...]

Wednesday, October 3, 2018 Hey Fletch … Our church staff can purchase items from their own funds and then be reimbursed. This happens a lot with youth trips and out-of-town ministry. We have a [...]

Monday, October 1, 2018 Hey Fletch … Thanks for your answer to my designated funds question. Let me submit another question. Someone brought an article today with the ideas of “restricted” and “designated” funds. The [...]

Thursday, September 20, 2018 Hey Fletch … Our church wants to take up a special offering for a woman who has cancer. Can we ask people to give money through the church for her? [...]

Thursday, September 13, 2018 Hey Fletch … Can you educate me about “preferred ministry” rather than “designated” funds which are restricted. We are a church of 165 and struggling to make budget. As a [...]

Saturday, September 1, 2018 Hey Fletch … I am involved with trying to get our church’s financial situation back on track and healthy again. Would any of your reports contain information on a church that [...]

Monday, August 27, 2018 Hey Fletch … We are looking at beginning to allow online giving. We are looking at three different providers: pushpay.com, gyve.io and tithe.ly. We are evaluating each platform and like what [...]

Saturday, July 7, 2018 Hey Fletch … We charge outside groups to use our facility. Some are concerned at our church that we should be paying tax on this income. They want us to not [...]

If your church uses a calendar year-end of December 31 as its fiscal year-end, you may want to consider changing it. A fiscal year-end such as May 31, June 30, July 31, August 31, [...]

Friday, June 1, 2018 Hey Fletch … Would you mind sharing an example of a Weekly Financial Reporting spreadsheet?  I'd love to see it and incorporate it. DRF— A weekly financial reporting spreadsheet should [...]

Friday, May 11, 2018 Hey Fletch … Thank you for putting together another successful XP-Seminar. I enjoyed it once again and look forward to it each year! I was wondering if you had any [...]

Thursday, March 22, 2018 Hey Fletch … Our school is owned by our church. They are the umbrella. All online donations are being completed through the church. For example, if I want to donate [...]

February 5, 2018 Hey Fletch … I’m working my way through the Finance 1 course on XPastor. There was a spreadsheet in class 5 on “offerings received” with an accompanying analysis of current week [...]

January 23, 2018 Hey Fletch … I’m looking over this PDF that you taught at Dallas Seminary on Church Finance 101. Could you send me the full copy of this topic? DRF—For several years, [...]

Mike Batts is one of our workshop leaders at the 2018 XP-Seminar. He is a noted leader in the nonprofit and church financial arena and author of five books. Mike has just released his [...]

What are internal controls? How do you begin to implement ICs? Kirk Morgan created this infographic using his class notes from two of XPastor’s Online Courses--Operations 103 (Finances, Part 1) & Operations 104 (Finances, Part [...]

When I picked The Wall Street MBA by Reuben Advani from the bibliography of the XP Online Course on Finance, I wondered what the connection to church ministry would be. It turns out that the [...]