Church budget software

Total annual income: $340,400
Pastor total cost, cash plus housing plus the SECA offset: $80,737.50
Other staff cost including employer payroll taxes: $41,610
Everything you spend on people: $122,347.50

The worksheet works entirely from the giving and payroll figures you enter about your own church. Any vendor price named on this site is read from that vendor's own pricing page on a stated date and recorded with its source.

Your numbers

Average weekly giving, dollars The plate and online together, averaged over the last twelve months.Weeks you count giving over Other annual income, dollars Building use, designated gifts, denominational support, anything that is not the weekly offering.Pastor cash salary, dollars a year Housing or parsonage allowance, dollars a year Designated in advance by the board. It is excluded from income tax and still counts for SECA.All other staff pay, dollars a year Employer payroll cost on non-clergy staff, percent Social Security and Medicare plus unemployment where the church pays it. Clergy are excluded: they pay SECA themselves.SECA offset you pay the pastor, percent of cash plus housing Many churches pay the pastor an extra amount to cover half the self-employment tax. Zero if yours does not.Building, utilities and insurance, dollars a year Ministry and programme costs, dollars a year Reserve you want to hold back, percent of income

The figures above are one church worked as an example ($340,400). Put your own giving, staff and building costs in and the answer follows as you type.

Download the Church budget software worked example (CSV)

The Sacristo workspace, Budgets and giving statements tab, with one saved sheet: Church budget 2027, Cedar Hollow Community Church, dated 2026-09-06, filed against the church and the 15 September payroll run, totalling $340,400.00. Its inputs are on screen: 6,200 average weekly giving over 52 weeks, 18,000 other annual income, a 54,000 pastor cash salary, a 21,000 housing or parsonage allowance, 38,000 of other staff pay, employer payroll cost 9.5 percent on non-clergy staff, a 7.65 percent SECA offset, 42,000 building and 16,000 ministry, holding back a 5 percent reserve. The answers read total annual income $340,400.00, pastor total cost including housing and the SECA offset $80,737.50, other staff including employer taxes $41,610.00, everything spent on people $122,347.50 or 35.9 percent of income, $17,020.00 held in reserve, $143,032.50 left, and weekly giving of $2,735.53 needed to break even. The left rail shows 3 households and 3 payroll runs. — What Pro kept here: the budget saved as reference BUD-2027-01 against the church and the payroll run it was worked for, alongside the three giving households and three payroll runs the same workspace holds.

The church budget worksheet works the year from the giving side and the cost side at once, and it counts the two things church budgets usually get wrong. The pastor's line is not the salary: it is the cash salary plus the housing allowance plus any SECA offset the church pays, and a board that budgets only the salary is short every year by the rest. The staff line carries employer payroll taxes on the non-clergy staff, which clergy are excluded from because they pay self-employment tax themselves. Put in your weekly giving, your staff, your building and your ministry costs, and it returns what people cost as a share of income, what is left after a reserve, and the weekly giving the budget actually needs.

What a church treasurer asks about the Church budget software

Why is the pastor's cost more than the salary? Because the housing allowance is compensation the church pays even though it is excluded from income tax, and because many churches also pay the pastor an amount to cover about half the self-employment tax, which a lay employee would have paid by the employer as Social Security and Medicare. Budget the salary alone and the line is short by both.

What is the SECA offset and does our church have to pay it? A minister is treated as self-employed for Social Security and Medicare, so the pastor pays both halves rather than the church paying one. Many churches make that up with an extra payment of roughly half the tax. It is a decision, not a requirement, and the worksheet takes zero if yours does not make it.

What share of income should go on people? There is no rule and the worksheet does not invent one. It returns your own share so the board can look at it against the building and the ministry and decide. What matters more than the percentage is that the number is known before the budget is approved rather than after.

Does this replace an accountant? No. It is arithmetic on your own figures. The clergy tax treatment it counts is described in IRS Publication 517 and your church's accountant decides how it applies to your pastor.

Where the constants in this tool come from

IRS Publication 517, Social Security and Other Information for Members of the Clergy and Religious Workers.

ChurchTrac pricing, tiers by number of people, read 2026-09-06.

Keep your church's payroll and giving in SacristoSee what your pastor actually costs