2024 Finance Report

Overview of the Finance Committee:
The ministry of the Finance Committee is to nurture the financial vitality of the congregation.

Finance Committee Responsibilities:

• Participates on the Stewardship Committee and ensures the church has enough income to cover our budget
• Partners with the various church committees to compile an annual budget
• Provides training and guidance to church committees to help them manage their budgets
• Administers funds received by the church
• Counts and deposits the weekly plate offerings
• Defines financial policies and procedures, and establishes internal controls
• Manages the Apportionment calculation
• Disburses funds and directs contributions in accordance with donors’ intent
• Works with our accountants to provide financial reporting to Ad Board and the various committees to help them track their monthly/annual spend and designated funds
• Provides updates to the UMC conference with annual reporting statistics
• Oversees church financial audits

 
Committee Members:
Dale Sasaki (Treasurer), Pat Higuchi, Roy Takeuchi, Kenton Kuwada, and Lori Tabuchi (Chair)

2024 Highlights:

• Onboarded Parable, our new outsourced accounting firm (a firm focused solely on church accounting), to manage our day-to-day accounting
• Migrated our accounting system from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online
• Transitioned our payroll provider from Paychex to Gusto
• Implemented a new check request/expense reimbursement process and accounts payable platform (BILL)

Looking Ahead to 2025:

• Much of 2024 was focused on keeping everything afloat until onboarding our new outsourced accounting firm. Many thanks to Kathy Haneta and Kelli Martines for all of their help with all of the accounting work both prior to onboarding Parable, and also through the transition. In 2025, we hope to focus on some key finance initiatives that will help us strengthen our overall financial infrastructure even further.

 
Respectfully submitted,
Lori Tabuchi

1Finance Guidelines/Handling God’s Money in the Church by Cokesbury