Tracking expenses

Giving tells you what came in — Finances is where you keep track of what goes out. Log an expense, snap the receipt, and Psalmly rolls it into your fund balances and a board-ready report. You'll find it under Finances in the admin sidebar, just below Giving. It's free on every plan, and it's admin-only — members never see your expenses.

Finances is deliberately not accounting software. There's no double-entry, no reconciliation, nothing to configure — just a clean record of your church's spending that you can export for your treasurer or accountant any time.

Money in comes from Giving

Across the top of the page you'll see Money in, Money out, and Net for the period you're viewing. Money in is read straight from your giving records — online gifts and any cash and checks you've recorded — so there's nothing to re-enter here, ever. If you need to log Sunday's plate, that happens in Giving; see Recording cash and check gifts.

One thing to know about the Net figure: a month where you spent more than came in shows a simple minus — calmly, in plain text. Small churches run deficit months all the time (a building season, an annual insurance bill), and Finances treats that as normal, not as an alarm.

Recording an expense

Click Record expense and fill in the short form:

• Receipt — optionally attach a photo or PDF. Receipts stay private to your admins and are shown from the entry later, so the paper can go in a drawer.
• Amount and date — what was paid and when.
• Vendor / paid to — who the money went to ("Hobby Lobby", "City of Austin Utilities").
• Category — pick one of nine simple categories: Supplies, Facilities & utilities, Worship & music, Events & hospitality, Missions & benevolence, Office & admin, Staff & honoraria, Equipment, and Other. The list is short on purpose — it's enough to make a useful report without turning into a chart of accounts.
• Fund — if the expense came out of a specific fund (say, the building fund), tag it here so that fund's balance stays honest. Anything else can stay Unassigned / general, the default.
• Payment method and a note — both optional.

Saving is instant, and the expense appears at the top of your ledger right away.

Scanning a receipt

On paid plans, Psalmly AI can read the receipt for you. Attach the photo, press Scan receipt, and the amount, date, vendor, and a suggested category fill themselves in. A scan is a head start, not a finished entry — give each field a quick look, especially the category, before you save. Nothing is recorded until you confirm.

On the free plan the scan control becomes an upgrade hint — entering the details by hand works exactly the same and always will.

The expense ledger

Every expense you've logged lives in the table at the bottom of the page. It follows the date range you've picked up top (this month by default), and you can narrow it further by fund, by category, or by searching the vendor or note. Click any row to see the full details, including the receipt — shown through a private, expiring link, never a public one.

Fixing mistakes

From an expense's details you can Edit it — the form reopens with everything filled in — or Delete it. A delete can be undone for a moment from the toast, so a slip of the finger isn't a crisis. Edits and deletes flow through your fund balances and reports automatically.

What Finances is (and isn't)

Finances is a record-keeping aid, not certified accounting. It won't reconcile your bank statement or file anything for you — but it will give your treasurer a clean, exportable record and your board a clear monthly picture. For the balances math and the report itself, see Fund balances and opening balances and The board report and exports.