7 Best Church Accounting Software Applications for 2023

A good church accounting software should provide helpful insights about your church’s finances through reports. It must also have features that let you account for every transaction using church accounting standards. In choosing software, here are things to consider:

• Pricing: As an entity that generates revenue only through donations, considering the price is a major factor. Software providers come at different prices, and you should pick the one that’s not heavy on a monthly or yearly basis. Moreover, you may also consider providers that base their prices on the member or family count.
• Accounting features: Church accounting uses different accounting standards from for-profit entities. Your church accounting software of choice must comply with these standards to make it easier to generate reports. If it’s general accounting software, the software must be flexible enough to be converted for nonprofit and church accounting use.
• Church features: Including church features within the accounting software is a cost-efficient solution since you get two solutions in one software package. Although some church software focuses heavily on accounting, you should weigh in on the factors further if you need dedicated church management software.
• Ease of use: The degree of difficulty in using the software will influence your productivity and efficiency in using the software. If your church has an in-house accountant, let them choose which software is easier to use for church accounting. Otherwise, choose a software that’s popular so that you can easily hire an external certified public accountant (CPA) or bookkeeper to do your monthly bookkeeping.

Aplos is our best overall pick because of its flexibility and feature set. It offers church management and financial accounting features in one software. It’s a well-rounded solution for religious nonprofits and churches that need church accounting features together with church management features like event registrations and donation management.

Churches that prefer desktop accounting can go for PowerChurch Plus. As a desktop software, you’ll only pay a one-time fee for the installation—no month-to-month contract. Moreover, PowerChurch Plus doesn’t need an internet connection to run, and you can install it on as many desktops or laptops in your church.

As our best small business accounting software, QuickBooks Online proves to be a flexible option for churches. By using class and location tracking, users can configure QuickBooks Online for church accounting. Another deciding factor for QuickBooks Online is the vast network of ProAdvisors who can help you set up and maintain the books. It would be a big plus if you can find a ProAdvisor who specializes in church and nonprofit accounting.

Xero is our QuickBooks alternative for unlimited users. It is more affordable than QuickBooks Online when comparing Xero Established vs QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced. Xero also has tracking categories that can help you track expenses by program service or function.

QuickBooks Premier Plus made it to this list as a great alternative to PowerChurch Plus in desktop accounting. Church and nonprofit accounting are similar, and getting the nonprofit edition of QuickBooks Premier Plus is a good accounting solution. QuickBooks Premier Plus Nonprofit already includes nonprofit-specific features, so you don’t need to modify them.

IconCMO provides a family-based pricing system unlike other software providers listed in this guide. Churches with few families don’t need to pay a fixed monthly fee regardless of congregation size. As the congregation grows, the pricing increases as well. Aside from scalability, IconCMO offers more extensive church management features than Aplos, such as Child Check-in and Allergy Tracking.

Wave is a free option for churches with very few revenue sources. If your church only needs to keep track of income and expenses, Wave’s features are enough. We recommend choosing Wave if your church doesn’t need complex accounting features and you don’t have multiple program services that you want to track separately.

We evaluated financial and accounting software for churches based on price and how they meet the needs of small- to medium-sized churches, such as tracking donations. We prioritized systems tailored for use by churches and took into account the flexibility that general-use software can give an experienced bookkeeper. Finally, we considered a software’s ability to integrate with church management software.

A church accounting system is software that helps churches manage contributions, donations, and grants. It can also be used to track income and expenses from fundraising events, generate nonprofit reports, and account for the daily administrative costs of the church. Church accounting is unique because it must utilize fund accounting, which separates funds available to the church for general and specific purposes.

QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced are the two plans that can be configured for church accounting. Moreover, QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit is the desktop counterpart if you prefer desktop accounting software.

Churches aren’t for-profit entities, so the financial statements are different, at least in the naming. The profit and loss (P&L) statement for churches is called the Statement of Activities and the balance sheet for churches is called the Statement of Financial Position. Churches and nonprofit entities also have a special financial statement called the Statement of Functional Expenses.