How StewardDesk works

Guided physical count

StewardDesk walks whoever's on counting duty through the same steps every week, so the process doesn't depend on which volunteer showed up. Cash is entered by denomination — coins and bills — rather than as a single lump sum, which catches simple entry mistakes before they compound.

Checks are logged individually by check number and amount, giving you a line-item trail instead of a single total that's hard to trace back if something doesn't add up later.

• Coin and bill counts entered by denomination, not as one number
• Each check recorded with its number and amount
• The same guided flow every week, regardless of who's counting
• A count is tied to a specific date and can be locked once finalized

Automatic validation

Once the physical count and the corresponding data entry (contributions recorded by member and category) are both in, StewardDesk checks them against each other immediately — there's no separate "run reconciliation" step to remember.

A clear match or mismatch indicator shows right away. If something's off — a check entered under the wrong amount, a contribution logged to the wrong member — your team finds out before anyone signs the report, not after it's already been handed to the treasurer.

• Physical count vs. data entry, checked the moment both are complete
• Immediate match/mismatch feedback, no manual comparison
• Mismatches surface before sign-off, preserving the integrity of the signed record

Digital giving integration

Cash and checks are only part of the picture — most churches also collect digital gifts. StewardDesk connects to those sources and pulls transactions into a staging area for your team to review, rather than posting them automatically.

• Zeffy — every successful payment across all of your Zeffy campaigns and donation forms is fetched via a single API key, complete with donor details, amount, and which campaign or fund it was given through.
• Plaid — a direct, read-only bank connection surfaces incoming deposits: Zelle, Venmo, direct deposit, mailed checks, and more.

Nothing from an integration becomes an official contribution automatically. Every imported transaction lands in a review queue first: a volunteer matches it to the right member and category, and only then is it folded into the week's reconciliation. Anything that isn't a real donation — a refund, an unrelated deposit — is simply disregarded, with no risk to your records.

Contributor records

Every contribution — whether entered from a check, cash, or matched from a digital import — is tied to a member and a giving category, right down to the individual line. That gives you a real record of who gave what, to which fund, and when.

Categories can be organized into parent and sub-categories (for example, "Missions" with "Missions - Local" and "Missions - International" underneath), so giving can be tracked at whatever level of detail your church needs — without cluttering the count itself.

Printable reports

Every reconciled count produces a printable report: the physical count broken down by denomination and check, the digital giving that was matched in, the validation result, and two signature lines — Counted by and Verified by, both dated.

That report is the artifact StewardDesk exists to produce — a signed, dated record your counting team can hand to the treasurer, independent from and complementary to the treasurer's own books. It gives your church proper segregation of duties between the people who count the money and the people who record it.

Role-based access

Counting volunteers get exactly what they need to run the weekly count: entering the physical count, reviewing and matching digital giving, and printing the signed report — no setup screens to distract them.

Setup and administration — connecting integrations, managing categories, adding or removing users, organization settings — stay with the treasurer or lead helper. Two-factor authentication is required for every account, with no way to opt out, so the whole workflow stays protected regardless of who's signed in.