OMG! I’ve seen this one too many times.
Here’s the scenario. The pastor or other board member receives all the monthly bank statements and credit card statements. They look over the statements, everything looks good, no errors, no fraudulent transactions. What next? They throw the statement away or better yet, they shred the statement. Why you ask? We’ll hey, that’s what they do when they handle their personal statements. Later, they hire a bookkeeper, or better yet, Whitfield and Associates to come on board and set-up the books, and maybe even go back 3 years or so, so they can present financial statements to a potential lender. But, the bookkeeper has nothing to work with. No bank statements, no canceled checks – nothing!
So many times, we carry our own personal money management and organizational systems to our new companies. I’m not just knocking church pastors, this happens with for-profit business owners as well. Now you may not have any reason to keep your statements for personal reasons (but you should anyways); but you need to hang on to all monthly statements for accounting purposes.
Otherwise, you’re going to spend a lot of time and money ordering copies and waiting for them to come in the mail.
