Suggestions for Financial Church Software

[Steve Daley]

A sister congregation reached out to me, asking for recommendations for church financial software. We have a trained accountant as a book keeper and our current treasurer that works with her is also a trained accountant, so I don't think we are the best congregation to give recommendations, so I'm wondering what others are doing. Our book keeper and treasurer are using the program called "Medlin", and it seems to work well for our purposes tracking income and expenses, special funds, and payroll, but what would you recommend?

Requirements:

1. Would enable a congregation to do payroll for pastor and teachers and part-time staff.

2. Would not be too difficult for a dedicated and interested member but may not have an accounting background to use.

3. Would track different sources of income and their expenses of their church and school ministries.

They are considering Quickbooks. Are there other ones to consider?

I did encourage them as well to consider using a payroll service through a bank or local accounting firm. I have appreciated doing that in past congregations where we didn't have a volunteer with the tax knowledge and hours of time it would take to get things right for called worker payroll. I will say that we had a terrible experience with a payroll service done through a national bank where we had our accounts. They did not seem to understand the nuances of properly noting "parsonage allowances" when making W-2's, but when we switched to a local accounting firm that had a LCMS account on staff who had done her pastor's taxes for years, she was really good and asked all of the right questions every year.

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Pastor Stephen Daley
St. Paul Lutheran Church and School

718 Arbor Ct.

South Haven, MI 49090

[Lance Otto]

What size is the congregation? That can make a difference in what software works for you.

 

Lance

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[Aaron Schwartz]

Quickbooks online has been nice for us. Not perfect but lots of options but I know our lay members have appreciated the cloud access option to save a trip coming into the building. 

I would encourage to also check into Tech Soup for nonprofit discounts that might help the congregation pull the trigger on any cost concerns. 

https://www.techsoup.org

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[Steve Daley]

Lance, that's a good question. St. Paul's in Moline, IL was looking for recommendations. They appear to be a smaller congregation with 117 communicant members, but with a pretty sizable staff, one pastor, 3 teachers.

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Pastor Stephen Daley
St. Paul Lutheran Church and School

718 Arbor Ct.

South Haven, MI 49090