Finance disruption
Our finance person is leaving or we have a finance transition.
Secure the handoff, keep critical work moving, and establish a dependable process for the current operating cycle.
Finance Transition & StabilizationAn outsourced finance department for growing churches
A dependable monthly finance function — without building a full internal department.
Slate Financial helps churches maintain a dependable monthly finance process through bookkeeping, reconciliations, month-end close, and financial reporting.
Built by Michael Pitts, CFO of a Douglasville-area church since 2018, with a background in accounting and ministry leadership.
Find the right starting point
Which situation describes your church?
Slate offers three ways to support a church finance function, depending on what has changed and what leadership needs next. Start with the situation closest to yours.
Recurring ownership
We need someone to own the monthly finance process.
Give one accountable partner responsibility for reconciliations, month-end close, reporting, and the agreed finance workflows.
Managed Finance OperationsPlanning and leadership
We have reliable books but need more planning and financial leadership.
Add budgeting, forecasting, and decision support on top of dependable monthly books.
Controller SupportFinance Transition & Stabilization
Your finance person is leaving. The work still has to move.
Slate's Finance Transition & Stabilization service helps churches secure the handoff, keep critical workflows moving, determine where the books stand, and establish the ongoing monthly process.
It is designed for a bookkeeper or finance-employee departure, an open finance position, a leadership handoff, or another immediate continuity risk.
Experience behind the work
Accounting discipline shaped by firsthand church finance leadership.
Slate's approach combines formal accounting training with hands-on responsibility for church funds, contributions, payroll, reporting, and communication with pastors, staff, and boards.
Accounting foundation
Michael Pitts holds a bachelor's degree in accounting.
Inside church finance
He has served as CFO of a Douglasville-area church since 2018.
Ministry perspective
Before finance leadership, he served in pastoral and worship ministry.
Church-specific complexity
Slate is built around the operating realities of church funds, giving, payroll, reporting, and governance.
Who We Serve
For churches that have outgrown a person-dependent finance process.
Your church may not need a substantial internal finance department. But the monthly finance work should not depend entirely on one overloaded employee, volunteer, or outside bookkeeper.
Based in Georgia. Serving churches remotely.
Slate may be a fit when:
- The monthly close or reporting process depends heavily on one person.
- Financial reports are late, inconsistent, or difficult for leadership to use.
- Funds, accounts, payroll, giving platforms, departments, campuses, or operating units have added complexity.
- A bookkeeper, financial secretary, administrator, or finance employee is leaving.
- Growth, a building project, a new campus, a school, a daycare, or another ministry operation is increasing the financial workload.
- Leadership needs one accountable partner coordinating the monthly accounting cycle.
Services
A finance function built around the monthly close.
Every engagement defines what Slate handles, what the church retains, who approves each activity, and what information must be provided.
Managed Finance Operations
The core recurring service.
Slate takes accountable ownership of the in-scope monthly accounting cycle through reconciled books, month-end close, and consistent leadership reporting. The church retains approvals, custody of funds, personnel decisions, ministry decisions, and responsibility for timely source information.
See the recurring monthly responsibilities
- Maintaining the recurring close calendar, close checklist, and open-items process.
- Completing or taking final accountability for the reconciliations needed to support the monthly books.
- Preparing routine closing entries and reviewing material balance-sheet accounts.
- Reviewing funds, classes, departments, and other reporting dimensions for consistency.
- Preparing a monthly financial package with budget comparisons, fund balances, cash information, management commentary, and unresolved items.
- Conducting one recurring financial review with the designated church leader.
- Providing routine year-end close support and coordinating the agreed package with the church's CPA.
Depending on scope, Slate can also perform or coordinate transaction coding, accounts-payable preparation, credit-card and receipt workflows, reimbursements, payroll, giving-platform and contribution workflows, accounts receivable, and defined annual processing.
Finance Transition & Stabilization
A defined entry project for a disrupted finance function.
When a finance employee leaves or responsibilities are being handed off, Slate helps secure the transition and establish continuity for the current operating cycle.
See what the transition project can include
- Identifying critical payroll, payment, deposit, contribution, reconciliation, reporting, debt, and filing deadlines.
- Establishing secure access and documenting system, preparation, review, approval, and escalation responsibilities.
- Determining the current condition of the books, reconciliations, funds, payroll, source documents, and reporting process.
- Stabilizing the supportable current accounting cycle and building the first close calendar, client request process, and open-items log.
- Delivering the first supportable reporting package when the records permit it, or clearly documenting what prevents reliable reporting.
- Moving the documented process into ongoing Managed Finance Operations.
The project is normally structured around an initial 30-day stabilization period. The goal is continuity, a clear picture of the books, and a dependable process for the current operating cycle — not the reconstruction of unlimited history or resolution of every preexisting issue.
Controller Support
Financial leadership built on reliable monthly books.
Controller Support adds a defined planning and decision-support process above Managed Finance Operations. It helps church leadership interpret results, anticipate financial needs, and make major decisions with clearer information.
See what Controller Support may include
- Budget development and facilitation.
- Cash-flow planning, forecasting, and scenario analysis.
- Enhanced board or finance-committee reporting.
- Capital-project, campaign, and debt reporting.
- Financial policy and internal-control design.
- Department-leader financial support.
- Coordination with banks, CPAs, payroll providers, and other advisers.
Controller Support is a defined recurring process or project, not unlimited CFO access or a transfer of executive authority. Church leadership retains final responsibility for ministry, personnel, spending, borrowing, and governance decisions.
Responsibility and control
Slate runs the process. Your church keeps authority.
Slate can prepare, coordinate, record, reconcile, close, review, and report the agreed finance work.
Church leadership retains:
- Bank ownership, signer authority, and custody of funds.
- Final approval of payments, reimbursements, and payroll.
- Personnel, compensation, ministry, budget, and fund-use decisions.
- Governance decisions and final representations to banks, boards, CPAs, and other outside parties.
- Responsibility for providing complete information and timely approvals.
Slate does not take unilateral custody of church funds, act as a bank signer, or both prepare and finally approve the same payment.
Pricing
A clear scope before a price.
Every church has a different combination of accounts, transaction volume, funds, payroll, giving platforms, reporting requirements, internal responsibilities, books condition, and leadership needs.
Slate begins with a fit conversation and a limited scoping review. You then receive a written proposal that defines:
- What Slate will handle and what the church will retain.
- The reporting, meeting, and communication rhythm.
- The assumptions behind the scope.
- The project and recurring fees.
- Material exclusions and the process for scope changes.
Slate does not use one-size-fits-all public packages or quote a recurring fee before understanding the work.
Process
What working together looks like.
1
Start with a fit conversation
— Talk through how the finance work is handled now, what has changed, and whether an outsourced model appears to fit.
2
Define the scope
— Review only the information needed to understand responsibilities, accounts, volume, funds, payroll, reporting, books condition, and major risks.
3
Receive a clear proposal
— See what Slate handles, what the church retains, the assumptions, responsibilities, fees, deadlines, and exclusions.
4
Transition or onboard
— Establish secure access, approval rules, the close calendar, client deadlines, reporting expectations, and the open-items process.
5
Enter the monthly rhythm
— Complete the in-scope close and review, deliver the financial package, discuss the results with leadership, and track unresolved items.
Michael PittsFounder, Slate Financial
Founder
Built from inside church finance.
I'm Michael Pitts, founder of Slate Financial.
Since 2018, I have served as CFO of a Douglasville-area church, leading the monthly finance process, financial reporting, budgeting, and financial operations that support church leadership decisions. I also have a bachelor's degree in accounting and a background in pastoral and worship ministry.
That experience shapes how Slate works with pastors, staff, boards, banks, payroll providers, CPAs, and other church stakeholders. Church finance is not generic small-business bookkeeping. It includes funds, contributions, payroll, leadership reporting, ministry budgets, and financial decisions that have to be explained clearly.
Slate is built to provide a documented, dependable finance function — not another process that depends entirely on one person.
Church Financial Health Check
An optional starting point for your leadership team.
Use this 15-question self-assessment to identify questions about your monthly close, reporting, funds, payroll, and financial controls.
You'll receive your score and a summary of the areas where your church may have opportunities to strengthen its finance process.
The Health Check is an educational resource designed to help leadership identify questions about their finance process. It is not an audit, review, assurance engagement, legal or tax opinion, or compliance conclusion.
Need a more dependable monthly finance process?
Whether your church is planning ahead or responding to a finance transition, start with a short conversation about how the work is handled now and whether an outsourced option fits.
Contact
Let's talk.
Send a short note about your church, who currently handles the finance work, and what has changed.
Scheduling link:Book a 30-minute conversation
Location:Based in Georgia · Serving churches remotely