At some point, usually right after a treasurer transition or a board member asking an uncomfortable question in a meeting, someone says the words out loud: maybe we should have someone look at the books. Not an audit — nobody wants to say that word, it sounds expensive and vaguely accusatory — just someone qualified, from outside the church, taking an honest look at a year of records and telling you what they see.
That instinct is a good one, and it is more achievable than most small churches assume. You do not need a big firm or a five-figure engagement. You need a CPA who has seen nonprofit or church books before, a few hours of their time, and a clear idea of what you are asking them to do. Here is how to find that person, what to hand them, and what a fair price actually looks like.
Decide what you are actually asking for
Before you call anyone, get specific about the scope, because “can you look at our books” means something different to every accountant who hears it. A financial review is a lighter engagement: an accountant reads through a year of records, checks that categories make sense, that bank statements reconcile to what is reported, and that nothing looks structurally off, then gives you a written summary of findings. An audit is a much deeper, formal engagement with testing of individual transactions and a signed opinion attached — the kind of thing a bank, a denomination, or a grant agency sometimes requires by name.
Most churches in the 60-to-250-person range asking “should we get our books checked” actually want a review, not an audit, and saying that word specifically when you call around will save you from a much bigger quote than you need. If a denominational body or a lender has explicitly required an audit, say that up front too — it changes who you can hire and what they will quote.
Start with people who already know your church
The fastest path to an affordable, competent reviewer is rarely a cold search. Ask around your own congregation first: a member who works in accounting, even in an unrelated industry, often knows someone in public accounting who does nonprofit work on the side or at a reduced rate for a church. Ask other pastors in your area or your denominational office — most regions have one or two CPAs who have quietly built a small practice around exactly this, reviewing books for a handful of local congregations every year. They already know the vocabulary of restricted funds and designated giving, which saves you the time of explaining it.
A denominational or association office is worth calling even if your church is independent-minded about most things. These offices often keep an informal list of accountants who have done this work for other member churches, precisely because the question comes up often enough that someone started keeping notes.
Look for nonprofit experience specifically, not just a CPA license
Any licensed CPA can technically read a set of financial statements, but church and nonprofit accounting has its own quirks that a small-business or personal-tax accountant may not have seen: fund accounting, restricted versus unrestricted funds, the way contribution records need to line up with year-end giving statements, and the fact that a church often has no traditional revenue at all in the way most businesses do. When you talk to a candidate, ask directly: have you reviewed books for a church or nonprofit before, and can you describe one, without naming it? A confident, specific answer tells you more than a resume line.
It is fine, even smart, to ask for one reference — not a named church, since some CPAs will not disclose client relationships, but a description of the kind of organization and what the engagement involved. A CPA who has done this work comfortably before will not be bothered by the question.
Get a flat-fee quote before you agree to anything
Accounting fees can vary widely by region and by firm size, and an open-ended hourly rate is how a simple review turns into a surprising bill. Ask for a flat fee for a defined scope — a full calendar year of records, one written summary of findings, one follow-up call to walk through it. If the accountant cannot quote a flat fee because they genuinely do not know what they will find in your records until they look, ask for a not-to-exceed ceiling instead, so you know the worst case before you start.
Expect the quote to depend heavily on how clean your records already are. A church that has been tracking giving carefully all year with organized categories and reconciled statements will cost far less to review than one reconstructing a year from a shoebox of receipts and a spreadsheet nobody updated since March. If your records are the second kind, it is worth spending a few weeks cleaning them up yourself before the CPA's clock starts, since your own unpaid time is cheaper than their billed hour.
Hand over records the reviewer can actually use
Whoever you hire will move faster, and charge less, if what you hand them is organized rather than raw. At minimum, plan to provide a full year of bank statements, the giving records with contributions categorized by fund, the check register or transaction ledger, the prior year's budget alongside actual spending, and copies of any board minutes touching financial decisions from that year. If your church has moved off spreadsheets and into a system that exports clean records, this step is an afternoon of pulling files. If it has not, budget real time for it, because a CPA who has to reconstruct your year from scratch is billing you for that reconstruction.
Churches still moving off spreadsheets or in the middle of cleaning up a messy database often find the review process itself is what finally forces the cleanup, since an outside deadline motivates work that has been postponed for a year. That is not a bad way for it to happen, even if it is not the tidiest.
Know what a good review actually produces
A useful review does not end with a vague verbal “looks fine.” It ends with a short written summary: what was examined, what looked consistent with good practice, and anything — a gap in documentation, an unclear approval process, a fund that was not tracked separately — that should be addressed. That document is worth as much to your board as the review itself, because it becomes the record that shows a congregation its finances got an outside look, on a specific date, with specific findings.
Some findings will be small and easy: label a fund more clearly, get a second signature on a check-signing policy, tighten up how reimbursements are approved. Take those seriously even when they feel minor, because a review's real value is catching small gaps before they compound into larger ones. If your church has been reading giving trends and preparing year-end giving statements from the same underlying records the reviewer examines, those two processes and the review will agree with each other, which is exactly the kind of consistency an outside reviewer is looking for.
Set a rhythm instead of treating this as a one-time event
The churches that get the most out of an outside review are the ones that do not wait for a crisis to prompt it. Decide now, before the current urgency fades, how often you will repeat this: every year for a larger congregation, every two or three years for a smaller one, or triggered automatically by a treasurer transition regardless of the calendar. Write that decision into your board minutes so it survives a change in leadership. A review that happens once and is never repeated tends to get remembered as an overreaction to a specific worry rather than what it should be: routine good governance.
SundayBridge will not replace the CPA in this process — it records and reports on giving, it does not produce an audited financial statement or file anything on your church's behalf. What it can do is keep a full year of giving records, categorized and exportable, sitting in one place instead of scattered across a spreadsheet, an old system, and someone's email inbox, which is exactly the kind of organized starting point that makes a reviewer's job faster and your bill smaller.
Finding the right accountant is mostly a matter of asking the right people the right question, in the right order: your own congregation first, your denominational office second, and a direct, specific conversation about nonprofit experience before you agree to a fee. Do that, and a task that sounds intimidating from a distance usually turns out to be one afternoon, one honest conversation, and a document your board can point to the next time someone asks whether anyone has ever actually checked.