Church Cashbook Data Schema Manual

Church identity and scope root for financial records.

Purpose

The churches table is the scope anchor for most financial data. Nearly all user-facing records (transactions, categories, opening balances, budgets, Gift Aid settings) are ultimately attached to a church.

Columns

• id (PK) — internal church identifier.
• deanery_id (FK → deaneries.id) — groups churches into deaneries (used for deanery-scope RBAC and reporting).
• name — church name (display label).
• location — optional reference location/address string (used in reports).
• fy_start_month, fy_start_day — financial year start.
• fy_end_month, fy_end_day — financial year end.
• bank_account_id — optional default bank account for this church (governance-controlled in UI; FK not declared here).
• is_active — active flag; dormant churches should not be selectable for normal entry.

Indexes

• PRIMARY KEY (id)
• idx_church_deanery (deanery_id) — supports deanery grouping and deanery-scope operations.

Constraints

• fk_churches_deaneries — ensures every church belongs to a valid deanery.

Operational notes

• RBAC: church_id is the fundamental scoping value used throughout the system; cross-church access must be prevented at query and handler level.
• Financial year: FY start/end are stored per church; reports should derive FY boundaries from these fields (or from a globally enforced FY rule, if used).
• Bank governance: bank_account_id indicates the primary bank account; changes should be governed and logged.
• Dormancy: is_active allows a church to be retired from normal selection without deleting records.