Church guides
Church bookkeeping guides
Plain-language guides for pastors, treasurers and finance committees, arranged by where you are: learning how church finances work, weighing how the books should be kept, or getting ready to bring in a bookkeeper.
- Understand church financesHow funds, offerings, payroll, budgets and reports are supposed to work.17 guides
- Weigh your optionsVolunteer, staff or outside bookkeeper, which software, and what drives the cost.8 guides
- Bring in a bookkeeperWhat to ask, what to gather, and what the first months look like.6 guides
Understand church finances
Start here if you are a new treasurer, a pastor who has inherited the books, or a board member who wants to know what good practice looks like.
Church Bookkeeping Basics: What the Work Actually Involves
What church bookkeeping consists of each week, each month and at year end, and the four ways it differs from keeping the books of a business.
New Church Treasurer: What to Do in Your First 90 Days
A practical 90-day plan for a new church treasurer: what access to get, what to read and verify, what to ask your predecessor, and when to get help.
Restricted, Designated and General Funds: A Plain-Language Guide for Church Leaders
Churches use 'restricted' and 'designated' loosely, but the difference decides who can change how money is used. Here is how to tell them apart and track each.
A Church Chart of Accounts That Matches How Your Church Works
How a church chart of accounts is organized: the five sections, net assets with and without donor restrictions, funds versus accounts, and numbering.
Counting and Depositing Offerings: A Routine That Protects Everyone
A two-person count, a signed count sheet and a deposit that matches the books protect volunteers as much as they protect the money. Here is what that looks like week to week.
Recording Online Giving: Fees, Payouts and Matching the Bank
How to record online, app and text giving: gross gift versus processing fee, payout batches, donor-covered fees, refunds and the year-end cut-off.
What Belongs on a Year-End Contribution Statement
Donors need a statement that matches your books and carries the wording the IRS expects. What to include, what to leave off, and what to check before the statements go out.
How to Build a Church Budget the Board Can Follow
A step-by-step way to build an annual church budget: start from actuals, project giving, cost staff and fixed bills, then report against it monthly.
A Month-End Checklist for Church Books
A month-end close for church books, in order: deposits tied to count sheets, giving platform payouts, reconciliations, fund balances, payroll and reports.
What a Monthly Financial Report for Church Leadership Should Include
A good monthly report lets a board answer three questions in minutes: Are we on budget? Are designated gifts intact? Do we have the cash we need?
Internal Controls for Small Churches: Who Approves, Who Pays, Who Reviews
How a small church separates approving, paying, recording and reviewing, with approval limits, bank statement review, card rules and a written policy.
Why a Pastor's Paycheck Looks Different: Church Payroll Basics
A minister is usually an employee for income tax and self-employed for Social Security. What that changes in payroll, and what stays the same for staff.
Pastor Housing Allowance: What the Church Has to Put in Writing
A housing allowance must be officially designated by the church, in a definite amount, before it is paid. What to put in writing and what to keep.
Reimbursing Church Expenses: Receipts, Mileage and Church Cards
How an accountable plan works for a church: business purpose, receipts, mileage logs, church cards, and what happens to a reimbursement nobody documented.
Benevolence Fund Records: Helping People and Keeping the Paper Trail
What a church benevolence fund needs on file: a written policy, the request, who approved it, proof of payment, and care with gifts meant for one person.
Which Church Financial Records to Keep, and for How Long
There is no single federal schedule for church records. What the IRS says about minimum periods, what it leaves open, and how to write a retention policy.
Do Churches File Form 990? What a Church Does and Doesn't File
Churches are generally not required to file Form 990, but they are not free of federal filings. Payroll returns, W-2s, 1099s and Form 990-T, explained.
Weigh your options
For churches that know something has to change and are deciding what. These guides set the options side by side, including the ones that don't involve hiring anyone.
Eight Signs a Church Has Outgrown Volunteer Bookkeeping
Eight things a board can observe for itself, why each matters, and what would fix it. Sometimes that is a bookkeeper; often it is a procedure or a reviewer.
Volunteer Treasurer, Staff Bookkeeper or Outside Bookkeeper: Who Should Keep the Church's Books?
A volunteer treasurer, a staff bookkeeper and an outside bookkeeper suit different churches. What each does well, where each strains, and how they combine.
Bookkeeper, CPA or Auditor: Who Does What for a Church
A bookkeeper keeps the records. A CPA handles tax and audits or reviews. Enrolled agents and attorneys have their own lanes. Which question goes to whom.
What Church Bookkeeping Costs, and What Drives the Fee
How church bookkeeping is priced (hourly, fixed monthly, project fee), the seven things that move the fee, and the non-money costs of a volunteer setup.
QuickBooks or Church Accounting Software: How to Choose
Three kinds of software can hold a church's books. What each handles on its own, where each needs a workaround, and what switching really costs.
Local or Remote Church Bookkeeper: What Actually Changes
With cloud software, most church bookkeeping is the same from across town or across the country. What changes: paper, meetings, access and response.
Cleaning Up Church Books: What a Cleanup Covers
What a church books cleanup works through, what decides how big the job is, what the church has to supply, and what a cleanup cannot do: it is not an audit.
Getting Church Books Ready for an Audit or Financial Review
Audit, review, compilation and internal review explained for board members: who asks for one, what to prepare, and where a bookkeeper's part ends.
Bring in a bookkeeper
For churches ready to hire. What to ask a bookkeeper before you sign, how to take it to the board, and what a handover involves.
15 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Church Bookkeeper
Fifteen interview questions for a church bookkeeper, grouped by topic, with why each one matters and what a good answer sounds like before you sign anything.
What a Church Bookkeeping Scope of Work Should Spell Out
What a written scope or engagement letter for church bookkeeping should cover: services, exclusions, who does what, deadlines, access, fees and exit.
How to Bring an Outside-Bookkeeper Proposal to Your Church Board
How a pastor or treasurer presents an outside bookkeeper to the board: the framing, the questions to expect, what to bring, and how oversight stays put.
What to Gather Before a Church Bookkeeping Consultation
A checklist of what a church should pull together before a first bookkeeping consultation, and why nothing sensitive needs to be emailed ahead of time.
Outsourcing Church Bookkeeping: What the First 90 Days Look Like
What happens after a church hires an outside bookkeeper: the order of the first steps, where cleanup fits, and what the church still does itself each month.
Switching Church Bookkeepers Without Losing the Thread
A handover checklist for changing church bookkeepers or treasurers: when to switch, what to obtain, how to move access, and how to set a clean cut-off date.
Start with a conversation
Let's look at your books together
Tell us about your church or business and where your bookkeeping stands. Carey will follow up to arrange a consultation, and you'll receive a written scope before any work begins.