It’s almost the end of another financial year at Bristo. The next four weeks are going to be busy. I have to make sure everything that needs to be paid this financial year is paid, and paid out from our accounts before the 31st March. I also need to keep a track of, confirm and record any monies due to us this financial year, but not yet paid, so that I can record it properly on our accounts ... Then finally - and this is no small task! - I have to prepare the first draft of the accounts to present to the Deacons, and to the inspector.
Church accounts are quite difficult to track and monitor. There is no guarantee week to week how much money will come in to the weekly offering. Expenditure is slightly easier to monitor. Each month there are bills we have to pay, minister’s stipend, tax/NI, bills, council tax etc. Then there are one-off bills, insurance, BU General Fund etc. The rest of the payments are for specific things done throughout the year to support the church work, including sundries (paper towels, loo-rolls etc), piano-tuning, licensing costs, office materials and all sorts of other things. The way I track this through the year is through the budget. We try to work out how much we need to spend each year, then I work out how much we need each week to meet this target, then I track each week how much we are spending and try to marry the two sets of figures together. It really only comes together at the end of each year when everything is in, and everything has been spent, but at least I can track how things are going and see if we are overspending on anything.
So how have we done this year? Income is a little down on last year, but not enormously so. What we haven’t done very well with is our special appeal to Lom. We send £3500 to Lom each year to support their winter soup kitchen. This year we raised £1100 for the Lom appeal, so the remainder of the money has been sent from church funds (there is still time to give to the appeal though!)
Expenditure wise we’ve kept pretty much to budget. The only significant overspend was £7500 on repairs and refurbishment when we budgeted to spend £5000. This year we had to spend a little more money on safety work in the church, and with the building being so old, it’s difficult to estimate the knock-on effects of having repairs made to the church. The refurbishment costs also include all the work done to refurbish the sanctuary.
The full and final accounts will hopefully be ready early in April, so if anyone wants further details please get in touch.
