Controlling expenditures?

[jruckman]

I remember last June when I was in the height of my "I shall not pass this way again" frenzy the week before VBS, and I vowed that if I agreed to direct VBS again in '09 (which, of course, we all knew I would), I would do a mucho, mucho better job of delegating and drawing in supportive allies in the process.

So now, in light of this, I ask you, my dearest advisors, by what process do you control the financial expenditures of those who are working on VBS with you? Do you approve purchases before they are made? How? Do you have a form which is to be completed, or is it a verbal request? Or do you simply reimburse expenses?

There's about six months of my sanity resting on your responses!
Thanks,
Janet

[CEmom]

I help with a large VBS at my mothers church and they set budget of so much per child per class for craft, and a budget for decor. They then give their reciepts to the "money" person. The director doesn't get involved in the spending aside from setting the budget. The director does order all the books, stickers etc from gospel light.

One thing I've noticed is people are willing to use their own money and they more people purchasing stuff the less reciepts that are submitted.

Alissa

[Eyaluth]

Our church does a similar thing as Alissa. Director sets a budget each group (Crafts, Bible, Decor...) has a leader responsible to keep under that budget. For crafts its usually a per how many kids and how many crafts their doing. Then they just submit receipts and we pay back what they submit.