Free church accounting software that actually does fund accounting
Most "free" church accounting is a spreadsheet that can't track funds, a general tool that isn't built for churches, or a trial that runs out. Vestrybooks has a real free plan — keep the books, track funds, and take online giving with a $0 platform fee, for $0 a month.
No credit card · a plan, not a trial · your data is yours to export
What "free church accounting" usually means
Three things hide behind the word free — and what each one costs you later.
A spreadsheet
Free, but you build fund tracking by hand and it breaks the first time a restricted gift gets miscoded. No donor records, no giving statements, and one wrong formula hides for months.
Free general accounting
General-purpose free tools (like Wave) do basic bookkeeping, but they don't do fund accounting, don't track giving by donor, and aren't built for a church's year-end statements.
A free trial
Most church software offers a 14–30 day trial, then it's paid. That's not a free plan — when the trial ends, so does your access. Vestrybooks Free is a plan you can stay on.
What you get on the free plan
The free plan isn't a stripped demo. It's enough to run a small church's books honestly — real fund accounting, giving records, and online giving included.
- Record money in and out, free forever
- Real fund accounting (restricted vs. general)
- Donor list and giving records
- Online giving with a $0 platform fee
- Preview your year-end giving statements
- Your data is yours — export anytime
Where the free plan ends (and that's fair)
Free keeps your books and takes giving. The two things on the paid plan are the ones that save a treasurer real work at year-end: one-click, IRS-ready year-end giving statements and bank-feed matching (reconcile against the bank automatically). Those are Core, at $25/mo — and your price is locked for life. You can preview the statements on the free plan first, so you know exactly what you'd be paying for. See the full plans.
Common questions
- Is the free plan really free, or a trial?
- A real plan. You can stay on it forever with no credit card. (Separately, the paid plans come with a 30-day free trial — when that ends, you drop to the free plan, never locked out of your books.)
- Can free software really do fund accounting?
- Yes — that's the point. The free plan does real, double-entry fund accounting behind a simple dropdown, so restricted gifts stay separate without a spreadsheet of formulas.
- What about QuickBooks — isn't that the free option?
- QuickBooks isn't free, and it has no native fund accounting — you bolt funds on with Classes. See using QuickBooks for churches for the trade-offs, or the full church accounting software comparison.
- What does it cost to take giving on the free plan?
- Nothing extra to us — online giving has a $0 platform fee. You pay only the payment processor's standard per-gift rate, the same on free or paid.
Start free, stay free
Real fund accounting and $0-platform-fee giving, for $0 a month. Upgrade only when year-end statements are worth $25.