More on Budgeting

My friend Todd had a good post on budgeting the other day. The things he mentions that he does are a lot similar to the things we do at GCC. We're currently in the process right now.

• We track weekend attendance and per capita giving levels and compare them year over year for trends. Then, we try to determine what we think these two components will do in the year to come.
• Per Capital Giving = Avg. Weekly Giving/Avg. Weekly Auditorium Attendance
• Per Capita Giving forecast X Avg. Weekend Attendance forecast X # of weeks in the upcoming year = Annual Revenue forecast
• How will revenue be distributed by month over the coming year. This is based on 5 or more years of historical giving data.
• We determine what staff costs will look like in the coming year. We start with current staff. Anticipate pay raises, increases in benefit costs like insurance. Can we hire new staff?
• How much is left to allocate to ministry? What are our ministry goals for the upcoming year?
• Set budget targets for departments based goals and what can be allocated after staff cost.
• Ask the departments to submit budgets based on the targets that were set. Targets include operating and capital expenses. I've got to brag on our staff. They are really good at this.
• Review, tweak, approve
• In the end, it all has to balance.

Like Todd, this is all done using multiple Excel spreadsheets prior to the final budget being entered into our Great Plains Accounting System.