With more churches becoming “businesses” in the sense that they often need to track income and expenses, it only makes sense that the old days of ledger books and excel spreadsheets are going away as a means of tracking the financial status of a church. But, what should you look for in the software for your church and how much can you expect to pay for the software that provides what you need?
Many companies are realizing the churches are in a special situation for their financial tracking software that they use due to the numerous sources of income from tithes, donations and asset income. Not to mention the fact that many of those same churches are non-profit organizations and dealing with the complicated tax codes can really throw a loop into the equation. Now, you put expenses into the mix as well with salaries, utility and building costs, vehicles, supplies and more and it becomes more evident that a specialized church financial software package is really what is needed.
There are many different brands on the market these days that promise lots of different functions and abilities for tracking. From ease of use to custom reports, the issue arises that most offer a “base” package of the software with modules or other addons to the system to fit specific needs. This is where the software can become really expensive.
Choosing the right software for your church can be pretty easy, but it might take a little time to do so. One of the best sources of information that you can find is the other church right around the corner from you. When you are looking into different software packages, check with the other churches in your area. Chances are that one of them can, or would be willing, to either show you how theirs works or at least discuss what they like and don’t like about it. You can also check with your congregational association or national association of the denomination that your church is affiliated with. Sometimes companies will work with a denominational association for discounts or more.
Church financial software is more than just accounting software for churches these days. Many of them can track your congregation, sermons, membership rosters and even your library. You can also contact many of the vendors directly as some of them do offer a trial period of the full version of their specific software that you can evaluate prior to making a decision.
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