Church Cashbook Maintenance Manual

High-level architecture and components.

Architecture summary

Church Cashbook is a PHP web application hosted on Rochen managed hosting within AWS infrastructure. There is no client-side software — users access it entirely through a web browser. All data is stored centrally in a MariaDB database on the same server.

Key components

• Web server: Apache 2.4 with HTTPS (TLS 1.2/1.3). The application runs under a single document root; all config, logs, exports, and receipts are stored outside the web root in the church_records directory.
• Application: PHP 8.4. No framework — a purpose-built application with its own routing and template system.
• Database: MariaDB 11.4 LTS. Single database (church_accounts). All financial data, user accounts, Gift Aid declarations, audit logs, and system settings are stored here.
• File storage: Receipts, exports, and logs are stored in church_records/ — a directory outside the Apache document root, not publicly accessible.
• Backups: Managed via Akeeba Backup. Backups transfer automatically off-server.

Access points

• Application: https://[your-domain]/ — login required for all pages.
• Admin panel: /public/admin/ — requires SUPERADMIN or DIOCESE_ADMIN role.
• System info: /public/admin/system_info.php — diagnostics page, SUPERADMIN only.
• cPanel: via Rochen hosting control panel — for server management, database access, and file management.
• phpMyAdmin: via cPanel — for direct database inspection when needed.

No scheduled tasks currently

Church Cashbook does not currently use cron jobs or scheduled tasks. All processing is request-driven. This simplifies the operational model — there are no background processes to monitor for failures. The transaction snapshot export runs on demand rather than on a schedule.