Fund accounting · CRA receipts · Made in Canada
Accounting software built for churches
Every dollar stays in its fund. Sunday giving goes in by envelope number. Receipts come out CRA-ready. Sharp enough for the accountant who keeps books for a dozen congregations, friendly enough for the treasurer who hands them over.
No credit card. Your books stay yours — export anytime.
Why churches outgrow business software
General-purpose books make the treasurer do the translating
QuickBooks and Sage are fine products. They were just never built for a congregation. Donors become "customers." Funds get faked with classes and tags, and nothing stops the Building Fund from quietly going negative. Receipts need a third-party add-on and a prayer.
Funds are a workaround
Business software tracks one pool of money. Churches steward several. Classes and departments can label transactions, but they can't force each fund to balance on its own.
Receipts live somewhere else
Official donation receipts have CRA rules attached. In general-purpose software that means exporting donor data to yet another tool every February.
The vocabulary fights you
Invoices, SKUs, customers, sales tax codes. A volunteer treasurer shouldn't need a translation table just to record the Sunday offering.
Fund accounting
Every dollar knows which fund it belongs to
Funds aren't a label in Vestry. They're the foundation. Each entry balances within its fund, so restricted money can't drift into operating expenses — the ledger itself won't allow it. When someone asks "how much is actually in the Building Fund?", the answer is one glance, not an afternoon.
Giving & receipts
Sunday counts in minutes, receipts done by January
Batch entry is built for the counting team: type an envelope number, an amount, hit enter, next. Cash, cheque, e-transfer, and pre-authorized giving all land in the right fund. At year end, Vestry generates one official donation receipt per donor with the registration number, serial numbers, and wording the CRA expects.
Month end & reports
Close the month, print the packet, go home
Reconcile the bank with a checklist, not a shoebox. When the statement matches, Vestry produces a reconciliation report your finance committee can actually read, plus the balance sheet, income statement by fund, budget versus actual, trial balance, and a full general ledger. The annual review becomes a download.
Posted entries can't be edited after the fact. Corrections are made by voiding and reversing, so the audit trail tells the whole story. Your reviewer will notice. Ours did.
The honest comparison
Should you just use QuickBooks or Sage?
Maybe. If your church runs a bookstore, a daycare, and payroll for forty staff, a general-purpose package with a paid bookkeeper might serve you well. For everyone else, here's the short version.
| What churches need | Vestry | QuickBooks Online | Sage |
|---|---|---|---|
| True fund accounting | Built in, enforced per entry | Classes as a workaround | Departments as a workaround |
| CRA official donation receipts | Built in | Third-party add-on | Third-party add-on |
| Envelope & batch giving entry | Built in | Manual sales receipts | Manual entry |
| Speaks church, not retail | Funds, giving, members | Customers & invoices | Customers & invoices |
Built like a ledger should be
Double-entry underneath. Plain language on top. Nothing you can click will break the books.
- Full double-entry ledger with a running audit trail
- Posted entries are permanent; fixes are void-and-reverse
- Period locks stop edits to months you've already closed
- Gapless numbering on entries and receipts
For accountants who serve congregations
Every client church, one login
If church books are part of your practice, you get your own seat here, not a borrowed login. Each congregation is its own workspace with its own funds, receipt sequence, and year end. You move between clients from a single login, and your access is free — the church subscribes, you don't.
The ledger holds the line you'd hold yourself: posted entries are immutable, corrections void and reverse, periods lock at close. Trial balance and general ledger come out clean. Review season stops being archaeology.
| Grace Chapel | Reconciled |
| St. Aidan's | 2 to review |
| Knox Fellowship | closed thru Jun 30 |
| Your accountant seat | Free |
Next step
See your church's books the way your treasurer will
Open the demo, poke around a real set of church books, and decide for yourself. No card, no sales call.