Finance Newsletter

Seasons Greetings

The staff of the Finance Department and Doug Langford, Secretary to the Church Property Trustees would like to wish all the readers of this newsletter and their families a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year filled with the blessings of our Lord Jesus.

Thank you for the endless hours, often late at night, that you dedicate to the vital task of looking after the finances of your parish. It is a task that is growing more complex as governments continue to introduce new laws that affect the voluntary sector. We appreciate the fact that when a parish is in difficult financial circumstances the parish treasurer feels the pressure more acutely than most as they juggle the competing demands (including the Assembly Office) for the scarce funds of the parish. Your effort, your dedication, your skill and your concern are greatly appreciated.

Christmas Break

The Assembly Office will close on the evening of Friday 20 December and reopen on Monday 6 January. Some accounting staff may be working during this period to catch-up but you should not rely on that fact if ringing the office during the break. If you are going to need money transferred during this period you will need to make the arrangements prior to closure of the office. We need two authorised people to make a money transfer so even if you manage to catch someone in the office it is still highly unlikely the transfer will occur.

Amalgamated Investment Fund

The interest rate paid on deposits with the Amalgamated Investment Fund remains at 6.75% per annum.

Ministers Mortgages

The interest rate payable on Ministers' mortgages remains at 7.49% per annum.

Bonus Interest

We had hoped to be able to post bonus interest to parish accounts automatically but have decided that process is too risky so are posting it manually instead. Parishes should find the interest posted to their account at 30 November. However due to time constraints parishes who have interest transferred from the capital account to an interest income account may find that posting has not been completed in November. If not the posting will be made in December. This later posting will not affect the calculation of future interest. The bonus interest will give parishes approximately 22.15 cents (there are more than four decimal places in the calculation) for every dollar of interest received from the AIF in the 2001/02 financial year.

The system cannot automatically transfer the bonus interest to a parish bank account, as is the case with the quarterly interest. Therefore if you wish to have the bonus interest transferred to a bank account you will need to notify this office in the normal manner.

Seniority Allowance Levy

Presbyterian parishes and Co-operating Ventures under Presbyterian oversight should have received their letter advising the roll number to be used to calculate this levy. The letter was addressed to the Treasurer. If you have not received your letter please contact Margaret Fawcett in this office to receive a copy. Her phone number is (04) 381-8291 or email margaretf@pcanz.org.nz. Please read the content of the letter carefully and take any required action as soon as possible due to the Christmas break.

Single Assessment

You will recall that parishes and presbyteries are to be given an opportunity to comment on the proposed single assessment before it is implemented. Although promised information on the matter has not yet been distributed we are still making progress. A draft document has been distributed to a very small representative group of treasurers to obtain their feedback, particularly on the definition of income. The purpose is to ensure that the definition can be understood and applied by treasurers who are not qualified accountants. We also want to ensure that treasurers are not forced to do additional work because of the definition.

We have received some useful feed back and are in the process of incorporating this into the document. We appreciate that parishes and presbyteries have a recess an this time so we will be using the time to improve the document so that it is the best we can make it by the time it reaches the parishes for consideration. It is an important document so it is critical we get it right.

Computer System

It is a while since I have mentioned the computer system so it is worthwhile providing an update of progress. The Council of Assembly together with the Church Property Trustees has formed a steering group to overseas the implementation of the new system. The group has had one meeting and will meet again next week.

One of the first tasks of the group will be to consider the future information requirements of the Church. By identifying these requirements we will be able to implement a system that should serve us well into the future. As part of this process we will be considering how we can use a new computer system to make life easier for parish treasurers. For example should parishes be able to access their account with the General Assembly Office or the Amalgamated Investment Fund as has become standard practice in the banking industry. Other options that could be considered would include providing a simple standard accounting package hosted on the Assembly Office computer that could be accessed by parishes over the internet for the preparation of their accounts.

Even if some of the features mentioned above are not implemented immediately we certainly would want to introduce a system that would give us the capacity in the future to use such facilities. If you have any particular views on this matter I would be pleased to hear them.

Geoffrey Bell
Manager, Financial Services

» Back to Bush Telegraph

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand