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Industry Insights
How Much Does a Church Audit Cost?
A CPA firm charges from around $3,000 for a small church to over $25,000 for a large one, and quotes each church on its own facts. The same firm charges less for a review or an agreed-upon procedures engagement.
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855-622-9009How to Compare Church Audit Quotes
- A CPA charges from $3,000 to $25,000 or more. Narrow that to your own church before you compare anything.
- Ask the requester whether they need an audit, or would accept a review or an agreed-upon procedures engagement.
- Ask each CPA for a written scope, so you can see what records they expect and whether they quote any cleanup work separately.
What Affects the Cost of a Church Audit?
A CPA estimates the hours the work will take, then multiplies by a rate. The CPA weighs:
- How big the church is, and how much it spends in a year
- How complicated the church’s finances are
- Where the church is, and how experienced the firm is
- Whether the church wants an audit, a review or agreed-upon procedures
Why a Church Pays More for Its First Audit
A CPA spends more hours in the first year. Nobody at the firm has seen the church’s records before. The CPA has to learn how the church accounts for things, and has to test the opening balances, the figures the church carried in from the previous year.
A church that audits every second or third year pays for that opening-balance work each time.
Church Audit Cost by Size
A CPA prices a church audit in one of these bands:
Small churches
$3,000 to $7,000Mid-sized churches
$7,000 to $15,000Large or multi-campus churches
$15,000 to $25,000 or even higher
A church pays for a CPA audit for churches up front. In return the CPA reports the weaknesses in the church’s controls, and donors see an independent account of the money.
Cheaper Alternatives to a Church Audit
A church looking to spend less has lighter options:
External review
The CPA does less work and gives a lower level of assurance. The report still comes from a CPA firm.Agreed-upon procedures
The church and the CPA agree what to test, and the CPA reports what it found without an opinion.
In neither case does the CPA give an opinion on the financial statements, which is what a lender or a denomination may have asked for.
How to Keep the Cost Down
The church can cut the hours a CPA needs to spend:
- Reconcile the church’s bank accounts throughout the year rather than leaving them until year end
- Keep donor-restricted gifts in their own accounts, so the CPA can trace them without reconstructing anything
- Put the board minutes, the bylaws and any grant agreements in one place before the CPA starts fieldwork
We cannot audit books we prepared inside the same engagement. Where the ledger is not ready, our bookkeeping team quotes that work separately, and we can take the audit afterwards subject to independence.
Why a Growing Church Pays More
A church that adds ministries or takes on donor-restricted funds gives the CPA more to test, and the CPA charges for the extra hours.
Dimov Audit presents professional church audit services. Contact us today to schedule your initial consultation.
Church Audit Cost FAQs
What is needed for a church audit?
Bank statements and reconciliations, the general ledger, contribution records, payroll records, board minutes and loan agreements. The full request list.
Are churches required to be audited?
Not as a general rule. A lender, a denomination, the bylaws or federal award rules can each require one. When a church has to be audited.
How much should a single audit cost?
A CPA charges more for a single audit than for an ordinary financial statement audit, because the CPA also tests compliance with each federal program. Single audit services.
What not to say in an audit?
Avoid guessing, and avoid hedge words like normally or usually, because an auditor reads them as a sign the process is not consistent. What not to say during an audit.
What are the 5 stages of an audit?
Engagement letter, document request, the church assembling its records, fieldwork, then drafting and the report. What happens during a church audit.
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Reviewed by George Dimov, CPA. Dimov Audit audits affordable housing and HUD-assisted projects for owners and agents across all 50 states.
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