Generous, disciplined and purposeful giving to the lord is an important part of a believer's discipleship in Christ. And we give not grudgingly, nor under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9 v 6-8). On-line giving through ibanking has also greatly facilitated such intentional and disciplined giving. This however, had also resulted in new challenges and administrative burdens to the church.

In 2023, we embarked on a major transition of our finance and account system to Xero Accounting System to automate our processes and to reduce this growing administrative burden and cost to the church. As a result, several changes to our giving processes had also become necessary.

Giving in Bartley may be categorized as follows:

1. Tithes – Our regular giving to the Lord

2. Offerings – Our additional giving to the Lord over and above our tithes

3. Missions designated – Designated givings for specific missions personnel

4. Missions general – General support for missions work

Tithes and offerings can be given in cash through the tithing envelopes available in church, through cheques, or through i-banking (strongly encouraged).

As a Missional Church, Bartley encourages all members to be involved in the support of missions, whether personally or through their Missional Cells.

Each missionary sent out by Bartley is supported financially by the church in partnership with a Missions Agency. Each missionary had been assigned a specific identification code, which can be located at www.bccmissions.com/missionspersonnelcodes.

Missions designated will be set aside for the support of the missionary of your choice and for no other purpose.

Missions general fund forms the backbone for all other mission-related purposes, including projects, organization support, non-English congregation outreaches and the like.

The advent of online banking, particularly with Paynow and the scanning of QR Codes for bank transfers, giving to the Lord is now that much more convenient. Over time, however, many members would make the transfers and then follow up with detailed instructions on their allocations to the Accounts Dept. Accounts Dept then plays the role of banker to scan through these emails to process the payments to carry out their instructions.

With the growth in congregation size, this administrative task is no longer tenable; worse still, further changes and amendments to the original instructions are also not uncommon, and the process becomes even more cumbersome!

We are now advocating One Scan One Purpose to reduce these extra administrative work for the church. Each scan of a QR Code, or one ibanking transfer therefore should be for one purpose; one ibanking transfer should be done for one missionary and so forth.

For individual church members, it may mean a couple more scans. For the Accounts Dept however, this will drastically reduce daily processing and administrative work managing these accounts.

Giving Envelopes have been redesigned for simplicity and greater clarity for your gifts. Cash and cheques (costs involved) can still be placed in these envelopes and collected through the offering bags during the service or via Giving Boxes at the back of the Main Auditorium (English) or John Willis Hall (Chinese and Filipino). All cash, ATM or cheque gifts will be allotted towards Bartley General Fund (Tithes and Offerings), Missions General or Designate or PJW Fund as indicated on the envelope.

Please tick the relevant options on the envelopes. You may tick one or more options and please indicate the amount for each option on the blank spaces. Missions Designated giving is also possible via the new envelopes. Kindly indicate clearly the Missions Personnel Code on the envelope, otherwise it will be treated as your gift for Missions General. If there is no clear indication on the envelopes, it will be assumed that the member has given the gift for the General Fund.

As these gifts will be in cash or cheques, they will not be tracked according to donors in our new giving system.

With the transition to Xero Accounting System, which is tied to the bank accounts that members give their donations through, the Tithe Code is no longer relevant.

We can now recognise the Full name of the Bank Account. This helps to reduce the number of duplicates and ambiguous names currently residing in our church database. The same member with different spellings of their names, for example, could have been given 2 Tithe Codes in the past.

We are still in the process of cleaning up our members' database and revamping our Donor system. While we are desirous of providing statements of donations, and understand their value, these statements do represent additional costs in their maintenance and generation.

For a start, we will be tracking Missions Designate Givings for Mission Personnel only, as this provides a direct link between supporters and Missionaries. The tracking of Tithes, Offerings and Missions General by individual donors will not be carried out presently. However, with ibanking, members can now access their own bank statements which will accurately indicate their giving(s) to the church. We hope to inculcate this self-help discipline in giving among members.

Other members have gone further to either GIRO or give Standing Instructions (SIs) to their banks for regular gifts to the church. We strongly encourage this disciplined and planned giving for all members as the Lord enables. If you are currently using GIRO to give your tithes or missions support, please continue to do so.

For those requiring assistance to set up standing orders or GIRO arrangements, Digital Ambassadors will be available to assist you. Further instructions will be communicated during church services.

There are also members who give on behalf of parents, cell groups and others. We appreciate the various reasons for all these, but regret that we will not be able to make the distinction between the person making the transfer and who the fund came from. The transferer could again refer to their bank statements to provide an account to those on whose behalf they are making these transfers.

You can instruct your bank to carry out recurring transfers/standing instructions for a period time. You can set up a recurring local funds transfer via digibank online. Below are some references on how to do it:

DBS Standing Instructions (via PC ibanking only, not on mobile app) PC ibanking > transfer > more transfer services > other services > view standing instructions > from account > setup standing instructions > https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/support/bank-local-funds-view-recurring-funds-transfer.html

OCBC Recurring Transfer Mobile banking app – Home > main menu > transfer and payment > scheduled transfer PC Internet banking – Transfer and payment > Recurring transfer https://www.ocbc.com/personal-banking/online-banking/funds-transfer.html

Trust Bank (by Fairprice Group) Do not support Standing Instructions or eGIRO for the time being as indicated on the last question of the FAQ. https://trustbank.sg/faqs/pay-and-transfer/#can-i-transfer-money-on-a-regular-basis-to-other-bank-accountsbeing

UOB Scheduled Transfer Mobile banking > pay and transfer > from account to account > date of transfer > frequency of recurring fund transfer https://www.uob.com.sg/personal/customer-service/tmrw-user-guide/payment-and-transfers.page

HSBC Recurring Transfers See page 8 (step 7) of pdf PC Internet banking – Pay & Transfer>Recurring transfer>Transfer in Singapore>From account>Setup new payee account>select ‘recurring transfer’ https://www.hsbc.com.sg/content/dam/hsbc/sg/documents/interactive-digital-banking-guide-20231205.pdf