---
title: Overview Finance
description: "The ChurchTools finance module offers an accounting solution for small and medium-sized churches. **Note** The financial module can currently be booked by churches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland. This means that anyone can make transactions from anywhere.…"
url: "https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/finance/overview-finance/"
updated: "2026-06-26"
category: Finances
---

# Overview Finance

The ChurchTools finance module offers an accounting solution for small and medium-sized churches.

**Note**

The financial module can currently be booked by churches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Finland.

This means that anyone can make transactions from anywhere.
**Anyone**: Both the experienced bookkeeper and the department manager who wants to make bookings for their department, such as the book table or the café.
**Anywhere**: Anyone can securely log in to ChurchTools as usual from anywhere and get started.

When you navigate to the Finance module, you’ll first see an **overview** of *recent income*, *expenses*, *donations*, and the *largest donations from the past 31 days* (1). Income is always displayed in green, expenses in red, and amounts that are neither income nor expenses (e.g., transit entries) are displayed in gray.
You’ll also see the *budgets for all cost centers and accounts* (2).
Use these tiles to quickly switch to *bookings* (6) or *budgets* (7).

Above the overview on the right-hand side *[you can quickly enter new bookings](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/transactions/how-to-enter-transactions-using-the-expert-view/)* (3), *change the client and posting year* and *[close a posting year](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/how-do-i-close-a-fiscal-year/)* (5).

Via the 2nd menu level above, you can also switch to the *bookings* (6) and *[budgets](https://staging.churchtools.academy/de/help/churchtools-module/stammdaten/30-wie-lege-ich-budgets-an/)* (7), but you can also view the *[account statements](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/transactions/using-bank-statements-well/)* (8) can also be displayed.

Under *[Reports](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/budgets-reports-and-purposes/what-reports-are-available/)* (9) you will find, for example, the balance sheet and profit and loss report.

Under *Donors* (10) you can see an overview of all donors and [create donation receipts](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/donations/19-how-to-create-donation-receipts/).

On the right-hand side of this level, call up the *[Master data](https://staging.churchtools.academy/de/help/churchtools-module/stammdaten/uberblick-der-stammdaten/)* (11) of the finance module, where you can create new [clients](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/19-how-to-add-a-new-client/), [posting years](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/19-how-to-add-a-new-accounting-year/) and [charts of accounts](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/how-to-set-up-an-account-chart/), among other things.

[![Screenshot Finance Overview](https://staging.churchtools.academy/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Finance_Overview.png)](https://staging.churchtools.academy/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Finance_Overview.png)

## Permissions for the Finances module

You assign the permissions for the Finances module *globally* with the following permissions:

- View Finances (view)
- View accounting years and clients (view accounting period)
- Creating and Editing transactions for the Accounting Year and Client (edit accounting period)
- Edit master data (edit masterdata)

In addition, you can give members the following *group-internal* permissions for their groups in order to work with the person responsible for finance:

- View budgets in associated cost centers
- View transactions and budgets in associated cost centers
- View donors in associated cost centers
- Create transactions for linked cost centers

## Read more

- [Principles of proper accounting (GoBD)](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/other-finance/principles-for-proper-accounting/)
- [Overview of master data](https://staging.churchtools.academy/de/help/churchtools-module/stammdaten/uberblick-der-stammdaten/)
- [How to make bookings in the expanded view?](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/transactions/how-to-enter-transactions-using-the-expert-view/)
- [How to enter donations](https://staging.churchtools.academy/de/help/churchtools-module/spenden/30-wie-buche-ich-spenden/)