Church bookkeeping services
Fund accounting, restricted gifts, giving statements and a monthly report the board can read.
Tell us what your church's books need
A firm that knows church accounting replies by email with how it would keep your church's books and what it costs.
Need church bookkeeping services after being handed the bank records and a stack of offering envelopes? You don't have to face that pile on your own. A bookkeeper who works with churches takes the monthly work off your plate: a specialist logs what arrived and what was spent, matches it against the bank, and delivers reports the board can understand. Send the short form today with how many people the church pays and the support you're looking for, and a church-focused firm will email you its plan and price.
What gets done each month?
The monthly routine tends to look the same each time. With Aplos, the church sends in its bank and credit card statements plus its donation records when each month begins, and the specialists enter the transactions, reconcile the accounts and prepare reports.
Reconciling is the process of lining up every entry in the church's books with the bank statement, so nothing slips through or gets counted two times. WatersEdge handles this across checking, savings and investment accounts, while Clergy Financial Resources includes bill pay and designated fund management in its monthly package.
Books that have sat untouched for months or years are nothing unusual. Aplos provides catch-up bookkeeping for past records, letting you begin from where things actually stand today.
Two kinds of gifts
Churches must keep two categories of money separate. A restricted gift was given for a named purpose, like a new roof, and may only go toward that. Under the accounting rules churches work to, every dollar falls into one of two classes: with donor restrictions or without.
Regular offerings, tithes, money from events and nearly all program fees count as unrestricted. A reserve the board chooses to set aside is unrestricted too, since the board can reverse that decision. A gift only becomes restricted when the donor says so.
The law is strict on this point, which is why it matters. If a gift is used for a purpose other than the donor specified, the donor or an heir may be legally entitled to ask for it back, even years later. Keeping these funds apart helps the church avoid that problem. Not sure which gifts carry restrictions? Send the short form and ask.
Statements for the people who give
Donors want a record of their giving for their own tax returns. Aplos keeps track of deductible giving by person or household, meaning statements can be sent monthly, quarterly or yearly, whatever the church likes best.
Reports the board can read
Each month you'll typically get an income statement and a balance sheet. The income statement, known in churches as the statement of activities, lays out what came in, what went out and how things shifted across the year. Meanwhile, the balance sheet lists everything the church holds, everything it owes and the difference between the two, and it separates restricted from unrestricted funds.
The budget is what turns these reports into something useful. The AICPA describes it as probably the most important tool for reports that actually say something, since the board can check every month whether what came in and what went out line up with the plan. WatersEdge folds that budget to actual comparison right into its monthly report.
Monthly wins over quarterly here. The same guide notes that when money is tight, having statements every month is close to essential. A small trap: splitting the yearly budget into twelve equal parts misleads when giving goes up and down across the year, so monthly budgets shaped by last year's pattern serve you better.
Bookkeeping and payroll together
Staff pay is usually the biggest line in a church budget. One survey reported 52 percent goes to staffing, with 17 percent to buildings, which is why pay and books sit naturally side by side. Payroll firms that serve churches handle the minister's W-2, the housing allowance and each quarterly payroll tax filing, while Clergy Financial Resources runs payroll each month for a team of 1 or 2 people starting at $73 monthly.
What it costs
Not many firms publish their bookkeeping prices. WatersEdge sets its fees according to how many people you employ and which extras you pick; it then bills the month after the work happens. Aplos begins with a base package and layers on options like quarterly CPA reviews. Send the short form to get a price for the help your church needs, with the number of people on your payroll and the tasks you want covered, and a church-focused firm will email back with its approach and cost.