Finance Guide - Accounting, Giving & Budget Management

This manual helps church treasurers, finance officers, and auditing committees use the current finance workspace in Church-Ops Africa without relying on older labels or missing features.

Table of Contents

1. Configuring Finance Categories
2. Recording Inflow & Giving Records
3. Recording Outflow & Expense Records
4. Budget Management & Budget Lines
5. Online Giving Status Review
6. Offline Giving Review Queue
7. Generating Financial Reports & Exports

1. Configuring Finance Categories

A finance category organizes income or expense records for specific purposes.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Navigate to Finance > Categories.
2. Click Create Category.
3. Input:
   • Category Name (e.g., General Tithe, Welfare Offering, Youth Project Fund).
   • Description: Summary explaining the fund's purpose.
   • Type: Choose the right finance context for income, expense, or both where supported.
   • Portal visibility where relevant for giving categories the member portal should show.
4. Click Save Category.

Visual note: Create Giving Category form showing Name, Description, and Active toggle

2. Recording Inflow & Giving Records

Income enters the system through online giving or manual tracking of physical and staff-entered records.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Physical Giving

1. Go to Finance > Transactions.
2. Click Record Inflow.
3. Fill out the details:
   • Donor: Search and select a registered Member (leave blank/select Guest for anonymous envelopes).
   • Category: Select appropriate category (e.g., Tithe).
   • Amount: Input amount in XAF (e.g., 25000).
   • Method: Select Cash, Mobile Money (Manual entry), Cheque, or Bank Transfer.
   • Date Received: Select the actual receipt date where your form requests it.
4. Click Save Record.

Tip Best Practice: Input envelope numbers in the Notes field for audits. Keep physical records organized in files indexed by date.

3. Recording Outflow & Expense Records

Use outflow records to track bills, reimbursements, ministry purchases, and other spending.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Go to Finance > Transactions or Finance > Expenses.
2. Click Record Outflow.
3. Fill out:
   • Description
   • Category
   • Amount
   • Expense Date
   • Any notes the finance team needs for audit clarity
4. Save the record.

Review and Status Control

• Use the finance ledger filters to review completed, pending, failed, approved, or rejected states where applicable.
• Use bulk actions carefully when cleaning up multiple finance records.

Visual note: Expense Details view showing receipt upload attachment and Approval buttons

4. Budget Management & Budget Lines

Allows monitoring of allocations against actual expenditures.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Go to Finance > Budget.
2. Click New Budget Line.
3. Input:
   • Title: (e.g., Worship & Music Department 2026).
   • Allocated Amount: Total budget for the year (e.g., 1,500,000 XAF).
   • The relevant finance category or context.
4. Click Save.

5. Online Giving Status Review

Church-Ops can track online giving attempts from the member portal and keep their statuses visible in finance reporting.

Reconciliation Steps

1. Navigate to Settings Center > Finance & Payments.
2. Confirm the active gateway credentials and environment are correct.
3. Under Finance > Transactions, online giving entries will appear with the relevant payment method.
4. Review transaction status:
   • Completed: Funds successfully settled.
   • Pending: Member initiated but has not entered their PIN.
   • Failed: Insufficient funds or timeout.
5. If needed, refresh the finance view later and confirm that pending records eventually settle into the right status before treating them as final income.

6. Offline Giving Review Queue

Offline giving intake from the Offline Desk stays separate from completed income until a finance reviewer confirms it.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open Finance > Offline Review.
2. Review the donor, category, amount, payment method, and any desk notes.
3. Compare the entry against the church's physical receipt, count sheet, or Mobile Money confirmation.
4. Click Approve when the record is correct.
5. Click Reject and leave a short reason when the record should not move into completed totals.

Important Offline giving records remain outside live completed-income totals until they are approved from the review queue.

7. Generating Financial Reports & Exports

Use Finance > Board Reports to prepare reports for pastors, finance committees, treasurers, church boards, and authorized auditors.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Navigate to Finance > Board Reports.
2. Select the reporting period, fiscal year, and church-wide or ministry context.
3. Start with a preset:
   • Pastor Brief for a concise leadership view.
   • Finance Committee Report for statements, variance, forecast, and accountability.
   • Treasurer Report for detailed statements and transaction-level audit evidence.
   • Custom Report for a composition built section by section.
4. Enable the sections the audience needs and arrange them in the required order.
5. Choose the detail level and portrait, landscape, or automatic orientation for each section.
6. Add authorized board or treasurer notes where appropriate.
7. Click Preview Report to review the complete presentation.
8. Click Generate PDF to download one report that can contain both portrait and landscape pages.

Financial Interpretation

• Income and expense performance is measured primarily against the year-to-date budget, not only the full annual budget.
• The executive section shows actual income, actual expenses, net position, financial health, trends, forecast, and attention items.
• Forecasts are straight-line projections based on approved actuals through the selected reporting date. The report identifies the method and confidence level.
• Pending or failed giving is not counted as completed income.

Saved Reports and History

• Save a church-specific report preset when the same composition will be used repeatedly.
• Saved presets are private to the current church.
• Generation History records who generated a report, its status, section count, page count, and generation time.
• PDF files are not retained automatically. Downloaded copies remain the responsibility of the authorized user and church.

Warning Data Security: Detailed and audit reports can contain donor, vendor, reference, and recorder information. Use consolidated sections for broad church meetings, and restrict detailed exports to authorized finance roles.