Most small churches are way ahead of the curve when it comes to technology! They are usually blessed with top-notch people dedicated to doing great things for our Lord. They do everything from website administration and social media, to blog writing and real-time communication. As a result I always get questions from churches and small ministries about what software they should use.
Have you recently started a small church? I’m talking about a group of people meeting in homes or rooms. Maybe the title of your church is ‘Body of Christ’, or something like that. You might be wondering what kind of software you should use to manage your ministry.
Your church has an important mission, and doing your bookkeeping shouldn’t get in the way. Using the right church accounting software helps you get your church bookkeeping done quickly and accurately, so you and your administrative staff can get back to the things that matter most to your ministry. Here’s all the info you need to choose the best accounting software option for your church.
» MORE: NerdWallet’s best small-business apps
QuickBooks Premier: Best desktop church accounting software for small churches
We typically recommend QuickBooks Online for small businesses, but that is not the case for small churches. If your church is on the smaller side, QuickBooks Premier, with its nonprofit capabilities, may be your best small church accounting software option.
Why do we recommend QuickBooks Premier — a desktop-based product — instead of cloud-based QuickBooks Online? Primarily, it’s because of donor reporting functionality. Although you can employ workarounds to make QuickBooks Online work for your church’s accounting needs, QuickBooks Online doesn’t provide any donor reporting, nor will it print end-of-year donation statements. QuickBooks Premier does both with minimal effort.
Using a desktop product like QuickBooks Premier means you lose the flexibility of anytime, anywhere access to your accounting records, unless you choose to pay for a hosting service like Right Networks. However, the functionality you gain with QuickBooks Premier — and the time you’ll save at year-end makes this inconvenience negligible for most small churches.
QuickBooks Premier requires a one-time purchase of $499.95, but nonprofit organizations can typically receive a significant discount if they purchase through TechSoup. If you need church accounting software with payroll capabilities, QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll is available for $31.50 per month plus $2 per employee per month.
QuickBooks Premier add-on: Breeze
As your church grows, you might find you need more functionality than QuickBooks Premier offers alone. In particular, your growing church will need to manage volunteers and events, enable online giving, and possibly even run email campaigns.
Enter Breeze, a web-based church management software for small and medium-sized churches. Breeze is not a full accounting software, but it does produce most of the reports your church leadership will want. If you want a full church accounting software solution — and we do recommend using one — Breeze bridges the gap between QuickBooks Premier alone and more robust (and costly) church-specific accounting and management software.
You can integrate Breeze with QuickBooks Premier, or as this article on Breeze’s website explains, you can also make manual entries into QuickBooks — or any other church accounting software.
Breeze costs a flat fee of $50 per month for unlimited users, unlimited members, and all their features, including support, the Breeze smartphone app, and all upgrades — making it one of the most affordable church management options on this list.
PowerChurch: Best all-in-one church accounting software for small to midsize churches
Founded in 1984, PowerChurch Plus is one of the most established church accounting software programs on the market. PowerChurch Plus is a desktop-based church accounting software, but the company also has an online option: PowerChurch Online. Unlike QuickBooks where the desktop and online versions of the software differ considerably, PowerChurch Online is an actual installation of PowerChurch Plus on PowerChurch’s servers.
PowerChurch is a complete church accounting software, membership management, and recordkeeping system for your growing church. If you need more functionality than the core program offers, you can purchase additional add-ons, such as to handle check-ins or mass mailings. Keep in mind though, this will raise the price of your church accounting software — but if you were paying for these things anyway, it can streamline the process to get them all from the same provider.
The PowerChurch user interface isn’t anything fancy — in fact, it harkens back to the accounting software of 20 years ago — but it does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it well. However, one downside to PowerChurch is that it’s not form-based like QuickBooks; instead, it assumes a basic understanding of double-entry accounting–including which accounts are normally increased by credits or debits — making the learning curve a bit steep for someone with no prior accounting knowledge.
PowerChurch Plus is available for a one-time purchase of $395 if you download the software, or $415 if you order a physical disk for installation. Upgrades are an additional $159 for downloads or $179 for physical media. PowerChurch Plus only works on Windows PCs.
PowerChurch Online is $39.95 per month for two users, with the option to pay an extra $25 per month for every two additional users. If you opt for annual billing instead of monthly, you will save a marginal amount and pay $455 for the standard two-person license, or $275 per two additional users. All upgrades are included in this price, and you can use PowerChurch Online on any computer with an internet connection.
Aplos: Best cloud-based church accounting software for churches of all sizes
If you’re looking for a 100% cloud-based church accounting software option that will grow with your church, look no further than Aplos Church Software. Aplos Church Software is a cloud-based, all-in-one church management and accounting system that grows as your church does.
There are a number of pros to choosing Aplos Church Software:
- It was built by a CPA who is also a pastor, so the accounting behind the software is solid.
- It does true fund accounting, making it easy to manage your restricted funds.
- The all-in-one platform helps you manage everything you need as your church grows.
- It’s easy enough to use internally, but an assisted bookkeeping service is also available through Aplos.
Ranging from $24 per month for smaller churches to $199 per month for established congregations, Aplos Church Software’s pricing scales as your church grows, meaning you won’t overpay in your church’s infancy or outgrow the platform as your church matures. An Advanced Accounting option for larger churches is available starting at $179 per month (and requires an annual contract). Aplos Church Software will also work with you to create a custom church accounting software solution, known as their Thriving plan, which is quote-based.
If you’re looking for church accounting software with payroll, Aplos Church Software does not include payroll services in their own software, but they do integrate with Gusto for seamless and stress-free payroll management.
If you don’t have someone on your church’s administrative staff who is comfortable with accounting, Aplos has you covered with their bookkeeping service. Their team of specialized nonprofit bookkeepers will do all the accounting heavy lifting for you, starting at $300 per month without payroll or $400 per month for church accounting software with payroll and bill pay services included.
Realm: Church accounting software honorable mention
With a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Capterra, Realm deserves an honorable mention on our list of best church accounting software solutions. Users rave about Realm being user friendly and having amazing customer service — both important features for any church accounting software.
Realm can handle basically anything your church needs, from giving, to events, to accounting, and more.
Realm does not post its pricing on its website, but according to Capterra pricing starts at $29 per month. Pricing is based in part on weekly attendance, and you can easily configure your plan on Realm’s website.
Making the best church accounting software even better
Choosing the right church accounting software is important, but it’s only one part of the equation. Nonprofit accounting differs from general business accounting, and so it’s crucial to work with an accountant or bookkeeper who understands nonprofit accounting in general and church accounting in particular.
Even if a member of your congregation is a nonprofit accountant or bookkeeper, engaging a specialist to help with your church’s bookkeeping will likely be a sizable investment. We encourage you to make this investment a priority. Doing so can benefit your church in three ways:
- Your church’s leadership team and administrative staff will be able to focus on the church’s mission, not on the church’s bookkeeping.
- You will be able to reassure your congregants their tithes and donations are being used as intended. When congregants know their donations are used wisely, they are more likely to continue to donate.
- Your church will be able to manage the accounting tasks associated with programs like preschools and fundraising, ensuring these programs — and your ministry, are a success.
Free church management software
Free church management software is typically a limited version of a paid church management system. The two options you’ll learn about below offer several core features with limited capacity. These are viable options for very small churches with basic member directory needs and not much else. Vendors typically offer this type of pricing model with the goal of upgrading churches into one of their paid tiers as the church grows with the software.
ChurchTrac
4.7/5.0
430+ reviews
A member profile in ChurchTrac (Source)
ChurchTrac was founded in 2002 in Florida with hopes of providing software that makes church leaders’ jobs easier at a reasonable price. ChurchTrac includes features for membership management, donations, check-in, worship planning, church accounting, event planning, website management, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/yVyxKKwHbaU
Intro to ChurchTrac (Source)
What you get for free: ChurchTrac offers a free plan with membership management for up to 75 individuals, with family management, reports, directories, and tech support.
Cost to upgrade: With the $5/month Standard plan, churches can add online donation management, child check-in, attendance tracking, volunteer scheduling, event management, priority support, and more for up to 75 members.
With the $15/month Plus plan, churches can add everything in Standard plus financial management and accounting, advanced scheduling, worship planning, song library, and more for up to 75 members. Prices increase based on the number of members, and churches can get two months free with an annual commitment.
Have you used ChurchTrac? Leave a review here.
Planning Center
4.7/5.0
960+ reviews
Donations management in Planning Center (Source)
Planning Center may have a secular sounding name, but it is 100% designed for churches from the ground up. The software was first developed in California in 2006 by two full-time church leaders scrambling to stay on top of all facets of worship planning, from scheduling volunteers to preparing music by manually updating spreadsheets. Planning Center claims to serve 90 of the 100 largest churches in the country, but also caters to small, neighborhood churches. The software itself is packaged as a collection of apps, from calendar and donations to publishing. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ApYhtmvlMW8
Intro to Planning Center (Source)
What you get for free: Planning Center’s free version includes an unlimited membership database with communication tools, a calendar with unlimited events and up to two meeting rooms, 15 daily check-ins, up to 10 monthly donations, small group planning for up to 25 members, event registration for as many as five attendees, and service planning for up to five administrators.
Cost to upgrade: Users can expand each application to accommodate the size of their congregation. For example, a 10-room calendar, 50 daily check-ins, 100 monthly donations, 125 small group members, 20 event attendees, and service planning for 25 administrators would cost a church $84/month. Publishing plans start at $14/month. All apps are optional and include a 30-day free trial.
Have you used Planning Center? Leave a review here.
Open source church management software
Open source church management software is completely free to download and use. In fact, users can even alter the code themselves to tailor it for their specific needs. So what’s the catch?
Open source church management software, like any open source software, requires the user to host (meaning that you’re responsible for storing the data), maintain, and update the software as necessary.
In other words, if the system crashes at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and you can’t retrieve your sermon notes, there won’t be a technical support team standing by to help you.
Open source church management software does offer some support, though it typically comes in the form of online documentation or community support forums.
ChurchCRM
5.0/5.0
2 reviews
The ChurchCRM home screen (Source)
ChurchCRM is built off of the ChurchInfo open source framework. Because it runs on LAMP, you can use it on any device with an internet browser, including tablets and smartphones. ChurchCRM also offers membership management for unlimited members, calendar, donation tracking, volunteer management features, and more. An active developer community is constantly working on new features, and is available for support via chat. https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMjZpo3aO5Q
Intro to ChurchCRM (Source)
Support: ChurchCRM offers support via GitHub and Gitter live chat.
Have you used ChurchCRM? Leave a review here.
ChurchInfo
3.2/5.0
4 reviews
A member profile in ChurchInfo (Source)
ChurchInfo is a free, open source database that helps your church manage and track members, groups, donations, and payments. It is supported by an open source community of volunteer developers who work to make it as accessible as possible to churches. It is a web-based solution, meaning that you can run it through any internet browser. https://www.youtube.com/embed/HqlLW8DR8YY
ChurchInfo installation walkthrough (Source)
Support: ChurchInfo offers support through a SourceForge discussion group and ticket system, as well as online documentation.
Have you used ChurchInfo? Leave a review here.
Why you should consider paid church management software
Hopefully one of the options we looked at above works out for you and your church. But if a free option isn’t right for you—whether that’s because it doesn’t offer enough functionality, capacity, or support—you should consider paid options.
While it’s always tempting to try and get something for free, the time and energy you spend attempting to make the “free” system work might be costing you more than the modest monthly fee for a paid solution in the long run.
You can use our church management software buyers guide to learn more about the market, then browse our church management software Top 20 report to see top options.
conclusion
The problem we’ve come across is a lack of integration with our main church website. So we’re looking at another free solution that works with WordPress (we’re actually moving from Joomla to BuddyPress to provide a social network for the church). The plugin church_admin provides a full church database solution which is integrated with WordPress user accounts where needed. It also provides for groups, ministries, attendance tracking, rotas and more besides, though lacks the custom reporting capabilities of Jethro, has more limited Pastoral note keeping, and doesn’t include online service planning. But it’s email and SMS communication capabilities are slightly easier to work with. Read more here … https://wordpress.org/plugins/church-admin/ and here: http://www.churchadminplugin.com