Here are some step-by-step instructions about how to complete your Clergy Compensation Report. We will be moving from left to right across the sheet. If you have a question about a specific field, you can search this document for particular words or phrases to jump to that question.
BEFORE BEGINNING THIS REPORT:
1. This insctructional guide meant to show how to fill out the Clergy Compensation Form on a desktop computer. It was designed with Microsoft Excel, but should still function properly with Apple Numbers and Google Sheets.
2. This guide only provides context on how to fill the form out, it will not provide context related to questions regarding benefits or salary. Please reach out to your Regional Administrator for that information.
3. This report allows for multiple appointments to be entered for a single clergy person. If you are only entering a single appointment and not entering the remainder of the clergy person's appointments, please utilize only the section's labeled "Church A" (explained further down in this article).
BE SURE TO SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN - Go to section 3 to learn how to save in Excel.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click links below to go to section.
1. Filling out your Compensation Form.
1. Filling out your Compensation Form.
Fill in “Date Effective” with the Clergy Person’s effective Appointment Date, in standard day/month/year format. In many cases, this will be 01/01/2025.
Fill in the Clergy Person’s name in the “Clergy Name” field.
The following sections are drop-down selections:
1. “District”
2. “Full Appointment Status”
3. “Conference Relationship”
4. "Church Names A-E"
5. “Appointment Status By Church”
6. [Eastern Pennsylvania ONLY] “Salary Change Acknowledgement”
To access the drop-down list in each appropriate section, use your mouse to select the box that contains the “Dropdown” text in each section. Then select the dropdown arrow symbol that appears next to the box.
You will do this for each section labeled with a Dropdown.
NOTE: By clicking the cell and then the dropdown arrow, a box with selectable options will appear. You can scroll down inside this box of options either via the mouse wheel or by clicking and dragging down the small bar on the right side of the box.
NOTE: "Church #” (and “Composite Rate” for Eastern Pennsylvania) are automatically filled depending on the selection made in the Church Name field. These numbers are taken from our records of churches in our system.
[For Eastern Pennsylvania Only] The “Salary Change Acknowledgment” section should be used to indicate whether a clergy person is receiving an “Increase” or “Decrease” in salary compensation for your church. Select “Static” if the salary is remaining the same from the previous year.
NOTE: There are 5 sections to accommodate a clergy person serving multiple appointments.
If your church and other churches wish to collaborate on creating a Compensation Report for all of the Pastor's appointments, please utilize all Church A-E columns for each appointment of the clergy person.
If your church is filling this report out individually from the other clergy person's appointments, please utilize only the columns for the Church A sections.
When selecting “Church Name” from the dropdown, it will highlight the corresponding church fields in light blue, and auto-populate the corresponding column with your selected Church Name.
BEFORE SELECTION OF CHURCH NAME:
AFTER SELECTION OF CHURCH NAME:
Only fill out columns corresponding with the number of churches you’re filling out. If your clergy person is only serving one church, only fill out one column. Leave the rest blank. The column you need to fill out will highlight in blue.
Example of Single Appointment:
If your clergy person only has one appointment, please enter a church name into the “Church A” Name Dropdown selection and leave the remainder as is.
Then only column A will highlight in light blue and financial information will only be entered in those sections below the first column with the corresponding church name.
Example of Multiple Appointments:
If your clergy person has three appointments, you would enter a church name into the first three “Church Name - Dropdown” sections. You would enter a name in the Church A, B, and C “Church Name – Dropdown” sections.
Columns A – C will highlight in light blue and financial information will only be entered in the sections that correspond to the church's name. In this instance, all financial information for "UMC CHURCH" will be entered under the column with that church's name and all financial information for "FIRST UMC" will be entered under the column with that church's name, and so on for each appointment listed.
APPOINTMENT STATUS: Please enter a value for both the "Full Appointment Status" and the "Appointment Status By Church" fields.
Appointment Status By Church - The appointment status of the clergy person by the individual church. Example: They are currently serving a 1/4 time appointment at your church, then under your church's name please enter "1/4" from the dropdown.
Full Appointment Status - The full appointment status of the clergy person with all of there appointments combine. Example: They have a 3/4 appointment at one church and a 1/4 appoint at a different church, their full status would be "Full Time".
DO NOT FILL OUT ORANGE FIELDS: Financial Fields marked with a “ – “ symbol and highlighted in light orange are automatically calculated fields, and are not fields to be entered manually.
For the “Parsonage” section, place an “X” in line 19 if a parsonage is being provided for clergy by the church. Please place an “X” under the corresponding church name. In this example, "UMC CHURCH" is providing a parsonage to the clergy person so an "X" is placed into the box below the church's name.
2. Signing your form.
Once the financial information is filled out completely for each appointment, there are sections for staff signatures. The clergy person must sign, as well as the Church Council Chair and Staff Parish Relations Chair for each church they are appointed to that is listed in this compensation report.
In the example below, there are 3 churches entered in this compensation report. The Church Council Chair and SPRC Chair for each church has there name and email listed, as well as the clergy person's name and email.
For the Clergy Housing Exclusion Resolution section, the Pastor’s name will be automatically filled from the initial entry of the clergy name.
Only the Parsonage address is required be filled out.
NOTE: Sections A. Parsonage – Church Provided Housing and B. No Parsonage – Minister Provided Housing are automatically filled via information entered in the financial section.
Finally, Church Council Chairs and Church Secretaries must sign at the bottom of the form.
After this, your Compensation Form is completed and ready to be uploaded to Arena!
The report can be printed (explained below) for your records and Church Conference. Be sure to SAVE your work!
3. Saving in Excel.
When Form is Completed: Be sure to save your form at the top of the page when you are completed. To do this, click the "File" button at the top of the page and then click "Save".
Name your file before saving, a helpful naming convention would be for example:
"Year_Clergy Person's Name_Church Name_Compensation Report"
4. Uploading form to Arena.
To upload your completed Clergy Compensation Report, please go to Arena:
Log in to your Arena account, and go to the "Church Conference Forms" tab.
Once you are on this page, scroll down the page until you see the section titled "Church Conference Uploaded Documents" and click the link associated to the Church you wish to upload your document for.
This will bring you to your Church's uploaded documents section. To upload your document, scroll down to the grey section that has multiple files available for uploading and find the one's titled "Year Clergy Compensation Report".
Note:
If you have multiple Clergy Compensation Reports to upload for your church, you can utilize the extra upload sections titled:
"Year Clergy Compensation Report 2 (If applicable)"
"Year Clergy Compensation Report 3 (If applicable)"
"Year Clergy Compensation Report 4 (If applicable)"
Click the button named "Change..." to open a file selector tool.
Please give your file a Title, this can be similar or the same to what your file name is. So for example, "2024_John Smith_UMC Church_Compensation Report".
Description is not required, but you may add one if would like to.
Click the "Choose File" button, then pick a file from your computer's file browser to upload. This would be finding where you saved the Clergy Compensation report on your computer, then clicking that file and clicking the "Open" button.
You will then see the file in the file name appear next to the "Choose File" button. After all fields are filled and you have your file properly selected as shown below, you would then click the "Save" button.
You should then see your file's name appear next to the section for "Clergy Compensation Report". If you would like to upload more Compensation Reports for your Church, please utilize the additional designated files upload sections below the first Compensation Report upload.
ATTENTION:
After you're finished uploading files to your upload section, be sure to click the "Save" button at the bottom of the uploads section.
You have now completed your upload of the Clergy Compensation Report!
5. Printing form from Excel.
If you would like to print your Clergy Compensation Report. This can be done within the Excel file that you fill it out in. Open your report and click the "File" button at the top left of the page.
Then click the "Print" button.
This will open the printing options. There are a few things to check here before printing for the best results.
1. Set the number of copies you wish to print with the "Copies" section.
2. Set the printer you wish the print to go to with the "Printer" section.
3. By default, the "Page Orientation" should be set to "Landscape Orientation" this is to allow for all of the columns to print properly. If it is set to "Portrait Orientation", please change it back to Landscape.
4. After those settings are set, click the "Print" button to print the report.
If there are any questions, please submit a ticket to the Data Team:
https://easternpennsylvaniaumc.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new
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