Did you know that about one out of every two churches in the US are in debt? A sound financial plan is vital to your organization’s success, which means taking a hard look at your debt and how it compares to your budgeting. But that means learning how to budget with effective templates for your church, if you haven’t started yet.

Churches use fund accounting to keep track of their finances, which is a type of accounting that does not focus on profitability, like a typical for-profit business would. So when you’re learning to budget, and using fund accounting to achieve that, you should know important budgeting strategies that a traditional business might not utilize.

Budgeting for a church mainly focuses on how you steward your resources instead of profit margins. Good church stewardship means giving a specific purpose for every dollar you receive. And the more specific you get with your money, the less likely you are to adopt a common attitude among churches, which is a “use it or lose it” mindset.

Common budgeting approaches include rolling forecast, zero-based, annual, and variance analysis or budget to actual. But what does all that mean?

Church Budget Template In Excel

Most software is created for specific purposes, offering niche functionality for a certain need. This lends itself to being limited to what you can do with it. With Excel, the only limitation really is your understanding of the program—so you can customize, sort, filter, and change the data however you want to get your results the way you need them.

If you’re not comfortable in Excel, now is a great time to learn. This webinar covers how to create a church budget in Excel, and a template is provided as well. Fill out the form below to gain access to the free webinar and template.

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