Church Cashbook User Manual

Plain-English definitions of common terms used in Church Cashbook.

Audit trail:

a per-transaction history of all creates, edits, voids and receipt changes, shown at the bottom of the edit form.

Budget chart:

a visual page showing budget vs actual bars per category and monthly income/expenditure bars for the financial year.

Candidate:

a transaction that may qualify for Gift Aid but requires review.

Cashbook entry / transaction:

a recorded financial event in the system.

Claim:

a batch of eligible donations submitted to HMRC.

Clear / unclear

reconciliation status for matching the bank statement.

Cleared / uncleared:

appears on bank statement; recorded but not yet matched to the bank.

Declaration:

a donor’s formal Gift Aid declaration.

Exception / flag:

a marker indicating an item requires attention or is excluded.

FY (Financial year)

the reporting year (often April–March).

GASDS

Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme — allows PCCs to claim Gift Aid-style top-up on small cash donations of £30 or less without individual declarations.

Money In / Money Out / Journal:

income received; payment made; internal correction or movement.

Opening balance

the bank balance at the start of the FY.

RBAC

role-based access control; what you can do depends on your role.

Scope

which church(es) your role applies to.

Duplicate warning:

an amber advisory shown when a transaction with the same date and amount already exists — does not prevent saving.

First-login link:

a one-time URL sent to a new viewer account allowing them to set their password; valid for 7 days.

Notification queue:

the internal email queue; messages are inserted then delivered; failed sends are retried by admins.

Viewer:

a read-only role that can see transactions and reports but cannot add, edit or delete anything.

Void

mark a transaction as invalid without deleting it; it no longer affects totals.