I'm Proud of Our Volunteers!

I want to take a minute to brag on our finance volunteers here at GCC. THEY"RE AWESOME! They work behind the scenes week in and week out to help us do all kinds of things like: count and process our weekly offerings, process our weekly non-contribution deposits, track the checks we receive in the mail, post journal entries, and on and on. They are invaluable.

In addition to helping with these tasks, they also provide a key internal control procedure by helping us separate duties between control over assets (cash) and control over the accounting system. I can't thank them enough.

All of these folks take great pride in their work and they are extremely accurate. We recently completed our annual financial audit. Our auditors were stunned by how accurately our teams do their work. They couldn't believe how much of the paperwork prepared by the volunteers agreed to our bank records. They actually asked if the staff prepared the paperwork after the bank processed deposits. I just told them that we don't have to do that. Our volunteers do great work. Way to go team!

I'm so grateful that these folks use and that we give them the opportunity to use their God-given talents to help us advace the Kingdom of Christ here at GCC.

Interest Rates Headed Higher?

I don't know for sure, but this article made it sound like an issue of when not if. Looks like the era of super low interest rates may be nearing it's end.

Need to Know - Donations for Haiti Relief

I read this article about the new tax laws related to Haiti earthquake relief. I'm considering the best course of action for GCC. If your church took donations for Haiti Earthquake relief you may want to read the article and consider the best course of action for your church.

Are there Opportunities for Software Savings?

I read this article today. It reminded me of some of the decisions that we've made recently to save on software and software services.

• We switched payroll providers and save thousands of dollars per year.
• We assessed our accounting system needs and made some changes to our accouting software which saved us thousands of dollars as well.

I agree with the article. If you need to find ways to save money, it's a good time to review software costs to see if you're paying for software you no longer need.

I also was intrigued by this quote from the article:

"Also, companies are more likely to have software that is not a good fit for its intended users — and thus is underutilized — when the finance department drives purchase decisions, contends Brush. That's because when finance is in control, the decision often comes down to price, not utility, she says."

This is why, around GCC, the finance team doesn't make decisions about purchases for other departments. We're not in a position to know what's best for their ministry. The ministry team leaders are in a much better position to partner with our Tech Ops team and decide what the best solution for the best value is for their needs.