How the figures in your return are counted

Every figure in the return is counted by a fixed rule, so the same figure means the same thing every quarter. Two of the rules are worth knowing before you send a return: the member total is today's, and giving is counted by the day it was entered.

Membership

• Active members, men and women, and the class breakdown are your members as they stand today, whichever period you choose. If you prepare last year's return in March, the membership figure is March's. Prepare each return at the end of its period and the two agree.
• Not stated counts active members with no gender recorded. A large figure there is a sign the register needs tidying, not a separate group of people.
• Joined in period counts members whose joining date falls inside the period. A member brought over from an old register keeps the joining date you gave them, not the day they were typed in.
• Transferred out counts transfers to another church that were approved during the period.

Attendance

• Services recorded counts each service entered with a date inside the period.
• Total attendance adds up the men and women counted at those services.
• The average is the total divided by the services actually recorded, not by the Sundays on the calendar, so a Sunday lost to a funeral or a storm does not pull it down.

Vital records and visitors

• Baptisms, confirmations, weddings and deaths are counted by the date of the event, whenever it was entered.
• Visitors are counted by the date of their visit. Became members counts the visitors from the period who have since been made members, so this figure can grow after the period has ended.

Income

• Giving is counted by the day it was recorded in Fold, not the Sunday it was given. Record each Sunday's giving that week; a quarter's envelopes typed in during the next quarter will count in the next quarter.
• Tithes and offerings are their own lines. Everything else, pledges, donations, harvest and the like, is added together as other giving.
• Mobile money given through Fold is recorded by itself the moment it is paid, so it is already in the figures and must not be entered again by hand.