BELAY is growing – making Inc. Magazine's Inc. 5000 annual list of America's Fastest-Growing Private Companies for the seventh year in a row.
And much like being a parent, some days, you’re so in the thick of the weeds of life that you miss the forest for the trees – so. many. trees. – as you tackle each new day, each minute, each second.
So sometimes, it proves necessary to reflect on how it all started. On all you’ve accomplished. How far you’ve come. And – arguably most importantly – who was by your side when a tiny seed of an idea grew into that very forest.
Watering and nurturing our tiny seed, believing in us, taking that leap of faith and cheering for us those 11 years ago?
Local churches.
They were our very first clients. And for the first few years, they were our only bookkeeping clients. Talk about a leap of faith. We were a new company, yet unproven and still forging our path, and they placed their faith – and books – with us.
There is, in our opinion, nothing more precious than someone saying, ‘I believe in you. I see you. I trust you.’ In fact, it’s that very sentiment that drives our indomitable culture of trust as a virtual staffing company.
So we set out to honor that sacred trust.
We were determined to help them get to talent, no matter where their church was located. We were determined to help keep church finances out of their pews. We were determined to help our local pastors (re-)focus on that which brought them to ministry in the first place: shepherding their people.
And while we’ve refined and polished our process, services and approach since then, one thing remains unchanged: We are still steadfastly committed to honoring the trust of our local pastors. That will never change.
Pastors: Too Much To Do, Not Enough Time.
Look. We know busy. And churches – and their pastors – are no exception. Their responsibilities and demands are as urgent and varied as those of a Fortune 500 CEO – but often with little or no dedicated administrative resources.
In an ideal world, pastors and church leaders would use all of their time and energy shepherding those God has brought through their doors but all too often, the everyday administrative responsibilities – bookkeeping, scheduling, social media, maintaining the church website, and more – falls squarely on their shoulders.
It’s got to get done, right? Even if that means taking time away from what really matters.
With virtual assistants and bookkeepers, administrative tasks and finances can be delegated to someone who has the skills to execute those tasks faster and more efficiently, leaving pastors to do what only they can do: be the steward of faith they were called to be.
Pastors need a team; they need the cavalry. But hiring is complicated. And time-consuming. That’s where we come in. It’s what we do. It’s where we excel. That service is our calling.
With BELAY, pastors get time to (re-)focus on their church, community, and casting vision, all at the cost of your sanity, your peace of mind and your most precious resource: time.
How BELAY Supports The Local Church
Administrative Tasks
And as a church leader, pastors likely know all too well how many directions they can be pulled. It’s astounding really.
Their job isn’t – or shouldn’t be – to check email, update social media, write and send out newsletters, or proofread the program. Their job, at its absolute simplest, is to connect with people in faith.
But scope creep is real. Administrative tasks pull focus and priority from ministry to the menial.
ENTER: A BELAY Virtual Assistant, commanding superhero cape billowing in the breeze behind them in slow motion.
*cape optional but strongly encouraged
From researching content for your Sunday message, to email inboxes overloaded with too many messages and not enough replies, to social media by sharing your Sunday message on your church’s various channels, to handling scheduling and follow up, and more, a BELAY Virtual Assistant is there to swoop in and help – no illuminated superhero signals necessary.
Bookkeeping
BELAY eliminates the risk of inconsistencies in record-keeping. When churches hire us, they immediately create third-party accountability fortified by our best practices with a ministry-minded team who knows church finance inside and out.
Our bookkeepers offer objective perspectives that produce insights which prove vital for a church to reach its potential. We assign a team to your church – not just one person – which still costs less than hiring a part-time bookkeeper on staff.
Daydream with us for a second, if you will: Imagine reducing your staff costs and not needing to lead or develop another staff member. Imagine having more time to do the work God called you to do.
Back to reality: We can make that happen.
From maintaining your financial records, including records of the dates and amount of every transaction, tax planning, financial planning, consulting services and more, a BELAY Virtual Bookkeeper acts as both bookkeeper and treasurer - a trusted member of the financial team at your church.
From recording tithes, offerings and any other church income, to depositing receivables into church account, to reconciling petty cash receipts, balancing checking and investment accounts, to preparing weekly, biweekly, monthly, and yearly reports of the church's financial records, to creating a yearly budget, to processing payroll, and more, a BELAY Virtual Bookkeeper can turn that daydream into reality.
We Live To Serve
So to those pastors who took that leap of faith and the churches who hitched their wagons to ours those many years ago: Thank you. Without you, there’d be no us. At BELAY, our calling is to glorify God by providing solutions that equip our clients with the confidence to climb higher. And if our calling to serve helps our local churches achieve their calling to glorify God, then we’ve done our job.