We Are
Why Church Finance Central?
Church specialists
We understand the complexity of church bookkeeping, and the difficulties of church payroll. And we know what a struggle it is for volunteers to manage church finances.
Church Finance from start to finish. It’s our speciality.
Ministry minded
Good numbers are great, but gospel growth is probably where your heart and passion lie. We want to free up you and your team by ensuring:
- Smooth, efficient financial processes.
- Meaningful and practical financial reports.
- Strategic financial thinking to help you avoid your blind spots and focus on your strengths
Client Focused
Every client is special to us, from the smallest church plant to well-established congregations. As your partner, we value:
- Understanding where you’re at, and knowing exactly where you want to get to.
- Being attentive to your concerns and sorting out issues that affect you.
- Growing together with you for the short and long term.
Team based
Our team brings together a collective of skills and experience that we put to work for you. Having a team approach means that from us you have:
- More than one mind on the job.
- Backup and review.
- In depth knowledge of church best practices and solutions.
Action ready
When you are ready for help, we are ready to get started. We’re not just about planning and strategy (though we love these!), we’re also about doing. Our team is at your service for:
- Regular full-service processing, reporting and review.
- One-off, partial, or temporary help (including setup, backlog and training).
- Strategy and advice, regular or project-based.
Flexibly integrated
We don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to what services we deliver to you. You may well have local resources that will still be doing various aspects of your accounts. We welcome this opportunity to partner in with your local team, meaning:
- You’re making effective use of local support.
- You’re not paying for what you don’t need
You’re getting the exact help you’re after.
Technology diverse
We see technology as a tool, not a tyrant. So, we use software and apps strategically to achieve efficiency and results for our clients. But we’re not locked-in to any particular setup, so we can:
- Work in with your existing setup and software.
- Help you transition to new systems as your needs change.
- Introduce innovative and effective options to you that will make it even easier for you and your team to focus more time on ministry and growing your congregation.
Security proactive
Cloud-based software is a wonderfully efficient reality of modern business. And while we enjoy the many benefits, we also take care to ensure we maintain:
- Cloud best practice and backup processes.
- Quality security procedures across the whole team.
- Clear Privacy and Data Breach policies.
Network partnered
As a well-established business we enjoy wonderful, collaborative relationships with other like-minded services. And it’s always a pleasure to share our network contacts when the appropriate need comes up. For you this means:
- A trusted resource to turn to for related referrals.
- Direct introductions to quality contacts in key areas like church administration or audit.
- A wider network outside our team.
Better Decisions
“Plans are established by seeking advice …” (Proverbs 20:18a, NIV)
We're here to help make your church's financial situation easy for leaders to grasp, and to assist you with payroll and financial management that makes this happen.
Being responsible to make church finance decisions can be taxing and time-consuming:
- Church accounts can easily get backlogged or become unreliable
- Finance team lacks clarity because figures are confusing
- Church is treasurer overwhelmed, frustrated or anxious
- Battling with mistrust and negative feedback
- Running out of time and volunteers, but there is still so much work to be done
- Non-compliance with ATO requirements
- Pastoral and ministry team “in the dark” on financial situation and what needs to be done
All this leads to difficult questions:
- How can we make good financial decisions for our church if we can’t see what’s really going on?
- How can we ensure that urgent and important tasks get done when we don’t necessarily have the time or experience to do everything?
"Multiple buildings, multiple ministries, multiple entities, tax deductible status - complicated and outside my speciality.
We recognised we needed help. I love that Exdia do have a focus on ministry and churches."
Jonathan - Lighthouse Church, Wollongong
Men's Breakfast at Lighthouse Church
Lighthouse Community Care were finalists in the 2023 IMB Bank Illawarra Business Awards Outstanding Community Organisation category
We offer you a practical solution to these problems:
- Regular, reliable processing of your bookkeeping and accounts
- Experienced handling of your payroll, superannuation and minister’s allowances
- Preparation and management of your ATO compliance like BAS, Single Touch Payroll and PAYG
So that your treasurer and finance team can experience:
- The peace of having a clear way to make the processing of the accounts achievable
- The freedom to make good decisions with the correct information each month
- Stability in financial management during times of change and handover
Building Disciples
"… go and make disciples of all nations …" (Matthew 28:19, partial, NIV)
By streamlining financial administration, we want to free uptime for your ministry team and reduce unnecessary distractions.
As a pastor, you want to do ministry. And you want your people to be focussed on doing ministry. But church money matters can sometimes detract from a gospel focus:
- Church financial management that doesn’t connect well with the reality of church life and ministry
- Conflicts and hidden agendas draining resources from evangelism
- Time-poor leaders feeling close to burn-out, but still having to attend to financial matters
- Struggling to find and train the right people for church finance, as it is often a position associated with high stress and turnover
The impact on pastors and leaders can be significant:
- How will this affect my family, my health, my ministry?
- Will we start losing people from ministry roles, or even from our church?
"Church finances are quite complex. We can be sure we're ticking all the boxes without having to know all the ins and outs ourselves. I would thoroughly recommend Exdia. I know they have a lot of experience with churches."
Ann - Pitt Town Anglican Church
Youth Group at Pitt Town Anglican Church
Pitt Town Anglican Church's 'Church Plus' is an outdoor service with Christmas carols, free food and drinks and free activities for the kids.
We are here to help you focus the bulk of your efforts on ministry by:
- Giving a simple, easy, impartial view of your church finances
- Implementing meaningful budgeting and reporting so that you can make better-informed ministry decisions
- Supporting and integrating with your church treasurer and finance/admin team to reduce training time, minimise turnover, and provide continuity when someone leaves or goes on holidays
- Freeing up time and headspace for gospel work
We want to ensure that your pastors and leaders can focus on ministry with minimal financial distraction.
Boosting Donations
“You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion …” (2 Corinthians 9:11a, NIV)
We want to help foster a positive trust and confidence amongst your members and team, with dependable processes and helpful information.
Getting clarity around church revenue and available funds is crucial. But perhaps your experience has not been ideal – does it feel as if you are:
- Always playing catch-up and can’t work out why?
- Often caught out unexpectedly short of funds and therefore thrust into financial crisis?
- Sensing an undercurrent of mistrust or disconnection that may be affecting people’s motivation to give?
- Battling old legacy revenue models that aren’t helping to encourage giving?
The resulting uncertainty may be all too familiar. You may be left with more questions than you have answers which makes it difficult to grow donations at your church:
- Are we running out of funds without realising … and then needing to let staff go with very little notice?
- How can we gain a clarity and foster a culture that motivates giving?
Access Orthotics donates to Lighthouse Church's Kids Hub
We will work with you to:
- Implement a clear, impactful revenue model and strategy
- Develop a consistent, balanced approach to maintaining financial reserves
- Regularly analyse financial viability and raise “red flags” so you have time to pre-empt problems by putting the right strategies in place
- Integrate tools and processes that inspire your team and congregation to give
- Clearly present the financial “big picture” so it ties in with your vision and helps you achieve your goals to grow your ministry