Getting Started
The way trusts are stored in the Trust Information System
All trust information is stored at ‘church’ level. For districts, such as district 11 (in the example below), there is a ‘circuit’ 11/00, which contains various ‘churches’ which hold the district trusts.
Similarly within circuits, the Circuit Meeting trusts are held in one or more ‘churches’ within the circuit (e.g. in the example above, ‘church’ 110101 Circuit meeting and ‘church’ 110102 Circuit account).
See also – User Access Management
About the bookkeeping of the Trust Information System
The Trust Information System (TIS) is not a Bank statement. That is it displays your records from your perspective, as though the transactions shown were already part of your own bookkeeping. Also, unlike a bank statement, your trust information will include many accounts divided between:
- Assets – denoted by codes beginning with 2 or 3.
- Liabilities – denoted by codes beginning with 6.
- Receipts – denoted by codes beginning with 7.
- Payments – denoted by codes beginning with 8 or 9.
Assets
The main assets of your trust are likely to be unit based investments, either with the Central Finance Board or shares traded on the stock exchange – the precise mix of investments will be entirely at your discretion as the managing trustees. These will fluctuate in value from day to day, but the prices shown on the TIS are updated once a month.
Other assets of the trust will include cash deposits (typically the Trustees Interest Fund) that are held as an investment. There may also be cash deposits (with a code beginning with a 3) that refer to interest or income earned by the trust that has yet to be paid out to a nominated local account, whether that be at a high street bank or the Central Finance Board.
Liabilities
The main liabilities of the trust will be the original capital received, any accumulated surpluses or deficits from previous years – this will include any appreciation in value of investments at the end of each year. At the beginning of the year there will be an amount owing in our administration charge, this will be deducted from the Trusts income as it is received until it has been fully paid.
Receipts
The receipts of the trust will include any new monies received by the trust during the year ie: donations, proceeds of sale, investment or rental income etc. The income of the trust is recorded gross.
Payments
The payments of the trust include any withdrawals of capital from the trust, all income that has been paid over to a nominated local bank or CFB account and the deductions of our Administration charge.
Why Receipts and Payments and not Income and Expenditure
The transactions recorded on the Trust Information System are on a cash basis and not on an accruals basis. For instance, you will notice that interest is added to the trust in the month following the period it was earned.
Realised Gains/Losses
Whenever any unit investments are sold we will add the proceeds received to the trusts Trustees Interest Fund, as any unit investments held by the trust will not have a fixed value (it being dependant on the underlying sentiments of the capital markets), the corresponding entries on the Investment account will also show the proceeds received plus an adjustment based on the last book value recorded for that investment. Depending on whether a gain or a loss was made on the disposal, this will be a positive or negative amount. It will be included in the Receipts section on the Receipts and Payments page, where a loss has been made it will be shown as a negative income item.
Unrealised Gains/Losses
At the end of the year we revalue all of the investments held and depending upon whether the investment has increased in value (known as appreciation) or decreased in value (known as depreciation) another adjustment will be made on the Receipts and Payments page to bring the trust back into balance.