Church Financial Management Software

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I pastor church of 100 members. Shopping for inexpensive software for our Treasurer. Don't need bells and whistles, just to simplify management of income and outgo and budget matters. Thanks to Anyone with expertise and/or experience! Pastor T

-- Anonymous, December 31, 1998

Answers

I need to find the same thing for our church (about 70 members). If you find something good, would you please let me know. I am mostly looking for something to keep track of tithing and create statements at the end of the year.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 1999

I have been treasurer at my church for about 12 years now. We've grown from a budget of <$100000 to >$500000. I currently use Quicken to keep track of income, expenses and budgets. It is only about $50 for the deluxe version. There are few tricks that need to be done with regards to keeping multiple funds in a single checkbook (eg. memorial funds, organ funds and general funds kept in same account). Overall have been happy with it. Quickbooks might be better since it can handle payroll issues also. I built my own set of Excel spreadsheets to track payroll. Our church uses one the large integrated packages (forget the name, but it is expensive) to track membership, attendance and giving records. We didn't get the financial module since I'm using Quicken. Maybe the person getting the job next will change.

-- Anonymous, January 13, 1999

Hey guys... I work at Logos Research Systems, Inc. We used to sell a product called Membership Tools, but we sold the marketing rights to Concordia Publishers. You might want to give them a ring. I think Parson's may have a good program along the same lines, but I haven't made a point of keeping track. Concordia's toll free number is 800-325-2399.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 1999

Look at the site, Vian.com for information on an $85 software program for churches. They offer a free download for you to see if the programs meets your needs. I am not endorsing it, but I am going to try the download. What is there to lose except a little time.

Good luck in saving money.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000


I am the Senior Warden (business manager) for an Episcopal church with a membership of about 90. We are also searching for a similar product. We have been using a package called PowerChurch for about three years, and are now ready to make a change. We found PowerChurch to be not so user friendly for some applications and tedious in many respects. It works well for keeping member data, profiles, and contribution records. However, the financial functions are not easilly set up, reports and other printing tasks are very tedious, and it is very hard to correct a mistake in the ledger. Probably this software would work well for somebody with a strong accounting background, but it does not serve the purpose for volunteer staff with a frequent turnover or shared responsibilities. We are in the process of switching to Quick Books Basic 2002. Hopefully this will meet our needs. At least we know we can find local resources who are familiar with the software.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2002


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