A long-serving treasurer is stepping down, a staff bookkeeper is leaving, or the church has decided to move to a different outside bookkeeper. Whatever the reason, the risk is the same: knowledge that lived in one person's head, and logins that lived on one person's computer, walk out of the door with them. A handover done deliberately keeps the records continuous and treats the outgoing person with the respect they are due.
Pick the timing: month-end or year-end
Hand over at the end of a closed month. The outgoing person finishes and reconciles a whole period, the incoming person starts a new one, and nobody has to ask later who recorded what. Year-end is cleaner still, because payroll records and contribution statements run on a calendar year. If the change cannot wait, a mid-month handover works as long as the cut-off date below is written down.
Start with a courteous conversation
Tell the outgoing person early and directly, before the rest of the church hears. Thank them, explain the date, and ask for their help with the list below. Most people who have kept a church's books care about leaving them in good order, and a request framed as "help us understand how you did this" gets far better cooperation than a demand for files. If the outgoing bookkeeper is a paid firm, check the existing agreement for notice and handover terms first.
What to obtain
- The accounting file, with admin rights in the church's name. A named church officer should hold the top-level administrator role, not the bookkeeper. In QuickBooks Online, Intuit's instructions say the current primary admin must sign in to transfer that role, and the person receiving it must already be an admin user. Do this while the outgoing person is still available. If they are not, Intuit requires a request to its account protection team, which is slower.
- Bank reconciliations. The reconciliation report for every bank and card account through the last closed month, with the statements they tie to.
- Fund balance detail. The balance of each fund at the cut-off, what each fund is for, and whether it is donor-restricted or board-designated. The total should agree with cash.
- Payroll records. Reports for the year to date, copies of filings made, employee forms, and the written housing allowance designation if a pastor has one. Ask which filings are due next and who has been preparing them.
- Giving records. Giver detail for the year to date, in the giving system or exported from it, reconciled to deposits as far as it has been done.
- Open payables and commitments. Unpaid bills, recurring payments and automatic drafts, outstanding checks, and anything promised but not yet paid.
- Logins. A list of every system the role touched: accounting software, bank access, payroll provider, giving platform, tax agency accounts, vendor portals. The list matters more than the passwords, which should be changed anyway.
Also ask for the things that are never written down: where paper records are kept, which transactions recur, and any shortcuts in how things were coded. How long to keep what you receive is covered in which church financial records to keep.
Move access, then remove it
Do this in order, so the church is never locked out.
- Confirm a church officer holds administrator rights to each system.
- Add the incoming bookkeeper as a separate, named user with only the access the work requires.
- On the agreed date, remove the outgoing person's users, change any shared passwords, and update bank signature cards and online banking users.
In QuickBooks Online, Intuit notes that deleting a user is permanent but their history stays visible in the audit log, so removing access does not erase the record of who entered what. Removing access is routine and not an accusation. It protects the outgoing person from being asked about transactions made after they left.
Set a cut-off date in writing
Agree one date. Everything dated on or before it belongs to the outgoing bookkeeper to record and reconcile; everything after belongs to the incoming one. Put the date in an email to both, along with who will file any payroll or other return that falls due around the changeover. Two people entering transactions in the same period is the most common cause of duplicates after a switch.
Questions to ask while both are available
If there is a short overlap, use it for questions and not for double entry.
- Are there any transactions you were unsure how to record?
- Which funds or accounts have balances you do not fully trust?
- Is anything owed to or by the church that is not in the books?
- What did the board ask for most often, and which reports did you run to answer it?
- Is there correspondence from a bank, a tax agency or a vendor that still needs a reply?
After the handover
The incoming bookkeeper should confirm the opening position before building on it: bank balances reconciled, fund balances agreeing to cash, payroll year-to-date figures matching the provider's reports. If something does not tie, it is better found now than at year-end. Where a file needs repair, the guide to what a church books cleanup covers describes the work. Then thank the outgoing person publicly, in the way your church does that.
If the switch is to an outside bookkeeper for the first time, see what the first 90 days look like. Moving a file between systems, or repairing one, is covered under QuickBooks services.
