It's budget season

It's one of my favorite times of year at NewPointe. It's budget season. I along with the rest of the staff are putting dollars to the ministry needs of 2009. Please don't get me wrong. Ministry is not about dollars but it does take dollars to do ministry.

One of the major areas of responsibility for me is our budget. Here are a some of the though process I go through in working on our budget.

1. What's our average attendance per month and the average giving per attandee?
   
2. How many Sundays are there per month.
3. Do I see average attendance and giving per attendee staying the same, going up or going down?
4. Where does each ministry stand in terms of our current year's budget and what was actually invested in that ministry year-to-date.
   
5. Do we need additional staff?
6. Do we need to make major repairs that need to be planned for? (resurfacing our parking lot in 2010 $40,000)
7. Each Ministry Director is asked to allocate there financial need on a month-by-month basis and put this information into a spreadsheet I've designed.
8. I combine all spreadsheets into one master budget.
9. The budget is entered into our accounting system. (QuickBooks)
10. I'm able to monitor actual verses budget during the year.