The budget worksheet, available for download in the top right of this page, is helpful to plan your next year and keep track of the current year.
Some helpful tips for school finance:
- Ask for help:
- Office for Catholic Schools
- School Commission
- Finance Committee
- Find the person/people that manage the school books and:
- Develop a cadence to receive financial statements on a regular basis (it is reasonable to expect that books from the previous month will be “closed” within 15 days of the new month)
- Determine the processes for payroll, paying invoices, booking fundraising revenue, and whether there are any unusual expenses or revenues during the course of the year.
- Learn the process to collect tuition from families and, if applicable, collecting delinquent payments.
- Review last year’s financial statements:
- What did the school budget for total employee salaries, benefits and payroll? What were the “actuals” for those amounts?
- What did the school budget for total tuition collection and fundraising? What were the “actuals” for those amounts?
- Determine the parish subsidy.
- Did school operations result in a surplus or loss?
- How closely did tuition collection match the expense of salaries and benefits?
- Begin to develop the next year’s budget:
- Develop and/or organize a team to share responsibility and execute the plan.
- Set a goal to develop a reasonable estimate for next year’s salaries, benefits, expenses by the holidays.
- Set a goal to finalize an approved school budget no later than the 1st of June.