Bookkeeping for churches and ministries — from someone who's stood in your pulpit.
I'm Chris Starn. I've kept books for four decades, and I've pastored a church. I know what it's like to preach on Sunday and then sit in a finance meeting on Tuesday where the giving is down and the roof needs work and everyone is looking at you.
That's a specific kind of weight. Church finances aren't just accounting — they're trust. Every dollar in your accounts was given by someone who believed it would be handled faithfully. Getting the books right is part of keeping that promise.
Who I work with
Small and mid-sized congregations, church plants, and independent ministries across Northeast Indiana, and remotely elsewhere.
Typically between 75 and 400 in attendance — big enough to have real money moving through, small enough that there's no full-time finance staff and the treasurer is a volunteer with a day job.
If your treasurer is doing their faithful best in a spreadsheet at 10pm on a Tuesday, we should talk.
What church books require that business books don't
A general bookkeeper can reconcile your checking account. That's not the hard part. Here's what actually goes wrong.
Fund accounting that actually holds
Your general fund, building fund, missions fund, and memorial gifts are not one pot of money with labels on it. Designated gifts carry a legal and moral restriction — if it was given for the roof, it goes to the roof. I set up true fund tracking in QuickBooks Online so you can answer "how much is actually in the building fund" without anyone doing math on a napkin.
The failure mode here is quiet and serious: a church spends restricted money on general operations without realizing it, and by the time anyone notices, the money is gone and the donors have questions.
Designated versus undesignated giving
Someone writes "missions" on a memo line. Someone else gives $5,000 for a specific family. Someone pledges to the campaign and pays over eighteen months. Each of these is recorded differently, and each carries a different obligation. I build the recording procedures and train whoever counts the offering.
Contribution statements donors can actually use
Accurate year-end giving statements, out on time, with the acknowledgment language the IRS requires for deductibility. This is the one financial document most of your members will ever see from you, and a sloppy one costs you credibility with the people who fund everything.
Clergy pay, done right
This is where most churches get into trouble, and it's the area I know from both sides of the desk.
Your pastor has dual tax status: an employee for income tax purposes, but self-employed for Social Security and Medicare. That means the church does not withhold FICA from a minister's pay — it never has and it shouldn't. But non-minister employees, the secretary and the custodian and the childcare staff, are ordinary employees with ordinary withholding.
A housing allowance has to be officially designated in advance and in writing, as a definite amount, before the payment is made. It cannot be decided later or reconstructed at year end. And the excludable amount is the lowest of three things: the amount designated, what was actually spent on the home, or the fair rental value of the home including furnishings and utilities. Whatever exceeds that goes on the pastor's return as excess allowance. It's excluded from income tax and still subject to self-employment tax.
If your board designated the housing allowance in March for the year that started in January, that's a problem worth fixing before December.
A benevolence fund that won't cost you your exemption.
Helping a family with rent is ministry. Doing it without a written policy, an application, and documentation puts both the church's exempt status and the family's tax situation at risk — and paying a benevolence gift to someone who is also an employee generally makes it taxable compensation. I'll help you build the policy and keep records that would survive a hard look.
Internal controls that protect the people you trust
Two unrelated counters on every offering, a signed count sheet, someone other than the depositor reconciling the bank statement, and a second signature above a set dollar amount. These aren't accusations. They're what keeps a good person from ever having to be suspected, and what keeps your insurance and your board comfortable. In most of the churches I've seen, one person does all of it, and nobody ever meant for it to end up that way.
Payroll and the filings nobody told you about
Quarterly 941s when you have non-minister employees or a minister who has elected voluntary withholding, W-2s with the housing allowance reported correctly, 1099s for the guest speakers and the worship musicians, and Indiana withholding including local income tax.
The Indiana filings churches miss most
Form NP-20R, every five years.
To keep your Indiana sales tax exemption, your organization must file the Nonprofit Organization's Report by May 15 every five years through the state's INTIME portal. This replaced the old annual NP-20, and because it only comes around twice a decade, it is the single easiest thing in Indiana nonprofit compliance to forget. I track it.
Indiana DOR, Nonprofit Tax Forms and the Indiana Nonprofit Tax Guide
Form NP-1 for exempt purchases.
Once the state accepts your NP-20A application you receive Form NP-1, which is what you give a vendor to buy without paying sales tax. Keeping current copies on file with your regular suppliers saves real money over a year.
Indiana DOR, Nonprofit Tax Forms and the Indiana Nonprofit Tax Guide
Form 136, property tax exemption.
Indiana property tax exemption for churches is not automatic. The owner has to file a certified Form 136 with the county assessor, in duplicate, on or before April 1 of the assessment year. Churches have genuinely lost exemptions on procedure alone.
Indiana DLGF exemptions presentation and Faegre Drinker on Indiana church exemption procedure
What you don't have to file:
Churches are excepted from the annual Form 990 that most tax-exempt organizations must file. That's real relief — and it's also why so many churches have no external financial discipline at all. Nobody is making you produce a clean annual picture, which means you have to want one.
IRS, Filing Requirements for Churches and Religious Organizations
What working together looks like
Every week, not every month.
I'm in your books weekly — reconciling, coding, catching what slipped. Not scrambling in January.
Monthly statements your board can read.
Statement of Activity (Income statement), Statement of Financial Position (balance sheet), fund balances, budget-to-actual, and a plain-English summary of what it means. Written so a board member who sells insurance for a living can follow it, because that's who reads it.
Ready for your annual meeting.
When you stand up in front of the congregation and report on the year, you'll have numbers you can defend and a story you can tell.
Answers within 2 to 12 hours. Text or email. You get me, not a ticket.
Behind on the books?
What this costs
Most churches that call me are somewhere between three months and three years behind, usually after a treasurer moved away or stepped down. Sometimes there are two sets of records that don't agree.
That's a normal first conversation. No lectures. I price catch-up work as a separate flat-fee project so you know the number before we start, and then the monthly service keeps it from happening again.
Ongoing bookkeeping starts at $250 a month, flat. Catch-up work is quoted separately as a fixed fee after I've seen what's there.
I'll also say this plainly: if your congregation is small and money is genuinely tight, tell me on the call. I've been on the other side of that budget. We'll figure out what's realistic.
Start here
A free 30-minute call. We'll talk about where your records are, who's handling what, and what the next steps look like. You'll leave with a written one-page plan whether or not you hire me.
Or call or text 260-246-7803
Questions churches ask
Do we need an audit?
Most small churches don't, unless your bylaws, your denomination, or a lender requires one. What most churches actually need is a clean annual review and real internal controls — which costs a fraction of an audit and prevents most of what an audit would catch.
Can you work with our denomination's reporting requirements?
Yes. Send me the forms your district or conference expects and I'll build the books so those reports come out of the system rather than getting reconstructed by hand.
Our treasurer is a volunteer. Does this replace them?
No, and it shouldn't. It takes the technical burden off them so they can do the part that actually needs a member of the congregation — oversight, presenting to the board, and being a trusted set of eyes. Most volunteer treasurers are relieved.
We use something other than QuickBooks.
I work primarily in QuickBooks Online. If you're on a church-specific platform, tell me which one on the call and I'll be straight with you about whether I'm the right fit.
Is our giving information confidential?
Yes. Individual giving records stay confidential, handled on secure platforms, and I don't discuss who gives what with anyone — including, unless your policy says otherwise, the pastor.