Thank you for taking a minute to read about what we offer to help your church, not for profit or association feel a bit more at ease about the integrity, consistency and safeguarding of its financial recordkeeping.

Are these some of the questions/concerns you have expressed of late?

  • How much money do we really have to spend that is not spoken for?

  • Are the organizations books in order?

  • Are we doing all we can to help safeguard our funds?

  • Do we have documented procedures and are they followed to help prevent theft?

  • I’m not an accountant and therefore don’t really understand the treasurer’s reports. I really don’t know what to ask to make sure all is well. What does it mean in plain English? Are we “okay”?

  • We have a new treasurer and their reports are different than what I’m used to. They don’t appear to be consistent at all.

  • How does the budget process tie into the historical financial data and more importantly, what do I do with the data?

These are just some of the common questions we hear all the time. We can help your organization establish procedures and report formats that help answer these and other questions about the finances consistently year after year.

How do we do that?

Our services would be two-fold in nature. First, we would gain an understanding of the existing controls and procedures within the accounting functions. To do so, we would have discussions with the treasurer/bookkeeper and also examine documents. These will include items such as vendor’s invoices and supporting documents for the disbursements issued, deposit slips, membership dues, weekly collection count sheets, donation records and payroll records. Based on what we find, we would provide recommendations for the strengthening and improvements of controls. If existing procedures do not warrant any recommendations, we would inform you.

Second, as of a given date, we would verify accounting data to supporting documentation. This may include examination of bank statements, check registers, deposit slips and other such items. Our purpose here would be to reconcile the accounting records and financial statement to the source documentation.

Our services would not constitute an audit, review or compilation of the financial statements of your organization and we would not issue an opinion on such statements. We would, however, issue a letter stating what we have done, and the outcomes, including any recommendations we may have.

How much does it cost?

Our fee for these services is estimated to be between $1,500 and $1,900 subject to the size of the organization’s budget. Usually an annual budget over $1,000,000 will require additional time. A bill will be rendered upon conclusion of the work and is payable within 30 days.

We have performed this service for other organizations in the area over the years and feel our experience can be an invaluable resource to improve the stewardship of your financial records and reporting. Most of our clients engage us to do this once every five years or so or when they feel things have changed with personnel or council significantly enough to warrant a closer outside look.

We would be happy to discuss this further with you as well as provide a sample report of what our final product might look like. It usually can be accomplished within a month from the start of the engagement and with minimal time needed from your staff.

For more information on our internal control system assessment, please email James Mersman, Debra Boeve, or call at 616.459.2233.