Church accounting software that keeps each fund separate, with 2026 prices

A church’s books have to keep each fund’s money apart. The building fund, the missions fund and the benevolence fund (money set aside to help people in need) each hold money that givers gave for that purpose, and the treasurer has to show at any moment how much is left in each. Keeping the funds apart is called fund accounting, and it is the first thing to check in any software a church uses for its books.

Every price on this page was read off the company’s own pricing page on October 12, 2026.

What the software has to do

Year-end giving statements usually come from the church management system that records each gift, so check whether your accounting and your giving records live in the same program.

Prices

ACS Financials, from ACS Technologies, publishes no price.

Aplos

Aplos is built for churches and other nonprofits, and every plan includes fund accounting. Lite, at $79 a month for two users, covers the books and the balance sheet by fund. Core, at $129, adds budgets, bills to pay, money owed to the church, recurring entries, closing a month (locking it so its numbers cannot change), and connections to other software, and Advanced costs $229 a month with three users.

PowerChurch

PowerChurch Plus is a Windows program a church buys once for $445, with no limit on the number of people who use it, and upgrades cost $175. It holds membership and contributions as well as the books. PowerChurch Online runs in a browser for $47 a month or $499 a year for two people working at once, and two more cost $29 a month. PowerChurch offers a demo that holds a limited amount of your own data, and no free trial.

ChurchTrac

ChurchTrac includes fund accounting in every size of its church management plan, from $29 a month for 75 names to $119 for unlimited names. A church that wants its members, its giving and its books in one program at the lowest price should start here. ChurchTrac offers an optional paid setup of the books, starting at $399.

IconCMO

IconCMO sells accounting alone or with its membership software. The Standard accounting plan costs $35 a month or $385 a year for one user, and Premium costs $45 a month or $495 a year for five users and adds bills to pay and money owed to the church. IconCMO’s pricing page does not mention fund accounting, and its page for churches says the software “includes true fund accounting that tracks restricted and unrestricted funds separately,” so confirm it in the trial.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks has no fund accounting of its own. Churches use its classes, a label put on each transaction, to stand for funds. Classes come only with the Plus plan, which lists at $140 a month and allows 40 classes, and the Advanced plan, which allows any number.

TechSoup, a nonprofit that distributes donated software to charities, offers QuickBooks Online Plus for an $80 yearly fee and Advanced for $170. TechSoup allows one donated subscription per organization, ever, and payroll is not included. Check your church’s eligibility on TechSoup’s page before you plan on the price.

Our guide to fund accounting in QuickBooks Online shows how to set up the classes and the chart of accounts, the list of categories every transaction is sorted into.

Wave and Xero

Wave’s Starter plan is free, and Pro costs $19 a month or $190 a year. Xero’s plans run $27, $59 and $97 a month after a discount for the first three months. Neither one has fund accounting or classes built for it, so a church using them keeps each fund in its own set of accounts and adds them up by hand. Both suit a very small church with one or two funds and a treasurer who already knows the program.

IRS rules the books have to meet

IRS Publication 1771 covers giving receipts. It says a giver “cannot claim a federal income tax deduction for any single contribution valued at $250 or more” without a written acknowledgment from the church. The acknowledgment names the church and the amount of each cash gift, and it describes any gift that was not cash without giving it a value. It also says that the church gave nothing in return, or that it gave only “intangible religious benefits,” or it describes what the church gave and makes a good-faith estimate of its value. One annual statement can serve for the whole year. The publication says charities typically send them by January 31. When a payment of more than $75 is partly a gift and partly a purchase, such as a $100 ticket to a fundraising dinner, the church owes the giver a written statement. It says that only the amount above the value of what they received is deductible, with a good-faith estimate of that value.

Here is what that statement looks like for one giver, and the free tool prints one for every giver from a spreadsheet of gifts. Type a giver and three gifts to see the total.

Free tool you can try here

See a giving statement

Type a giver and three gifts. The real tool does this for every giver from one spreadsheet.

This free tool is made by Hamilton Holdings LLC, the company behind Covenant OS, and published on Church Posting.

Church name

Giver

Gift 1

Gift 2

Gift 3

Cedar Hill Baptist Church

Contribution statement for 2026

Michael and Hannah Brooks

Total gifts	$700.00

The church provided no goods or services in exchange for these gifts, other than intangible religious benefits.

Use it free

The tool is free, reads your spreadsheet without it leaving your computer and opens with your church name.

The second rule is the Form 1099-NEC, which a church sends to a contractor it pays. The IRS raised the amount that triggers the form from $600 to $2,000, “for payments made after December 31, 2025.” A church that pays a contractor $2,000 or more during 2026 sends the form in early 2027. A church that paid a guest preacher or a cleaning company $600 to $1,999 in 2026 no longer reports it on that form, unless the church withheld tax from the payment.

These are summaries of IRS publications. Ask your church’s accountant how they apply to you.

How to choose

For a church under 100 people with one bank account and two or three funds, ChurchTrac or Wave will do. When a finance committee or an audit needs a full fund ledger, try Aplos and IconCMO side by side. If your treasurer already knows QuickBooks, apply to TechSoup and set up classes before the new year begins.

Whatever you choose, start it on January 1, so a whole year sits in one program.