Finance Newsletter

New Beginnings

Welcome to the new-year, a year in which we are looking forward to a significant improvement in the service we provide. We are starting to see the benefits of the new accounting system within FSD and those benefits should soon begin to flow to those we serve. While not yet operating perfectly we can see the potential Epicor offers.

A number of FSD staff worked through the break to catch up on the backlog of processing and improve the operating performance of the new system. Except as noted below we are now up to date with our processing. Not unexpectedly there were a number of data entry errors in the transfer of information from the old system. We have eliminated a number of those but if we have missed yours please advise us so we can make the appropriate adjustment.

Another change that we will be introducing this year is to this newsletter. Increasingly the Church is using the website for communication. It is a very cost effective method of communication but does demand a different style of writing and presentation. This old dog is going to have to learn a few new tricks. The first change is the introduction of a contents section to allow a quick assessment of items of interest. The hard part is going to be changing my writing style to accommodate the preferences of readers of the website.

New Accounting System

We have had mixed performance from the new system since my last newsletter. Some bugs have shown up over the Christmas period and they have affected a number of the tasks we perform. Heavy usage of the system has thrown up some combinations of transactions that weren’t tested before implementation. Because staff from the software firm have been on holiday resolution of the bugs has taken much more time than normal and affected the service we can offer.

Basic processing of transactions is working well with transaction processing now up to date. We did experience some delays in processing direct debits with parish beneficiary fund contributions the worst affected. The bugs in these batches have now been fixed and processing should occur regularly on the 25th of each month from this point forward.

We have experienced delays in paying interest from the AIF. Interest has been calculated but a bug in the programmes is preventing processing of the batch making payment of the interest. Eagle is working on the problem, which did not appear during testing. If your interest hasn’t been paid by the time you receive this newsletter and you need the income to pay bills we can make a manual interest payment. A number of parishes have been paid in this manner. Interest is being accrued on unpaid interest.

The other major outstanding issue at the time of writing is reporting. We have identified a number of transactions are not being reported so have been holding statements pending correction of this matter. We can provide a statement but at this moment we will not guarantee that it is correct. As soon as the reporting issue is corrected statements will be issued. Invoices, remittances advices etc are being processed and sent out so normal operations should continue.

Confirmation of Balances

For those who have responded to our confirmation request thank you for your effort. For those who have yet to respond we ask that you do so as soon as possible.

At the time of writing we had received 418 replies. Of these replies 198 are happy with their balance and need no further attention. A further 220 respondents require either further information or disagree with their balance.

We are now dealing with the account queries. We have cleared 66 queries to date. Progress is slow because a number of the queries are very old. Some go back more than eight years. I know a number of you are anxious to resolve these issues, as are we. The best use of our time is clearing the queries so we ask that you keep correspondence on queries to the minimum such as would be needed to clear an audit query.

Our auditors sent out 420 letters covering 1,212 accounts on behalf of the AIF. There have been 290 responses covering 923 accounts. Queries have been received on 135 accounts. Follow up letters have been sent to cover the 130 non-replies. As the auditors are collating the queries we have not yet commenced investigation work.

Amalgamated Investment Fund

The interest rate paid on deposits with the Amalgamated Investment Fund is 5.75% for January. The rate for February is to be reviewed by the Trustees at their February meeting following the recent increase to the Official Cash Rate.

Ministers Mortgages

The interest rate on minister’s mortgages remains at 6.6% for the months of January and February.

Seniority Allowance Levy

We have commenced invoicing seniority allowance levy for the 2004 year. Invoices will be dated 31 January 2004. We have been able to reduce the rate of the levy in the current year. The reduction comes from fewer ministers receiving the levy because of recent retirements and removal of the catch-up adjustment included last year. The catch-up adjustment was to make up for the shortfall in previous years. The levy has been set at $9.00 per member compared with $10.90 last year. The charge for liable parishes is based on their roll at 30 June 2002.

Statistics

We are now completing the preparation of the 2003 statistics. A number of parishes have still not provided the required information and are delaying the work. We will continue to ask parishes for their missing statistical information.

Geoffrey Bell

Manager Financial Services

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Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand