It happened on a Tuesday. Our treasurer of 12 years — Ate Coring, a retired accountant from Makati — handed in her resignation letter after a disagreement with the board. By Wednesday morning, the pastor was staring at four unlabeled binders, two Excel files nobody could open, and a handwritten ledger that covered 2019 to 2021.
The First Month Was Chaos
We had a building fund drive coming up in six weeks. Donors were asking for year-end giving summaries. And nobody — not even the secretary who had been with the church for eight years — could answer the basic question: how much money do we actually have right now?
We called three different people who had served on the finance committee in the past. Nobody had current access. The bank statements were in Ate Coring's email. The Xendit payout history was tied to her personal phone number.
What We Found When We Finally Got Access
After two weeks of detective work, we discovered the church had money in four different accounts — a current account, a savings account, a time deposit, and a GCash wallet someone had set up for emergency giving during COVID. None of them were labeled in any document we could find.
We had no idea what the building fund balance was versus general fund versus missions giving. It was all mixed together.
How StewardTrack Changed Everything
A ministry leader from another church in Quezon City recommended StewardTrack. Within one weekend, we had set up our chart of accounts properly — separating the building fund, general fund, and missions fund as distinct ministry funds. We mapped each bank account to a treasury account in the system.
The first time we ran a financial report and saw the breakdown by fund, the pastor actually teared up. "This is what I've been asking for for 10 years," he said.
The Lessons We Carry
- Financial records should never live in one person's head or personal devices
- Every treasury account needs to be documented and accessible to at least two leaders
- A proper chart of accounts is not optional — it is the foundation of everything
- Giving categories and expense categories must be set up before the fiscal year starts, not after
We eventually hired a new part-time bookkeeper, but now she works within StewardTrack from day one. Everything is in the system. Audit trail is automatic. No more binders.
"The best time to set up proper church accounting was 10 years ago. The second best time is today." — Our current finance committee chair
