When Frontline Church grew rapidly, going from 400 people on one campus in 2010 to approximately 2,000 people on four campuses in 2014, the leadership team knew they needed to scale up their financial infrastructure, processes, and systems as well.
As the executive pastor of operations, Rex Barrett was tasked with putting a solution in place for managing the church’s finances. But advertising for a business assistant proved to be a dead end. He was unable to find someone knowledgeable in accounting for a nonprofit of their size.
“When we were 400 people, we could still handle the finances without having too many systems,” Rex said. “As we grew and expanded to multiple campuses, we needed to develop our systems.”
DecisionGrid developed workable processes and procedures for Frontline and then met with key personnel to outline their responsibilities in these processes. They established procedures for all day-to- day processes such as getting approval to spend money, writing checks, and tracking income and expenses.
DecisionGrid team members now oversee the day-to- day bookkeeping processes and recording at Frontline. This includes making check deposits, writing checks, paying bills, and recording and reconciling transactions.
“The monthly report is awesome,” Rex said. “It clearly explains where we are.” DecisionGrid also met several times with Frontline’s executive leadership team to discuss how stewarding their mission, values, and future story applied when making financial decisions. This clarity, coupled with clear financial reports, guided them in making several strategic decisions.
“Having the snapshot of the finances really helped with planting another campus,” Rex said. Rex said Frontline was able to be generous with three church plants because they had a good sense of where they stood financially. They could see that necessary expenses would still be covered even after they gave away a large amount.
“We were able to be ridiculously generous and still know we had money to make a key hire.”
Rex has appreciated being able to consult with DecisionGrid when he is making financial decisions.
“When I was making the budget for next year, it was helpful to talk with Tammy and know we were in the right ballpark regarding our figures.” Another time, he consulted with Michael when he had questions about whether a new check processing system would work for their situation of being on four different campuses.
“It was reassuring to know that I wasn’t making the decision in the dark,” Rex said.
Rex plans to use the DecisionGrid stewardship tools with his team on the various campuses to further ensure that they are unified in their goals and in what constitutes a win.