Reporting operating funds expenses

The chapter leadership board, as elected representatives for the Thrivent Financial members in the chapter, is accountable for all operating funds and is responsible for reporting them. It's important to track and report all of these expenses accurately, being good stewards of the funds entrusted to their care. In addition, the IRS requires this information for our chapters' year-end reporting.

Below is a summary of the process for tracking and reporting operating funds expenses, as well as examples of how to report operating funds for some common situations that have caused questions in the past.

Process for tracking & reporting   |   Examples: deposit of money back into operating funds    

Example: chapter meeting includes fund-raising activity

Process for tracking and reporting operating funds expenses:

1. All receipts for chapter operating funds expenses must be collected and retained by the chapter for seven years.
   
   
• The volunteer who incurred the expense(s) submits the following to the financial director or assistant financial director:
• All receipts related to the expenses
• A Chapter Leader Expense Reimbursement Request form (PDF, 272K)  |  (Word, 79K).
  
  
• The financial director or assistant financial director then can reimburse the volunteer.


2. A chapter leader then tracks and reports the operating funds expenses on the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens in the Chapter Leadership Administration Menu section online.

The Manage Chapter Operating Funds area:



• Allows the chapter to track and report all operating funds expenses categorized by the following four purposes:
  • Administrative.
  • Member Events/Awareness, including member social and educational activities.
  • Volunteer Recognition.
  • Service Team Seed Money/Benevolence.
  
  Just choose the category for your specific expense, and enter the information.
  
  

  Notes:

  • IMPORTANT: To meet IRS reporting requirements, amounts for the first three categories above also need to be broken down and entered by "expense type" (e.g., postage, supplies, printing and promotion, etc.), which are included on the new screens.
  • Before you start to track and report chapter operating funds expenses each year, you need to calculate and enter the beginning-of-year balance of chapter operating funds. [Link to instructions]
  • For complete details about the four categories above, see “Planning & appropriate uses” in the Operating Funds section of CHIP.
  • Any costs associated with using the chapter mailing service through Thrivent Financial for Lutherans will be automatically posted to your Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens in the Administrative section.
  
  
  
• Allows the chapter to enter:
• The information for each check they write for operating funds expenses (recommended process to ensure the most accurate reporting), or
• A lump-sum amount for a period of time, by category and expense type (always remember to assign an "expense type" to each expense you are reporting). If the chapter decides to report lump-sum amounts, we recommend the information be entered at least quarterly.

Note: If the chapter uses the Excel spreadsheet template or other process to track expenses, that's OK. However, be aware that chapters are required to report the operating expenses online in the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens, which means the chapter will need to transfer the totals, by category and expense type, to the online reporting screens. (The Excel template models the online screens). To avoid having to enter expenses twice, we encourage chapters to use the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens for all of their work with managing operating funds expenses.



• Compiles the information the chapter enters into two reports that the chapter leadership board can view and print.
  • One report breaks out the expenses by the four categories.
  • The other provides a detailed list of all transactions reported online.
    
    
  Both reports are available from the Reports/Listings section of the Chapter Leadership Administration menu.



• Automatically transfers the information the chapter entered online into the Chapter Summary Report, which is updated monthly and is used for the chapter's year-end IRS rseporting requirements.

For more information and help about tracking and reporting operating funds expenses, see the following tools that are located on the Financial Resources tab in the Resources for all Chapter Leaders area of Thrivent.com.

• Managing and Reporting Chapter Operating Funds quick reference guide (PDF, 302K).
• The Reporting Chapter Operating Funds tutorial, which includes practice simulations.

 

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Reporting Examples:  Deposit of money back into operating funds (ticket reimbursement, meal reimbursement, seed money reimbursement)

Chapters should make sure to report the net expenses when reporting expenditures in the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens.  Occasionally, a chapter needs to use its operating funds to pay for services or items (e.g., meal, tickets, etc.) up-front — a portion of which then is reimbursed later (e.g., members pay a portion of the ticket price).  

Because the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens do not include a place to report the deposit of funds back into operating funds, chapters need to adjust their entry on the Manage Operating Funds screens to report the net impact on their chapter’s operating funds:

Example 1:  A chapter is hosting a member social activity at a baseball game. They charge members a certain amount for tickets and will make up the balance out of chapter operating funds. To purchase the tickets, the chapter pays $3,000 up front out of operating funds, and then recoups $2,500 from selling the tickets to members. What amount does the chapter report as operating funds expenses?

In this example:

1. The chapter enters $500 of operating funds expenses in the member events/awareness category on the reporting screens to ensure the correct operating funds balance is showing. Remember, there is no place on the reporting screens to record deposits of funds.
   
   
2. Because the check was issued for $3,000, but only $500 is being reported, the chapter determines whether or not to record the check number. Regardless, it is a best practice for the chapter to explain the $500 entry in the 'Description' field (e.g., check number 1234 was issued for $3,000 to XYZ, $2,500 was received from members for ticket sales, resulting in a net operating funds expenditure of $500).
   
   
3. If the chapter entered the $3,000 check online when it was issued, they can adjust the amount to $500 after they make the deposit of $2,500 back into the chapter checking account. Simply use the Update button on the original transaction entry.

Example 2:  A chapter charges members a reduced price for a member social dinner and covers the remainder of the cost using operating funds. In this example, use a similar process as described in Example 1 above.

Example 3:  A chapter provides $500 seed money to a service team conducting a Care Abounds in Communities® fundraiser.  That service team reimburses the chapter’s $500 out of proceeds from the event.

1. If the chapter chooses to record this check online, to ensure a record exists, they would enter the disbursement with $0 as the amount of the check.
   
   
2. In the description field, they would indicate that they gave the service team of XYZ activity $500 and on MM/DD/YYYY the service team reimbursed the chapter the $500, so there was no impact on operating funds for this service team seed money loan.    

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Reporting Example: Chapter meeting/election includes fundraising activity

Example:  A chapter leadership board is hosting its annual election meeting. In conjunction with the meeting, they ask members to bring a canned good for the local food pantry. At the event, they also set out a container to collect monetary donations for the food pantry. They used a postcard to notify all chapter members of the upcoming event. In this example:

1. The chapter leader will notice that the cost of the mailing done to all chapter members has been automatically posted to their Manage Chapter Operating Funds screen in the Administrative category.
   
   
2. On the Manage Chapter Operating Funds screens, the chapter enters the amount of operating funds spent for the annual meeting itself.
   
   
3. The chapter also must report the election meeting (including volunteer hours, attendance, etc.) in the "Report Locally Supported Activity Results" area (Election category).
   
   
4. Because funds were collected for the food pantry, the chapter needs to record this as a fundraising activity. They report the activity and funds raised in the "Report Locally Supported Activity Results" area (Local Fund-Raiser category).

Important: When reporting the election meeting activity results and the local fundraiser, be careful not to "double report" the attendance, volunteer hours, etc. Split the total between the two activity entries.

Additional Topics
Chapter Summary Report
Funds - obtaining up-front seed money for activities
Managing and Reporting Chapter Operating Funds (PDF, 302K)
Operating funds - deposit requirements/schedule
Operating funds - overview
Operating funds - planning and appropriate uses