Supporting Pastors and Church Leaders with Accurate and Trustworthy Bookkeeping Services

Religious organizations are generally, but not always, exempt from income tax. QuickBooks helps keep everything sorted so you feel ready at tax time. Automatically track the money you owe so bills are paid on time.

Aplos church accounting software is an accounting and bookkeeping platform targeting churches and nonprofit organizations. It encompasses fund accounting, fundraising tools, and donation management. Other features include membership management, event scheduling, and custom communications. Church bookkeeping software is a type of financial management software designed specifically for churches and religious organizations to help them manage their finances and keep track of donations, expenses, and budgets. Church bookkeeping software enables church leaders and administrators to record and monitor all financial transactions, generate reports, track donations, and manage budgets. If you don’t have someone on your church’s administrative staff who is comfortable with accounting, Aplos has you covered with their bookkeeping service.

QuickBooks offers real-time reports so you can see an overall picture of your categorized transactions and gain a better understanding of how much you have and how much you owe at any given time. With a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Capterra, Realm deserves an honorable mention on our list of best church accounting software solutions. Users rave about Realm being user friendly and having amazing customer service — both important features for any church accounting software. If you’re looking for a 100% cloud-based church accounting software option that will grow with your church, look no further than Aplos Church Software. Aplos Church Software is a cloud-based, all-in-one church management and accounting system that grows as your church does.

Keeping up with these daily, weekly, or monthly transactions will speed up your month-end closing process. Here is a quick breakdown of some of the most common tasks you will need to accomplish when doing your church bookkeeping. If you want to DIY your payroll, I highly recommend you look at using Gusto! Plus they know how to set up and maintain payrolls for churches and nonprofit organizations. I use a dual method for entering accounting data into my client’s accounting files, I use the bank feeds to import the debit card and other auto transactions…BUT I manually enter the paper checks .

When evaluating offers, please review the financial institution’s Terms and Conditions. If you find discrepancies with your credit score or information from your credit report, please contact TransUnion® directly. It does true fund accounting, making it easy to manage your restricted funds. Churches that need to track expenses around projects for which parishioners or donors have earmarked their donations should consider Xero for their accounting software. In a double entry bookkeeping system, at least two entries are made with every financial transaction recorded…a debit and credit.Each transaction must balance each other.

Best for Large Churches

Flockbase reviews note that FlockBase is very easy to use for both staff and volunteers alike. Easy bookkeeping software means that staff and volunteers aren’t floundering to learn the ins-and-outs of the program. This article on Breeze’s website explains, you can also make manual entries into QuickBooks — or any other church accounting software. Why do we recommend QuickBooks Premier — a desktop-based product — instead of cloud-based QuickBooks Online?

Jitasa is the largest national provider of church accounting and bookkeeping services. Our name means “The Spirit of Serving Others,” and we are passionate about broadening ministry outreach. QuickBooks offers discounted products for nonprofits through TechSoup, a nonprofit tech marketplace. We recommend that churches and other houses of worship use QuickBooks Online Plus or QuickBooks Advanced so they can get all the tools, tracking, and reporting features we offer.

Best for Accounting Automation

CDM+ is a web-based church management system that offers contribution management, attendance tracking, event scheduling, planning center, and check-in functionality. Using this software, church administrators can record member information such as names and addresses in a central location. It’s sort of like the best church management and best church accounting software software all rolled into one. Based in the cloud, Aplos church accounting software allows you to track cash flows and create journal entries for direct double-entry accounting. The software facilitates custom communications, donor database reports, and event registration. Next, make a list of all of the actions your church must perform on a monthly and yearly basis to keep track of its finances, report how donations are used and file taxes.

• Churches can designate these smaller ledgers according to restrictions, bite-sized budgets, and other allocations at the organization.
• Automatically track the money you owe so bills are paid on time.
• Aplos is great software for small churches…but even it can be “messed up” by someone that doesn’t know what they are doing.
• You can get back to ministry with peace of mind while your bookkeepers get to work.

QuickBooks allows you to pay employees and contractors by direct deposit or check. Just enter hours worked and QuickBooks automatically calculates taxes and deductions. We use this historical data of donations, pledges, programs, and funds to help predict your future income and cash flow. In a quick glance, you can see how much cash you have on hand at any moment and how much you owe in bills. QuickBooks does a lot of the work automatically, saving you and your volunteers precious time. Connect your bank account and QuickBooks will learn to categorize expenses for you.

You can automate processes with recurring auto-bills, send invoices, and integrate billing into your books. FellowshipOne assists churches and other religious organizations to structure and manage daily operations. Based in the cloud, the software simplifies administrative tasks, outreach, events, and communications. As your church grows, you might find you need more functionality than QuickBooks Premier Plus offers alone.

Bank reconciliations are an important internal control for your organization. They are designed to reconcile your bank statement with the information in your bookkeeping. If your accounting software doesn’t accurately reflect your bank’s statement, it can make it hard to find errors and manage your church’s account balances. Most organizations perform them monthly, but that could vary depending on your needs. You always have access to your financial records and can switch to a church accounting software only subscription at any point with a 30-day notice if you decide to manage the books yourself. By outsourcing your church bookkeeping and accounting services, you’ll have more experts among whom to segregate financial duties.

Simple & Easy to Use

There are tons of templates for Balance Sheets on the internet. Set up a church bookkeeping system that not only tracks expenses and income, but also tracks your assets and liabilities. If you’re keeping your financial information in a spreadsheet currently, it’s probably time to upgrade your system. Accounting software helps make the bookkeeping process easier and allows organizations to automate the reporting process. This helps maintain consistency in your reporting and makes financial information comparable between set periods of time.

Also, read customer reviews to learn if users are satisfied over the long term. Decide whether your church can thrive despite any weaknesses reviewers mention. In the end, we landed on the ten best church accounting software of 2023. As a church accounting and bookkeeping manager, you have to recognize the sources of revenue in the church, which are mostly contributions. Also, you need to know about the flow of money from the collection plate to the bank account.

accounting cycle flow statements to measure the cash flowing into and out of the organization. Because churches are not technically owned by anyone, there is no equity to be shared among stakeholders. Instead, churches simply use this sheet to understand their assets and liabilities at the organization. Churches can designate these smaller ledgers according to restrictions, bite-sized budgets, and other allocations at the organization. Ultimately, these ledgers are then organized in a greater chart of accounts to keep everything organized.

If you opt for annual billing instead of monthly, you will save a marginal amount and pay $455 for the standard two-person license, or $275 per two additional users. All upgrades are included in this price, and you can use PowerChurch Online on any computer with an internet connection. A dedicated bookkeeper at a price you can afford, reconciled accounts and financial statements you can trust. Information provided on Forbes Advisor is for educational purposes only.

Using this cloud-based solution, you can view graphical representations of performance versus budget. You can also save time by using built-in templates, as well as granting user-level permissions based on individual need. Dext aims to eliminate the problems of bad bookkeeping data, manual tasks and overwhelm. The system captures data from cost and revenue documents via mobile app, auto-invoice fetch, or email. You can then extract data quickly and publish to the right place quickly.

Send your donors yearly donation statement with thank you letters attached. Are these the best church bookkeeping software tools on the market? Sound financial management is core to running any faith-based organization.

• You can start doing it immediately, and once everything is on track, do it on a monthly basis.
• Flockbase reviews note that FlockBase is very easy to use for both staff and volunteers alike.
• Connect your bank to QuickBooks to auto-sync transaction and see all your finances in one place.

Thanks to the Contribution module, this accounting solution can also track the performance of stewardship programs. FlockBase aims to make tracking church finances simple for both staff and volunteers. Built with true fund accounting, it allows you to manage fund balances with precision. In this article, I’m reviewing the best church bookkeeping software to help you make the best choice. I’ll show you the strengths of each option and highlight the key features you may find helpful. With the right church bookkeeping software, you can run a tight ship and make money management a breeze.

She currently serves as a business consultant, operations manager, and content strategist at Doubting Thomas Research Foundations’ Afghan Liberty Project, a small non-profit organization. She graduated with an MBA in leadership from Excelsior College. Churches that want to save money and error-proof their accounting via easy-to-use intelligent automations should consider Zoho Books.