Ultimate Guide to Church Accounting Software

“An IT person picked this software for our church but it is an accountant’s dream! I am so impressed.” Leverage your dynamic donor database to view the details you
need to know about your people, including communication activity, notes, relationships,
and giving history all in one place. After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of church leadership experience to pinpoint the features that add a lot of value.

This means that church accounting software needs to have specific features to help manage donations and contributions, such as the ability to track donor information and generate reports on specific funds or projects. ACS Technologies provides a general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and cash management capabilities, which enable churches to manage their financial information and produce financial statements. It also allows churches to easily track donations and pledge payments, including automatic https://www.bookstime.com/ deposit of electronic funds, and generation of donation statements for tax purposes. A church accounting system is software that helps churches manage contributions, donations, and grants. It can also be used to track income and expenses from fundraising events, generate nonprofit reports, and account for the daily administrative costs of the church. Church accounting is unique because it must utilize fund accounting, which separates funds available to the church for general and specific purposes.

Interested in using only the financial components of One Church Software?

You can set a recurring pay schedule that suits the needs of your church staff. Your payroll system will automatically deduct federal, state and local taxes so there are never any errors on employee paychecks. Impress congregants with professional invoices and tax receipts that can be customized to reflect the spirit of your church. FreshBooks creates sleek invoices for private church events and helpful reports that are easy to understand and provide all the financial details you need. Finding the ideal church accounting solution is difficult if you don’t know what you’re looking for or are unsure how to get started. Our Lean Selection methodology, a nine-step technique that helps you find the right business software for any company size or industry, gives you a blueprint of the software selection process from start to finish.

We see companies all the time take advantage of ministries by overcharging them by hundreds (or thousands) of dollars every year. The best church accounting software shouldn’t be a financial burden to your ministry. By leveraging these benefits, church accounting software helps religious organizations efficiently accounting for churches manage their finances, enhance stewardship, and focus more on their core mission and ministry. Features include membership management, financial management, event management, communication, reporting, online giving, mobile access, security, cloud-based, and third-party integrations/add-ons.

Best for Church-Specific Features

IconCMO is a church management software that provides tools for membership management, contributions and donations management, financial management, event management, communication, and reporting. Xero is a cloud-based accounting software that allows businesses to manage their financials, including invoicing, bill payments, expenses, and bank reconciliation. 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. Also, list extra financial capabilities your church needs, such as the ability to process payroll, maintain a CRM or categorize restricted funds. Then, check to ensure your software offers a plan that is both within your budget and enables you to perform essential actions.

Here’s all the info you need to choose the best accounting software option for your church. 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. Our church accounting software lets you create and email reports to all necessary stakeholders automatically, so everyone stays in the loop.

What are some of the factors to consider when choosing church accounting software?

One of the best ways to get the answers to all these questions is to look for church accounting software reviews from real ministry leaders. The PowerChurch user interface isn’t anything fancy — in fact, it harkens back to the accounting software of 20 years ago — but it does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it well. You can integrate Breeze with QuickBooks Desktop, or as this article on Breeze’s website explains, you can also make manual entries into QuickBooks — or any other church accounting software.

You can add payroll processing for $40 per month, plus $6 per employee. FreshBooks is best for churches that need extra support as a result of little experience in church accounting or accounting software. It is also a great option for churches pulling in and needing to manage extra funds earned via paid events such as weddings or funerals. As recent as 2018, the primary motivation churches are looking for new software is to replace an older system. Finding out what motivates church accounting software buyers is very useful information for not just the companies that sell the software, but also companies that are in the market for the solution. Finding our common motivations can help paint things into an easier light for you to make decisions.

PowerChurch: Best all-in-one church accounting software for small to midsize churches

Setup begins with the creation of your unique chart of accounts that interfaces with all the other financial modules and optionally with ACS Contributions and HeadMaster. You can track budgets and spending by fund, department, committee, and project. If you are looking for a software package with a free forever plan you can use to manage your church’s bookkeeping needs, you may want to consider ZipBooks. ZipBooks is a cloud-based accounting software that provides small business owners with easy-to-use financial management tools. Though not church-specific software, it can of course be used by churches. In conclusion, choosing the right accounting software for your church is an important decision that can have a significant impact on your financial management processes.