Aplos vs Paxton Church & Charity Accounting Software

Aplos provides web-based fund accounting software for nonprofits, churches, and other faith-based organizations. It tracks designated and restricted funds, grants, and a flexible chart of accounts. Financial and donation reports can be customized, including Balance Sheet by Fund and Income Statement by Fund. Organizations can create unlimited mobile-friendly giving forms and add a donation widget to their websites. The donor database stores communication activity, notes, relationships, giving history, and custom fields. Aplos includes budgeting, an audit trail, an API enabled from settings, and integrations such as Keela, Raisely, Ramp, PEX, Gusto, DonorElf, Church Community Builder, and Bloomerang. Data is encrypted with AES 256, stored in AWS in the United States, and backed up nightly. Lite costs $79 a month, Core $129 a month, and Advanced $229 a month. A Custom plan has tailored pricing. There is a 15-day trial and no free plan.

Paxton Church & Charity Accounting Software is paid accounting software designed for churches and charities. It runs through a cloud-hosted online version and a Windows desktop version, with access also listed for iOS, macOS and the web. Standard provides multi-fund accounting, purchase ledger, budgets, donations and Gift Aid, document attachments, Charity Commission reports, transaction imports, VAT processing through Making Tax Digital, user access levels, and telephone and email support. Advanced adds sales ledger, invoicing, sales analysis, foreign-currency processing, project analysis and project budgets. Reporting follows Charity Commission SORP requirements and can produce a SOFA in Charity Commission format. The software manages Gift Aid and creates an HMRC-format schedule. Bank transactions can be imported from statements, but there is no automatic bank feed. Standard costs £50 a month and Advanced £75 a month, excluding VAT, with a 30-day trial and no free plan.