Bookkeeping for churches
Outsourced church bookkeeping for congregations of every size. Clergy housing allowance, designated and donor-restricted funds, guest-speaker 1099s, bill pay, and a live fund-level dashboard your elders can actually read.
We work closely with church finance teams — from 50-member plants to multi-site congregations — on bookkeeping, payroll with housing allowance, designated-fund tracking, and board-ready reporting. We coordinate with your CPA on tax filings as needed.
QuickBooks Online · Gusto · Ramp — professional liability insured — month-to-month, 30-day notice
Pick a time right here — no prep required.
Churches have bookkeeping needs most firms have never touched. Designated funds. Restricted giving. Clergy housing allowance. Love offerings. Benevolence funds. 1099s for guest speakers and worship leaders. Our books account for every one.
What changes with TurnkeyCFO
Every church we serve gets a custom financial dashboard built around their fund structure — not a generic chart of accounts.
See a Live Church Dashboard →Every service below is built for how churches actually run — tithes, funds, clergy, volunteers, board accountability.
Accurate categorization for tithes, offerings, designated gifts, and program expenses. Full monthly close package with P&L, balance sheet, fund balances, and written commentary your elders and finance team can actually use.
Pastoral payroll set up correctly from day one — housing allowance designated before payment, clergy dual-status handled, quarterly 941 coordination with Gusto or your existing payroll provider.
Guest speakers, worship leaders, and contractors tracked from the first payment. W-9s collected, thresholds monitored, and year-end 1099-NEC information returns prepared and filed on the church's behalf — separate from income-tax filings, which stay with your CPA.
Vendor bills, facility costs, ministry reimbursements, and receivables handled so your admin team isn't chasing approvals and the books close on time every month.
Donor-restricted gifts (missions, building fund) tracked as net assets with donor restrictions per ASU 2016-14. Board-designated funds (benevolence reserve, capital reserve) tracked separately within net assets without donor restrictions. Release-from-restriction entries recorded as purposes are fulfilled — so your board sees every fund's live balance, not a quarter-late spreadsheet.
Most churches are exempt from filing Form 990 under IRC §6033(a)(3)(A)(i). If your ministry runs a school, a separate 501(c)(3), or another entity that does file, we keep books 990-ready year-round and hand a clean package to your CPA — governance info, program-expense allocations, and schedule support included.
A custom command center for your senior pastor, elders, and finance team — real-time giving, spending, fund balances, and KPIs. Mobile-ready so your leadership sees the numbers before the monthly elder meeting, not after.
Tax filings (990 series) and legal matters — coordinated with your CPA or attorney. TurnkeyCFO does not provide tax or legal advice; we keep your books filing-ready and support the process end-to-end.
The day-to-day realities most bookkeepers have never touched. We have.
Designated in advance, capped at the lesser of three values, SE-taxable.
Excluded from W-2 Box 1 wages up to the lesser of (a) the amount designated, (b) actual housing expenses, or (c) fair rental value of the home, plus furnishings and utilities. Full designated amount is still subject to SE tax (Social Security & Medicare) unless the pastor has an approved Form 4361. Any designated-but-unspent portion becomes taxable income on the pastor's return — we track actuals monthly.
W-2 for income tax, self-employed for SECA.
Ministerial earnings aren't subject to FICA — clergy pay SECA on the self-employed side. Payroll is configured accordingly, housing allowance is recorded separately from W-2 Box 1 wages, and pastors often elect voluntary income-tax withholding on a W-4 (sometimes extra withholding to cover SECA) — we set that up. Form 4361 SECA exemption (narrow, irrevocable) coordinated if applicable.
Two different net-asset classes — per ASU 2016-14.
Donor-restricted gifts (missions, building fund) tracked as net assets with donor restrictions. Board-designated reserves tracked within net assets without donor restrictions. Release entries recorded as purposes are fulfilled.
Compensation to clergy. Policy-driven for members.
Personal gifts to clergy are generally treated as compensation when the church collects, processes, or encourages them — added to W-2 wages and run through payroll. Truly private person-to-person gifts not handled by the church are a separate matter the donor and recipient should discuss with their CPA. Benevolence to members in need follows a board-adopted written policy with case-by-case documentation.
W-9 at booking. 1099-NEC by Jan 31. 24% backup withholding if W-9 missing.
Payments tracked against the $600 threshold; when a vendor refuses or fails to furnish a valid W-9, we flag the payment for 24% backup withholding and coordinate remittance through payroll/AP. 1099-NEC filed by January 31 to both the recipient and the IRS.
Budget vs. actuals by fund. Elder-ready every month.
Chart of accounts built around your fund structure, monthly budget-vs.-actuals by fund, and elder-ready dashboards. Bank and giving-platform reconciliation (Planning Center, Pushpay, Tithe.ly, Subsplash) so every deposit ties to a class.
“Phenomenal working with TurnkeyCFO — our finances have never been clearer.”
Unlocked visibility into giving trends, fund balances, and ministry spend we'd never had before — now we lead with insight instead of guessing.
Dakota Lead Pastor · Heirloom Church“You have been unbelievably helpful!! THANK YOU.”
Cleaned up multi-fund nonprofit books across programs and cut monthly close from 3 weeks to under a week — with donor-ready reporting our board can actually use.
Christy Director · Village of Hope Maui“I finally feel like I have a real finance partner for our church.”
Housing allowance set up correctly from day one, designated funds tracked by class, and an elder-ready dashboard that changed how our leadership makes decisions.
Church Finance Team Kingdom City ChurchSimple, fast, and designed not to burden your finance team.
We learn your church — size, staff, fund structure, current software, pain points. No sales pitch.
We connect to QuickBooks (or your platform), clean historical data, and map your fund structure.
Monthly close package, custom church dashboard, and housing allowance / 1099 / close workflows running clean.
No — we work alongside your CPA. We keep books clean and filing-ready year-round so your CPA can file Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N without a month of cleanup. If you don't have a CPA, we can recommend one who understands churches.
Most churches are exempt from filing Form 990 under IRC §6033(a)(3)(A)(i), so the church itself typically doesn't file. If your ministry operates a school, a separate 501(c)(3), or generates unrelated business income that does trigger a filing, we don't file taxes — we keep books 990-ready year-round and hand a clean package to your CPA.
We serve churches starting at 50-member plants. If the budget is tight, we scope to what actually moves the needle — typically monthly bookkeeping, payroll with housing allowance, and a lightweight dashboard — and grow from there. The Instant Estimate below gives you a real range before any call.
We handle it. 15-minute intro call, then we connect to QuickBooks, review historical data, map your fund structure, and run in parallel for one month if there's active cleanup. Most churches are fully transitioned within 2-3 weeks without a gap in the books.
Yes. Everything lives in QuickBooks Online, Gusto, and Ramp — the same enterprise-grade platforms thousands of churches already use. Access is role-scoped per team member, credentials are never shared by email, and we maintain professional liability insurance.
Month-to-month engagement, 30-day notice. No multi-year contracts. We keep clients because the work is good, not because the paperwork traps them.
The board designates it in writing before payment. We record it outside W-2 Box 1 wages up to the lesser of the designated amount, actual housing expenses, or fair rental value of the home plus furnishings and utilities. It remains subject to SE tax unless the pastor has an approved Form 4361. Clergy wages aren't subject to mandatory income-tax withholding; voluntary withholding can be elected on a W-4. We work with Gusto and most major payroll providers.
Gusto (or your payroll provider) files the 941 each quarter. We make sure wages, clergy treatment, and housing allowance feed the return correctly and we reconcile it to the books — bookkeeping and payroll operations, not tax preparation.
Each designated purpose — building fund, missions, benevolence, youth — is tracked as its own net-asset class with a live fund balance. Your board sees exactly what's given, spent, and remaining in each fund at any time.
QuickBooks Online is our primary platform. We also work alongside Gusto for payroll, Ramp for expense management, and the church giving platform of your choice (Pushpay, Tithe.ly, Planning Center, etc.).
Our instant estimate takes about 60 seconds and gives you a real price range based on your church size, staff count, and complexity — not a generic number. Tap any "Instant Estimate" button on the page to open it.
Use the estimate above to see a real price range, then book a 15-minute call to talk through fit and scope. No pressure, no sales pitch.