Charge Conference Technical Updates for 2021

By: Chris Hampton, Director of Web and Database Administration

Charge Conference "season" is again upon us and just like last year, we will submit all forms online. The good news is that we have not made any changes this year to the process of filling out your charge conference paperwork, church leaders, or clergy compensation! Below are some key points and reminders to help assist you with this year. Please remember that the clergy compensation and church leaders will need to be submitted through your church/clergy dashboard while charge conference forms are submitted under "Submittable Forms" in the Church Dashboard.

Charge Conference Forms

• To find your church's Charge Conference online reports/forms, you will go to your Church Dashboard and click on Submittable Forms, and then 2021 (Name of District) Charge Conference Forms. 
• *Reminder* -  You can now access your church dashboard from your clergy dashboard. If you are at a multi-point charge, you can have multiple church dashboards open at the same time without logging you out of the previous one. Just click on the "Church Dashboard" link in your Clergy Dashboard.
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• *Reminder* - Please read the instructions carefully. Please also note that your district may have additional instructions to supplement the official instructions. 
• *Reminder* - We copied over ALL of your data from last year to help speed up this process. Instead of "Start this form" you will see "Edit Form." When you click edit you will be taken to the NEW form with last years data entered. You may change whatever data you need, and then click save at the very bottom.
• *Reminder* - Forms now say "Save" instead of "Submit Form." This helps remind you that you must fill out each form, save it, and then "officially submit" your charge conference forms. Please note that each district varies on what needs to be submitted when and the approval process for each form.
• For more instructions on how to fill out a form and officially submit your documents, please check out this video.

Clergy Compensation 

• Clergy compensation can be accessed from both the church and clergy dashboard. You can click either the "Start" button inside of the 2022 box, or the "Start New Compensation" at the top of your screen. 
• *Reminder* - Make sure to select 1/1/2022 as your comp start date. If you do not, it will not calculate correctly.
• *Reminder* -  Every new report starts you out at "Quarter Time." This automatically updates as you enter in your compensation and select the effective start date.
• *Reminder* - Do not enter the signatures until after you have already completed your charge conference AND your district has approved it. Each district will provide instructions for accomplishing this.
• *Reminder* - We will continue using the Clergy Compensation 3.0, which was released last year. Please check out this video to see what changed last year: Clergy Comp 3.0 - YouTube

Church Leaders

• *Reminder* - Do not enter an end date if the person serving is not ending. If you select an end date and then they continue serving into the next year, it may report that your church has no leaders for that position. Unless they are serving for one year only or have a specific end date, please keep the end date blank.
• *Reminder* - Even if you have no changes and the end dates are blank, you must still report that you have completed the church leaders module. It is also important to check contact information. We used that information this year to send out Annual Conference information so it is important to verify that your contacts have valid addresses and emails. If everything has been verified, you can click the blue "I am done" button.
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• For more instructions on how to fill out church leader, please check out this video.

The importance of charge conference reporting yearly helps to move our annual conference forward. We have worked hard to make this process as effortless as possible, allowing you to continue doing important ministry in your area.

If you have any questions or issues, please reach out to your district office administrator, as additional instructions vary from district to district. Their contact information can be found at this link.