Church expense report template4/1/2024 Unlike a manufacturing company, the levels of your revenue and expenses won’t necessarily affect each other. So, ultimately, what you start with won’t matter. I imagine as you get deeper into the process of forecasting, that you’ll be bouncing back and forth between the two anyway. You should start with whichever you’re more comfortable with – expenses or revenue. I can see the rationale behind this school of thought. Aubrey is much more of an expert on church operations than I am, admittedly. Then, you know how much you need to bring in to cover those expenses. However, there’s also a school of thought, particularly by Aubrey Malphurs and his organization, that claims you should plan your expenses first. That way, you know how much you expect to make in the coming year and can plan your expenses around that information. Personally (and maybe this is due to my background in budgeting for manufacturing organizations), I still think it’s smart to start budgeting with revenue. Should you start with budgeting for revenue or expenses? When creating an operating budget for a church (which is essentially a service) some of that complication can be avoided. When creating an operating budget for a manufacturing company, you start with revenue and work your way through budgets for materials, labor, overhead, production, and a lot of other inputs. How might an operating budget for a church differ from a for-profit business?įortunately, creating an operating budget for a church is much less complicated than for, say, a manufacturing company. With some of the worry off your plate, you can focus on other areas that will help your church achieve its mission. However, after going through the following steps, I think you’ll find yourself rather confident about your church’s future going into the new year. The amount of thought you dedicate to each item in this church operating budget example is up to you. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle – enough planning for you to feel confident that your church is in a position to thrive in the coming year. There is, however, such a thing as over-planning – AKA, paralysis by analysis. How much time and effort should be dedicated to a church operating budget?Īny amount of planning is better than no planning. Additionally, using the Spreadsheets for Business church operating budget template will give you the ability to not only estimate what the most likely scenario to play out next year will be, but will also help you to plan around a best case scenario and a worst case scenario.ĭownload the template by filling out the form at the top of the post. This is better than nothing.ĭedicating some thought to each revenue source and each type of expense, plus estimating how they might rise or fall over the course of the year helps to paint a more accurate picture of the church’s financial position. Information gleaned from the mission statement, SWOT analysis, strategy formulation, and capital budgeting will all play a part in preparing the Operating Budget for the coming year.Ĭreating an operating budget can be as simplistic as writing down a guess about how much revenue the church will make in the coming year and the number of expenses it will incur.
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