Who Signs the Checks? Separating Financial Duties in a Church of 40

You started a church to preach the gospel and love people, not to design financial controls. So when the offering comes in on Sunday, the most natural thing in the world happens: one trusted person counts it, deposits it, and maybe even signs the checks that pay the bills. It is efficient. It is simple. And in a church of 40, it feels like overkill to do anything else.

Here is the hard truth, though. The single most common place a small church gets wounded is not the pulpit. It is the money. Not because your people are dishonest, but because when no structure exists, both theft and false accusation have room to grow. The question in the title is not rhetorical. Who signs the checks in your church? If the answer is "just me" or "just her," this article is for you.

Why one person handling the money is a governance problem

Most planters and revitalizers skip the boring foundational work, and the churches that skip it pay for it later, in financial chaos, legal exposure, or a fight that splits the church. Financial controls are not accounting minutiae. They are governance. They are walls around the ministry: not glamorous, but protective.

Consider the two churches the source describes. One launched with great preaching and real community but ran money through the pastor's personal account, kept no records, and had no board. When a founding family left at 80 people and claimed the church owed them, there was no structure and no documentation. The conflict became a lawsuit, and the church folded within a year. The other church spent its first month on the unglamorous stuff, including a dedicated bank account and basic financial controls. When it hit conflict at the same size, its records showed integrity, and it kept growing (now over 200 and planting). Same passion. Different foundation. Opposite outcome.

Controls protect the church from theft, yes. But they also protect the honest person from ever being accused. That is a gift you give your most faithful volunteer.

The control structure for a small church

When the source talks about financial controls, it means the control structure, not the budget. Four pieces do most of the work, and none of them require a big church to pull off.

1. A dedicated church bank account. Open it in the church's legal name, and never run church money through a personal account. Commingling funds can pierce the corporate veil and erase the liability protection your incorporation was supposed to give you. You need an EIN first (free, online, about 15 minutes from the IRS), which also lets you open the account.

2. Two-person offering counting. This is the heart of separating duties in a small church. Two unrelated people count the offering together, sign a count sheet, and deposit it within a day or two. No one ever handles the money alone. Ever. This single practice removes almost all suspicion from the room.

3. Dual check-signing above a threshold. Set a dollar amount above which two signatures are required. Small routine bills can move quickly; larger expenses require a second set of eyes. This is the direct answer to "who signs the checks?": not one person alone, once the amount matters.

4. Independent review. Someone other than the bookkeeper reviews the monthly bank statement. The person who records the money should not be the only person who ever sees where it went.

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Separating duties without a big staff

You might be thinking: I do not have enough people for all this. You have more than you think. The principle is simply that no single person controls a transaction from start to finish. In a church of 40, that can look like this:

• Two volunteers count and sign off on the offering.
• The treasurer or bookkeeper records it and pays the bills.
• A board member holds the second check signature for larger amounts.
• A different board member reviews the monthly statement.

That is four roles, and they can be filled by four or five people. You do not need staff. You need a small board (3 to 5 people for an under-100 church) and a couple of trustworthy volunteers.

Let your governance match your size

A helpful principle: the larger an organization becomes, the smaller its governance needs to become. A church of 45 can invite everyone to a voters' meeting and get the whole system in the room. A church of 800 or more needs a single elected board of 5 to 12 people, because you simply cannot fit everyone in the room anymore.

For you, under 100, that means: keep a small board (3 to 5), reserve full congregational votes for the truly major decisions (calling or removing the senior pastor, buying property, the annual budget, bylaw changes), and build a path in your bylaws to add elders and leaders as you grow. Good bylaws prevent both extremes: a faction grabbing power you never granted, and a pastor with unchecked power making unaccountable decisions.

Where the checks-and-balances lead you next

Getting your money handled cleanly is also the on-ramp to the 501(c)(3) determination letter, which reassures donors and banks and unlocks grants (and is a prerequisite for the Google Ad Grant). But the foundation is the control structure itself. Build that first.

A quick note: this is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm the specifics with a local attorney, your state Secretary of State, and your insurer.

Start your board (3 to 5 people), open the church account if you have not, and put two-person counting in place this Sunday. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. If you want a step-by-step path, the 100 Strong tools at /tools include a launch checklist and a financial-controls starter, and /milestones shows where this fits on the road to 100.

Your challenge this week

Recruit two unrelated people to count this Sunday's offering together, sign a simple count sheet, and deposit it within two days. One transaction, two sets of hands. Start there, and you have already separated the most important duty in the building.