QuickBooks Nonprofit for Churches

When your church first got started, accounting may have been a fairly simple task that could be tracked in spreadsheets. However, as membership grows, so does your need for a more advanced accounting system. QuickBooks offers a nonprofit accounting software package that may be a good fit for a growing church.

QuickBooks Nonprofit is best for small churches with operating budgets of less than $1 million, that have different funds that need to be tracked separately, and that have no or small payrolls. It combines the convenience of QuickBooks with basic nonprofit functionality to provide smaller churches with an easy way to track donations, annual budgets, and has the ability to keep a handle on regular financial information.

Although the spreadsheets your church used were easy to understand and familiar, QuickBooks will save you time in the long run. Once the information has been entered in QuickBooks, all you have to do is tell QuickBooks what report to generate. The software also has a host of other useful features like tracking donors and contributions, creating personalized letters and envelopes for donors and preparing IRS Form 990.

QuickBooks Nonprofit is fairly pricey which may be an issue for some smaller churches with minimal budgets. However, if your church can manage the cost, using QuickBooks will more than likely end up saving them money over time with fewer staff hours devoted to accounting.

Nonprofit Software for Churches

If a church has not selected an accounting software package yet, this may be the treasurer’s first task. When getting started, it’s best to answer the following questions to help select the appropriate church accounting software:

1. What is the church’s budget for accounting software?

2. How much does technical support and program updates cost?

3. How user-friendly is the software?

4. Does the church need payroll capabilities?

5. Will the software package require additional hardware?

We covered QuickBooks Nonprofit in another blog, so here are a few other options for church accounting software:

PowerChurch – helps you organize Membership, Contributions, Accounting, Events, and general Record Keeping, with one complete package.

Aplos Software – made specifically for churches; it is inexpensive, you don’t have to install anything because it is web-based, and it is easy to use.

ChurchTrac – geared more toward tracking membership and contributions instead of the accounting side. It’s free for small churches that need to enter less than one hundred names.

Church Windows – efficiently handles the church receipts and disbursements, its budget and its employee payroll.

There are also many free, custom-created spreadsheets for tracking church specific expenses and contributions that can be found online. Whatever your church accounting needs are, you should be able to find an appropriate solution that will help make accounting easier.