St. Mark's Stewardship Desk

Money given to a church is given in trust. Someone puts an envelope in the plate for the food bank, or leaves a memorial gift for the library, or pledges for the year because they believe in what happens here. The job of a stewardship system is that every one of those intentions is still traceable a year later.

Everything rests on one habit. Every dollar that enters the books is tagged three ways, at the moment it is recorded, and it is only recorded once. It carries a fund (whose money is this?), a team (who decided to spend it?), and a purpose (what was it for?).

That single habit is why one set of books answers three different questions without anyone keeping a second spreadsheet. The Trustees see their own budget; the Missions team can prove a designated gift reached the food bank; the congregation can ask what it actually costs to run this church — all from the same figures.

What the church commits to

• Money given for a purpose goes to that purpose. A designated gift is never quietly absorbed into general operating, and money held for a third party is shown as owed, not as income.
• Nothing sits unclassified. Every line carries a fund, a team and a purpose, and every figure on this page can be opened to the transactions behind it.
• The figures are the ledger’s, not anyone’s. This page is generated from the books each month, so there is no gap between what the treasurer sees and what everyone else sees.
• When something is unresolved, it is published as unresolved rather than tidied away. The teams who work on the books carry the list of what is still open.

Not all of the church’s money is the church’s to spend. It sits in four families, and which family a dollar lands in decides what may be done with it.

• 01 General Operating. Undesignated giving. This pays the staff, heats the building and funds the teams’ budgets. When people ask whether the church is running a deficit, this is the fund they mean.
• 02 Designated Ministry Funds. Gifts a donor restricted to one of the church’s own ministries — youth, pastoral care, Stephen Ministries. The church may spend them, but only on the ministry named.
• 03 Managed Project Funds. Money collected on behalf of someone else — the food bank, UMCOR, the 52 Club, the conference. The church is an agent here, not an owner, and owes this money onward. It is a liability in the books, not income.
• 04 Restricted Funds — Trustees. The Reserve, the Building Fund, the Memorial Fund and the Endowment. Long-horizon money with its own bank accounts, spent on the Trustees’ or a committee’s authority rather than through the annual budget.

Each family divides into named sub-funds. The Funds tab shows every one of them — what it held on January 1, what came in, what went out, what moved, and what it holds today, with every line adding across.

Your team has a budget line, agreed as part of the annual budget. You may spend it on what your team does without asking anyone. That is what a budget is for. Approval exists for the exceptions, not the ordinary.

What is yours to do

• Spend within your line, on your team’s purpose.
• Keep receipts, and get them to the treasurer promptly — not in December for something bought in March.
• Check the Teams tab after each monthly close. Your figures are there. If something looks wrong, say so while it is still fresh.
• Tell the treasurer before committing to anything large, recurring, or spanning a year end.

What is not yours

• Anything to do with staff pay. Salaries, payroll taxes, benefits and retirement sit with Staff Parish, whatever team the person works alongside.
• Spending past your line. If your team needs more than it has, that is a transfer request, not an overspend — see question 05.
• Spending a designated fund on something else. If a gift was given for a named purpose, it goes to that purpose or it goes back.

Finance Team to set The dollar figure above which a team leader should get prior approval rather than spend and report.

The best way is not to spend your own money at all. Where a vendor will invoice the church, have them do it — it saves you the outlay and the paperwork, and it keeps the receipt with the payment. Ask the treasurer before ordering.

Where that is not practical, buy it and claim it back.

What a reimbursement claim needs

• The receipt — itemised, not just a card slip.
• The date and who you bought from.
• What it was for, in a few words. “Supplies” tells the books nothing; “VBS craft materials” tells them everything.
• Which team it belongs to, and whether it should come from a designated fund rather than the team’s budget.
• Your name and how you would like to be paid.

Claims are approved by the team leader and paid by the treasurer.

One thing worth knowing. A reimbursement is not a donation. If the church pays you back, you have not given anything, and it does not appear on your giving statement. If you would rather donate the cost than be repaid, say so — that is a gift, and it is receipted as one.

Finance Team to set Where claims are sent, how long reimbursement takes, and whether there is a minimum claim worth processing.

Every month a team leader asks to spend money differently from the way it was budgeted. That is normal, and there is a process for it. The Finance Team approves these; no team leader can move money on their own.

There are three kinds of move, and which one it is decides how it is recorded:

• Budget between teams. The commonest. Both teams spend from General Operating, so nothing changes about where the cash sits — only who has the authority to spend it.
• General Operating into a designated or restricted fund. The general fund gives money to a named fund — a ministry, a project, the reserve. Real money leaves General Operating.
• A designated fund back into General Operating. Releasing money a fund no longer needs. This one needs care: a gift a donor restricted to a purpose cannot simply be released because the church would prefer it elsewhere.

How it works

1. 1Ask. On the fund transfer request form — what you want moved, from where to where, how much and why. Ask the Finance Team for one.
2. 2The Finance Team decides. Approved or declined, with a note. Nothing has moved yet.
3. 3It is posted. The entry goes into the ledger and the request is marked posted. Only then has the money actually moved — and only then will it show on your team’s figures.

Requests stay visible from asked through to posted, so nothing gets agreed in a meeting and then quietly forgotten. That has happened, which is why the queue exists.

The annual budget decides what each team may spend the following year. It is built from what teams ask for, weighed against what the church expects to receive, and approved before the year starts.

1. 1Each team leader submits a request — what the team plans to do next year and what it will cost. The current year’s figures on the Teams tab are the place to start.
2. 2The Finance Team builds a draft, setting the requests against expected giving and the church’s obligations — staff costs, apportionments, insurance, utilities.
3. 3The Church Council approves it.
4. 4It takes effect on January 1 and appears on the Teams tab as the line each team is measured against.

Two things are worth understanding. A budget is permission to spend, not money set aside — the cash has to arrive as giving through the year. And a budgeted deficit is a decision, not an accident: for 2026 the church planned to spend more than it expected to receive, and the Teams tab says so plainly.

The 2027 calendar

1. 1September 15 — budget sheets go out to team leaders.
2. 2October 10 — completed sheets come back to the Finance Team. A line left blank is read as no answer, not as zero.
3. 3October 20 — the budget is final: recommended by the Finance Team and approved by the Church Council.

After each month ends the books are brought up to date and this page is rebuilt. It is the same sequence every month, which is what makes the figures comparable.

1. 1Everything arrives. Bank activity comes in from the bank directly; giving detail comes from the Tithe.ly export; payroll is posted across.
2. 2Every line is classified — fund, team and purpose. Nothing is left unclassified.
3. 3Designated giving is routed through the fund structure so gifts held for a named purpose are shown as owed rather than counted as church income.
4. 4It is checked. Cash agrees to the bank, the funds add across, transfers net to zero, and the transfer queue holds nothing approved but unposted.
5. 5The Desk is rebuilt and published, and anything still open goes to the team that owns it.

Step 4 is the one that matters. It is not a formality — it is the reason the figures on this page can be trusted without anyone checking them by hand.

Finance Team to set The day of the month the Desk is expected to be updated, so leaders know when to look.

Here. The six tabs above this one are the church’s financial position, rebuilt from the ledger at each close.

• Funds — every fund, what it held in January, what moved, what it holds now.
• Teams — each team against its budget, with the detail behind every line.
• Missions & designated funds — money the church holds for someone else, fund by fund.
• Purpose — the same dollars sorted by what they were for rather than who spent them.
• Month by month — how giving and spending move through the year.

Almost every figure is clickable. Click an amount and it opens the individual transactions behind it. Nothing on this page is a number you have to take on faith.

Two things are deliberately not here. Individual staff pay is summarised to one line per account per month — the detail is on a separate version held by Staff Parish and church leaders. And who gave what is never on this page at all; giving records live in Tithe.ly, with the treasurer.

Most questions have one right person, and it is usually not the treasurer.

Finance Team to fill in The names and contact details behind each role above. The roles are right; the people need adding before this page is much use to anyone.