The 10 Best Church Accounting Software Programs in 2023

The best church accounting software can significantly simplify financial management for religious organizations and churches. In addition, many churches use accounting software to improve their record-keeping, budgeting, and reporting and ensure transparency and compliance with tax regulations. These tools can help you track donations and expenses, leaving more time for you to focus on your ministry.

However, finding the best church accounting software isn’t simple, as most providers offer limited church management solutions. That’s why we’ve conducted thorough research and prepared a list of the best church accounting tools to help you make an informed decision. Read on to find out why FreshBooks takes first place this year and what its closest competition is.

The Best Church Financial Software Solutions Ranked

Managing the staff and finances of a church or religious organization demands accuracy and efficiency, and the right accounting software can be an invaluable addition. Here’s our list of the best software for church accounting to consider this year:

1. FreshBooks — Overall, the best church accounting software in 2023 that makes invoicing personalized and straightforward.
2. Zoho Accounting — All-in-one solution with numerous add-ons for a 360-degree view of your church and your projects and donations.
3. Xero — Detailed analytics to provide deeper insights into your organization’s financial health and forecast your bank balance.
4. Sage — Exceptional automation for various accounting processes to help you streamline transactions and spending allocation.
5. Bonsai — Reliable task and time-tracking features for church staff and volunteers to aid with workload allocation and calculating wages.
6. QuickBooks — In-depth reports for different needs, including presentations for congregants or committees.
7. Melio — Simplify accounts payable and payments for you and your donors with this easy-to-use cashflow solution.
8. APLOS — Impressive budgeting features for various programs, funds, projects, and departments running over one or more years.
9. Wave — Comprehensive free church accounting software with a powerful payroll add-on and in-house payment processing.
10. Xendoo Online Accounting — Expert assistance with tax, accounting, and bookkeeping for small and medium-sized churches.

Why Do Churches Need Accounting Software?

Like any other organization, churches need to track assets and expenses to ensure transparency and a responsible allocation of funds to support their various activities.

While very small churches can use MS Office software or even traditional pen-and-paper methods to keep track of their finances at a basic level, these tools aren’t scalable and will be highly inefficient. Using accounting software, on the other hand, offers huge benefits, saving time and cutting costs.

They can improve your expense-tracking efficiency by categorizing expenses and streamlining cost management, allowing churches to allocate resources according to their mission and goals.

Accounting tools also generate financial reports, providing church stakeholders and leaders with a clear view of their financial health and expense history.

For example, a church can use accounting software to plan the allocation of future donations and contributions through budgeting and project planning features. Then, it can track and create reports on expenses.

Online church accounting software receives frequent updates to align with the latest tax regulations, ensuring compliance. It will also automatically update your financial records, reducing manual labor needs and minimizing the chance of errors and discrepancies in your organization.

The Top Online Church Accounting Software Compared

Here, you’ll see how these church accounting software providers compare head-to-head based on their pricing, compatibility, and integrations.

The Best Software for Church Accounting Reviewed

Whether you’re looking for the best church accounting software with payroll or some solid bookkeeping tools, you’ll find it on our list. Here, we’ll go into the details of each accounting software product and review its features, pricing, and pros and cons.

1. FreshBooks — Overall, the Best Church Accounting Software in 2023

FreshBooks is the best church accounting software for organizations looking to improve their record-keeping and financial management. It ensures you spend less time worrying about your administrative tasks by helping you automate various repetitive processes, allowing you to invest more time in the community.

Thanks to its double-entry accounting system, each transaction is recorded twice, ensuring transparency and accuracy. With its error-free record-keeping capabilities, FreshBooks can help you maintain the financial integrity of your church, comply with regulations, and make informed decisions.

This all-in-one solution can help you deal with numerous other church-related processes, including invoicing and contacting your church members about their pledges.

From creating customizable invoices to sending personalized emails to your donors thanking them for their continued support, FreshBooks helps you collect funds while saving time. In addition, you can use this feature to create professional invoices for weddings, christenings, and other events.

If you have a monthly pledge system, FreshBooks can help ensure your church fund receives the donations with automated reminder emails. In addition, you can set up recurring profiles for members of the congregation who donate the same amounts each month.

FreshBooks can also add flexibility by giving your donors online payment options they can use directly, and it integrates with payment platforms like PayPal and Stripe. Integrations with tools like Gusto and Calendly, meanwhile, can help you handle payroll, appointments, time tracking, and more.

Given its scalability, comprehensive feature set, and affordable price, FreshBooks is a great church accounting software tool and compares favorably with even the toughest competition on the market. If it has any shortcomings, one is that the more advanced features can take a bit of time to get familiar with.

Pricing

FreshBooks offers a straightforward pricing structure that caters to a variety of business needs, including those of churches and nonprofits.

With its cheapest plan, Lite, you’ll have access to its expense tracking, reports, mobile apps, and more. However, since it limits invoicing to only five church members or clients, we suggest opting for one of its more expensive plans with more advanced features.

Thanks to its 30-day free trial, you can try FreshBooks risk-free today and explore its features and interface.

2. Zoho Accounting — All-in-One Solution With Numerous Add-Ons

Zoho Accounting is ideal for churches seeking efficient financial, project, and employee management. Having all these features on a single platform makes Zoho Accounting a contender for the best small church accounting software.

After testing its interface with its free plan, we’re confident it’s one of the most beginner-friendly accounting tools available. It won’t take long to master its advanced features and well-designed interface, even without external help – something that isn’t true for many of its competitors.

Its platform has a clutter-free design built around a comprehensive dashboard that offers at-a-glance insights into your projects and finances.

That means you’ll always have an idea of your cash flow and the progress of your projects. For example, you’ll know if your church staff are available for upcoming events like weddings or christenings and the exact amount of funds to invest in each event.

As part of the Zoho ecosystem, Zoho Accounting is part of a large set of business tools that churches can use to improve their project planning, member relationships, and community presence.

Adding these solutions to your Zoho Accounting platform is a straightforward process that transforms it into a central hub to manage your church processes.

For example, it offers one of the best CRM solutions to help you with volunteer, donor, and employee management. This puts Zoho considerably ahead of other solutions for overall organizational management.

Zoho lets you send customizable payment receipts to your donors as a token of appreciation, which can improve your relationships and lead to prolonged support. In addition, you can send multi-lingual invoices and sign them to prevent invoice forgery, giving your donors a sense of security.

This simple church accounting software has a range of features and can even help you accept donations in multiple currencies, which is ideal for organizations with overseas operations. Additional features like budgeting and unlimited custom reports are excellent, though they only come with higher-tiered plans.

Pricing

Zoho Accounting offers a comprehensive free plan and a two-week free trial that’s ideal for testing the features of its premium plans. To unlock its task management tools, we suggest opting for Professional, one of its more expensive plans, which offers numerous advanced features.

Whichever premium plan you opt for, Zoho Accounting will provide invoicing, reporting, online payments, and a member portal, among other features.

You can try Zoho Accounting risk-free today, thanks to its 14-day free trial.

3. Xero — Comprehensive, Customizable Analytics for Organizations of All Sizes

Xero offers a modern, intuitive platform for churches seeking to enhance their financial management processes and access real-time data on their budget and performance. Its exceptional analytics capabilities can help you understand the impact of invoices and bills and quickly view your short-term cash flow.

With its most expensive plan, you can access its Analytics Plus feature, which offers an event-planning solution for small churches with a limited budget. Analytics Plus uses AI to make predictions based on your performance in the past, which can help you plan future events and investments accordingly.

Using its free trial, we tested its Analytics Plus feature to check its suitability for organizations of all sizes and how easy it is to customize. We were impressed with how easy it is to manually add and remove transactions as you plan ahead.

In addition, it provides in-depth explanations of how each previous transaction influenced its prediction-making process, giving you a deeper understanding of your cash flow.

Besides analytics, Xero excels at sending invoices. The platform allows you to set up automatic reminders for your contributors, meaning you won’t have to follow up on invoices. In addition, you can use its invoicing features on the go, thanks to its well-designed mobile apps.

Xero integrates with numerous third-party apps that offer additional functionality for churches, nonprofits, and charity organizations. One notable app is Gusto, one of the best payroll software programs, which provides a reliable way to pay your church staff, especially for larger organizations.

If Xero does have a downside, it’s the fact that its large toolset can take a bit of time to learn – naturally, it’s worth making the investment to get the most out of the product.

Pricing

Xero offers three subscription tiers for its accounting services, but only its most expensive plan has Analytics Plus. With its cheapest plan, you’ll have access to its invoicing, short-term cash flow predictions, and expenses, which makes it an excellent pick for smaller religious organizations.

You can try Xero risk-free today, thanks to its 30-day free trial.

4. Sage — Exceptional Automation for Accounting Processes

Sage can improve your religious organization’s financial management and processes, whether you have a local or global audience and membership. Its cloud-based solution, Sage Intacct, can help you fully automate various processes, from resource allocation and assets management to scheduled financial reporting.

This accounting software is ideal for churches with multiple distinct entities as it can help them centralize their financial reporting and streamline other processes, such as consolidations, accounts payable, and expense management.

Sage makes this data immediately visible with real-time reporting at an entity or global level, making it the best church financial software for large religious organizations.

Thanks to its exceptional automation features, Sage can help your church staff save time on administrative work. For example, you can set up Sage to automatically track and categorize donations, ensuring the funds go to the right programs and making it easier to maintain accurate records.

Many churches have recurring contributions and expenses, such as monthly tithes and utility payments, which Sage can automatically record, reducing the need for repetitive, manual work.

Sage can transform all your financial data into comprehensive reports with a single click. You can also automate these reports at specified intervals so they’re always ready for review, whether for audits, board meetings, or donor updates.

Although Sage has a slight learning curve, as it offers numerous advanced features that can overwhelm beginners, it has helpful and responsive customer support teams who can answer your questions. In addition, it has an always-available resource center that has lots of guides, tutorials, training materials, and more.

Pricing

Sage doesn’t disclose the pricing for most of its plans, including Intacct, our top pick for churches. That means you’ll need to contact its sales team and describe your needs and preferences, and Sage will provide a quote and installation tailored to your needs.

5. Bonsai — Reliable Accounting and Task and Time-Tracking Features

Bonsai is among the best church accounting software products for small churches looking to improve workforce management. It can help small organizations with their time and financial management, and it delivers a modern, well-designed UI with numerous features churches can benefit from.

While testing this all-in-one platform, we found it to be one of the most straightforward tools to use, which means church staff with varying technical experience could quickly adapt to it. However, don’t let its simplicity fool you, as it’s one of the best accounting software programs, and many nonprofits and businesses opt for it.

Bonsai is an invaluable tool for churches with staff members who receive payments based on their hourly rates. Its time-tracking features can help you track their billable hours and turn them into organization-wide timesheets to stay on top of your future expenses.

Thanks to its feature-rich mobile apps, Bonsai also lets you use these features on the go, which is convenient for employees working in the field.

Another area that Bonsai excels in is improving your communication with your audience and community. It offers customizable templates for invoices, forms, and questionnaires, allowing you to tailor them to convey your vision and message.

For example, you can send surveys with custom fields that give multiple-choice responses or free-form answers to best capture your audience’s input.

In addition, its scheduling features can help your donors with an online payment option and simplify tracking and projecting your staff’s availability.

Bonsai is geared toward smaller organizations, and you will need to pay more for functionality like automations – and it’s certainly true that other solutions offer a wider range of integrations. That said, unless these are going to make a big difference to your use of the service, it likely won’t be an issue.

Pricing

Bonsai has a transparent pricing structure that offers three tiers of services. Unlike most of its competition, even its cheapest plan lets you send unlimited invoices, making it a budget-friendly solution.

However, you’ll have to subscribe to one of its more expensive plans to integrate your Calendly scheduling with Bonsai and use its workflow automations.

Thanks to its 14-day free trial, you can try Bonsai risk-free today.

6. QuickBooks — In-Depth Reports, Analytics, and Tracking Features

QuickBooks is the best accounting software for churches and nonprofits looking to simplify their inventory, staff, and financial management. Its inventory-tracking capabilities make QuickBooks an exceptional pick for churches operating a gift shop selling religious materials or books.

Utilizing its inventory-tracking and other features, such as budgeting and expense tracking, lets you convert all the data into in-depth reports you can share with your donors, members, or stakeholders with a single click.

In addition, its centralized record-keeping allows you to efficiently forecast your organization’s cash flow for up to 90 days.

QuickBooks makes receiving and managing donations simple by syncing your bank with its church fund accounting software. It can help you raise funds more efficiently by offering credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, checks, or cash payments.

In addition, if you’re already using software like DonorHub, Fundly, or DonorPerfect, you can simply integrate it with QuickBooks, so all your data is in one place.

With QuickBooks for churches, you can also ensure compliance and prepare for tax time. Although religious organizations are generally exempt from income tax, that’s not always the case, and QuickBooks can help you keep everything sorted to prevent legal risks.

We used its free trial period to test some of its features and were positively surprised by how it handles reporting.

Its customization goes in-depth to provide versatile reports, such as on financial position, income, and functional expenses, making it one of the best accounting software products for nonprofit organizations looking for a reliable solution for official reports.

Pricing

QuickBooks offers four feature-rich plans suitable for religious organizations of all sizes looking to improve their financial management. However, if you’re interested in its inventory management and reports, you’ll need its more expensive plans, Plus and Advanced.

QuickBooks offers a generous 30-day free trial, which means you can try its services risk-free today before committing to a subscription.

7. Melio — Simplify Accounts Payable and Invoice Payments

Melio is a versatile accounts payable and accounts receivable solution for businesses of all sizes, which offers an efficient way for churches and nonprofits to handle their financial transactions and bill payments.

Although it’s not a typical all-in-one accounting solution, Melio is the best free church accounting software addition that integrates with other popular tools, such as QuickBooks online for churches.

This free church financial software can help your religious organization handle utility bills, rent or mortgage payments, vendor payments, and expenses related to ministries or outreach programs.

It imposes no fees on ACH bank transfers and allows you to pay online even where credit cards aren’t accepted, saving time and enhancing payment accuracy.

Based on our experience with Melio, it’s a straightforward church finance software. It has a large dashboard and separate menus for transferring money and organizing ways you can accept donations.

In addition, you’ll find options for managing a contacts log, contacting its customer support, and connecting Melio to full-featured accounting solutions.

One invaluable benefit Melio offers to churches and nonprofits is the flexibility for your donors with their payment options. Melio can help you create professional invoices with a personal touch that resonates with your community with a built-in pay button.

Your donors and members can then choose their preferred payment option without signing up for Melio, and the contributions will go straight to your bank account.

In addition, Melio tracks pending payments from the moment you email the contribution request to it landing in your account. That means you’ll always have cash flow clarity, which is invaluable for future projects and community events.

Pricing

Melio has transparent fees that apply on a per-transaction basis, and it’s free to sign up. Its generally low fees and free ACH transfers make it an exceptional payment solution and a helpful addition to the full-featured accounting software you may already be using.

You do need to monitor your costs, though – if you handle a lot of card payments, the fees can add up.

8. APLOS — Impressive Budgeting and Resource Management Features

APLOS is the best nonprofit church accounting software for budgeting – an essential feature for religious organizations. It allows you to create detailed budgets, allocate resources to different ministries and projects, and monitor spending. That means you can align your organization’s spending to its mission.

It also offers features that allow you to track and manage multiple funds separately, putting it among the best church fund accounting software.

For example, you can track general funds, mission funds, and building funds simultaneously, ensuring your contributions are allocated correctly and allowing you to generate financial reports for each fund.

Online giving tools are a standout feature of APLOS, and they encourage generosity within your community with online donations. APLOS lets you attach a widget to your website to allow its visitors to securely donate without leaving the website or create an account to set up recurring payments.

Enabling digital donations adds convenience for your members and donors as they can use their preferred payment method on the go. In addition, you can allow people to give to your general fund or pick between other funds, such as a building fund or a specific ministry.

You can set up APLOS to send an automated email receipt to each donor after they give and customize them to match your church branding and message.

Besides donations, APLOS helps you sell event tickets online for churchwide or ministry-specific events. Selling individual or group tickets allows you to track people’s activity and attendance on their contact profiles to monitor the success of your projects, making it one of the best church database software applications.

Pricing

APLOS offers three pricing plans suitable for small-to-large-sized churches, and its cheapest plan is free for the first 15 days. However, it doesn’t disclose its pricing, meaning you’ll need to contact its sales team for a quote that suits your organization.

While its cheapest plan may fit small churches, we suggest opting for its most expensive plan if you manage multiple entities.

9. Wave — Comprehensive Free Church Accounting Software

Wave is the best church accounting software with payroll, as it offers in-house payroll features and free access to accounting and invoicing solutions. It’s a cloud-based solution, meaning you can access your accounting software and financial information wherever you are.

Besides streamlining your financial processes, Wave offers a unique advising service that’s ideal for beginners. Its experts can help you quickly master complex bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll processes, which can be invaluable for churches dealing with taxes and numerous staff members.

Wave’s small church accounting free plan makes it an exceptional pick for budget-conscious organizations looking for an accounting and invoicing solution. However, most churches and nonprofits use Wave because of its reliable payroll features that don’t require a third-party app integration.

Its payroll solution offers direct or check deposits and automatically creates payroll entries for each run, reducing your administrative hours.

For your church staff and members, Wave offers a self-service portal that lets them manage their contact and banking information and access their pay stubs and W2s, improving employee satisfaction.

Besides payroll information, Wave keeps your expenses, donations, and service records in one place. That allows you to generate detailed reports to check your organization’s financial health, including year-end reports for tax time responsibilities.

While testing its interface and features, we found the ability to add your accountant to your Wave account as a limited user to be an extremely useful feature.

Pricing

Wave won’t charge you for its invoicing and accounting features, but its advanced services, including payroll and mobile receipts, require a monthly subscription.

It has an in-house payment processing service that charges a flat fee of 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction or 3.4% + $0.60 per AMEX transaction. Wave charges 1% per transaction for bank transfers, with a minimum of $1.

10. Xendoo Online Accounting — Expert Assistance With Tax, Accounting, and Bookkeeping

Xendoo is a superb church bookkeeping software solution for churches requiring expert assistance with record-keeping, tax filing, and other accounting tasks. That means Xendoo will assign a team of professionals to handle your financial management, leaving you more time to invest in the community.

To help you make an informed decision, we read dozens of church accounting software reviews for Xendoo, and most first-hand reviews praise the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of the service while filing taxes.

Xendoo guarantees accuracy and uses tried and tested strategies to find deductions and keep your organization tax-ready throughout the year.

Even with the best software, small church bookkeeping and accounting can be intimidating for inexperienced users. Xendoo helps you overcome this issue by providing a team of experts to handle your financial management, deliver detailed reports, and assist with cash basis accounting.

One standout feature Xendoo offers is its catch-up bookkeeping. Regardless of how long you’ve neglected your books, Xendoo’s team of professionals will bring your financials up to date, ensuring your organization is ready for tax season.

This feature is invaluable for churches founding additional entities or branching out to new communities. Maintaining up-to-date financial records and books in such cases might take a back seat, leaving your staff over-encumbered with administrative work.

Although Xendoo lacks some advanced features our other top picks offer, it seamlessly integrates with tools like Xero or QuickBooks. In addition, you can add Gusto to its platform for accurate payroll runs or Stripe to offer a full suite of payment options to your donors and members.

Pricing

Xendoo has a transparent, straightforward pricing structure that consists of a flat monthly fee for its services. Besides its three pricing plans, Xendoo charges $395/month for catch-up bookkeeping and offers custom pricing for organizations looking for a custom plan.

While it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for its Essential, Growth, and Scale plans, it issues no refunds for catch-up bookkeeping.

Key Factors to Consider When Selecting Church Finance Software

The best church management software is the backbone of financial operations, handling donations, expenses, budgets, and more. Because of that, finding church management systems that fit your organization’s needs and requirements is essential.

To help you make an informed decision, we’ll list some crucial factors to consider before you commit to a subscription, whether you’re looking for church payroll software or small church accounting software for free.

Ease of Use

The best accounting software for church needs shouldn’t be complicated because staff members often have varying levels of financial expertise. Consider software with a beginner-friendly interface and simple navigation and data entry.

An intuitive platform design can help your staff members streamline administrative tasks, giving them more time to focus on the church’s mission.

In addition, church environments that require collaboration or management of multiple entities should consider software with enhanced accessibility. Features like simultaneous access and real-time updates are invaluable for larger teams handling projects, budgeting, and communications with donors.

Features

Ideally, your accounting program will categorize costs, monitor spending against budgets, and provide in-depth financial reports. For churches with staff, consider accounting tools with robust payroll features, including the ability to calculate salaries, taxes, and deductions accurately.

Alternatively, look for church accounting systems that integrate with reliable payroll or other church management software.

Donation management is a cornerstone of church finances, meaning your accounting software should offer robust donation-tracking capabilities. That includes contribution recording, categorizing, and accurate donation receipt generation.

Consider solutions that enable online payments and allow your donors to select their preferred payment method and donate to a specific fund.

Scalability

Scalability is crucial for growing churches expanding their congregations, ministries, and community outreach efforts. That type of growth means your financial data and reporting needs may become more complex.

Consider solutions that effortlessly accommodate these changes, ensuring their performance remains consistent and responsive as data volume increases.

Look for accounting software that offers customizable reports and financial processes, allowing you to manage your religious organization on an entity level or as a whole. In addition, the accounting software should have the option to add new users, providing flexibility for personnel changes.

Security

Using a single platform for financial data management and housing is convenient but carries inherent risks. Consider solutions with multiple layers of protection against unauthorized access to keep your sensitive financial data, donor information, and contribution records safe.

Security measures to look for include authentication measures, such as two-factor authentication and user permissions. Since churches often involve various volunteers and third-party staff in financial management, setting up user permissions allows them to control who has access to specific financial data and functions.

Other Accounting Software Guides

Beyond church finance software, the world of accounting software encompasses a wide array of specialized solutions that meet the needs of different organizations.

Whether you’re managing business finances or are an individual looking to enhance your financial control, the following guides can help you select the right accounting software for your needs:

• Best Accounting Software
• Best Accounting Software for Nonprofits
• Best Self-Employed Accounting Software
• Best Accounting Software for the UK
• Best Home Accounting Software
• Best Restaurant Accounting Software

Conclusion – What’s the Best Accounting Software for Churches in 2023?

Whether you’re looking for an all-in-one financial management program or an accounting tool that excels in specific aspects of church management, we’re confident our list has a solution for religious organizations of all sizes.

However, after thorough research and a head-to-head comparison of the providers on our list, we picked FreshBooks as the best church accounting software. It offers affordable plans and comprehensive features for various church processes, from donation tracking to workforce management.

In addition, its excellent automation allows you to reduce manual administrative work to a minimum, leaving more time for you to invest in the community. FreshBooks offers a lengthy 30-day free trial period, which means you can try it risk-free today.

Church Accounting Software Program FAQs