Although I have been a member of my church safety team for some time ,I have never given any thought to the safety of transfering church funds to the financial institution.
Thank you for brining this point to the discussion.
There are somethings that could been prevented from that loss of 30k.
-First, there should always be two ppl making any deposits into the house of worships bank account.
-Second, most HOW that bring in the kind of offering have policies and procedures in place to not allow the money to sit in someone’s personally owned vehicle. How often is money stolen from someone’s car because it was left there. There where checks and balances to ensure the that the deposit happened in a timely manner.
-Third, they may still collect their offering the old school way by passing the plate/bucket. Versus setting an online payment system.
-Fourth, it would be nice to know if you could have security escort the funds, but in reality now you are involving more ppl in your deposit process, and they have to be available as well.
-Fifth, audits should be conducted, but that is all dependent upon how the policy and procedures are set up and how often it’s established to conduct these types of audits, and you gotta make sure you have a trusted source and or third party checking your records and accounts for accuracy.
These are just a few of my thoughts on this topic.
Regular auditing should be higher on the list - it is an easy, efficient and economical (no pun intended) preventative.
Regarding secure transport of funds to the bank: I highly recommend an armored truck service. It is safe and secure, and inexpensive - especially considering the risks it mitigates: loss of funds, and - more importantly - personnel safety. A Lawsuit by an injured parishioner would be devastating, both financially and communally. The cost of the service should be considered analogous to insurance premiums.
a method that I used for making deposits was not only to varied times but to also use different cars and ride along people. never go alone , there are safety in numbers.
For physical cash we have a team escorting all offering to safe location. Such measures have protected the offering for us but for others in the area it did not go so well.
We have two buildings on our church campus. When we collect the offerings two armed security guards (not family related) transport the offerings to the main building's drop box.
Our church has five couples on the counting team. We switch up two couples at the end of the last service and once the money is tallied and placed in a sealed bag with the amount marked on the bag. One couple takes the bag directly to the bank’s night deposit. Also, the amount is recorded on a tally sheet placed in the church’s financial office.
Another protection is to make sure at least two unrelated adults are present whenever church money is handled. In addition, have an annual financial audit, and bond and insure anyone who handles church money.
I once had a church treasurer commit suicide the morning of the first planned audit in years, even though that denomination required such an audit every year. Turned out he'd been borrowing from the till, intending to pay it back. It was very sad, and pointless, in that the church was fully insured, and the amount missing small enough that he could have eventually repaid it, had he lived.
We (me as treasurer) are working toward cashless with credit card and online giving only. Takes some getting used to but streamlined the process. Tough to convince others but I did it with our Greek Festival and I wasn’t hauling $200k cash to the bank at night. Better for accounting as well. I use Clover and EasyTithe - not endorsing but as an example. ABC btw.
Although I have been a member of my church safety team for some time ,I have never given any thought to the safety of transfering church funds to the financial institution.
Thank you for brining this point to the discussion.
There are somethings that could been prevented from that loss of 30k.
-First, there should always be two ppl making any deposits into the house of worships bank account.
-Second, most HOW that bring in the kind of offering have policies and procedures in place to not allow the money to sit in someone’s personally owned vehicle. How often is money stolen from someone’s car because it was left there. There where checks and balances to ensure the that the deposit happened in a timely manner.
-Third, they may still collect their offering the old school way by passing the plate/bucket. Versus setting an online payment system.
-Fourth, it would be nice to know if you could have security escort the funds, but in reality now you are involving more ppl in your deposit process, and they have to be available as well.
-Fifth, audits should be conducted, but that is all dependent upon how the policy and procedures are set up and how often it’s established to conduct these types of audits, and you gotta make sure you have a trusted source and or third party checking your records and accounts for accuracy.
These are just a few of my thoughts on this topic.
Regular auditing should be higher on the list - it is an easy, efficient and economical (no pun intended) preventative.
Regarding secure transport of funds to the bank: I highly recommend an armored truck service. It is safe and secure, and inexpensive - especially considering the risks it mitigates: loss of funds, and - more importantly - personnel safety. A Lawsuit by an injured parishioner would be devastating, both financially and communally. The cost of the service should be considered analogous to insurance premiums.
I was an employee of an armored car service and think that would be a good idea for church funds to be secured and transported.
Why not consider an armored car service for moderate to large churches?
a method that I used for making deposits was not only to varied times but to also use different cars and ride along people. never go alone , there are safety in numbers.
For physical cash we have a team escorting all offering to safe location. Such measures have protected the offering for us but for others in the area it did not go so well.
We thought we were doing a pretty good job. This has shown us where we need to improve and make corrections to our current process starting this week.
Thanx again
We have two buildings on our church campus. When we collect the offerings two armed security guards (not family related) transport the offerings to the main building's drop box.
Our church has five couples on the counting team. We switch up two couples at the end of the last service and once the money is tallied and placed in a sealed bag with the amount marked on the bag. One couple takes the bag directly to the bank’s night deposit. Also, the amount is recorded on a tally sheet placed in the church’s financial office.
I agree
Another protection is to make sure at least two unrelated adults are present whenever church money is handled. In addition, have an annual financial audit, and bond and insure anyone who handles church money.
I once had a church treasurer commit suicide the morning of the first planned audit in years, even though that denomination required such an audit every year. Turned out he'd been borrowing from the till, intending to pay it back. It was very sad, and pointless, in that the church was fully insured, and the amount missing small enough that he could have eventually repaid it, had he lived.
We (me as treasurer) are working toward cashless with credit card and online giving only. Takes some getting used to but streamlined the process. Tough to convince others but I did it with our Greek Festival and I wasn’t hauling $200k cash to the bank at night. Better for accounting as well. I use Clover and EasyTithe - not endorsing but as an example. ABC btw.
That was great information.