The iPhone app — capture as you go
In the checkout line, snap the receipt before it reaches the glovebox. ClergyTrak reads the vendor, date, and amount; you approve it and get on with your day. About ten seconds, done in the moment it happens.
A welcome for pastors
For the sermon that finally came together after midnight.
For the hospital hallway at two in the morning.
For the weddings, the funerals, and every quiet visit in between —
Thank you.
You have spent your life taking care of everyone else. ClergyTrak is one small place where someone takes care of you.
First, an honest word
Nobody trained you for the shoebox.
Seminary taught you Greek and grief — how to marry the young and bury the beloved. It did not teach you clergy taxes. So each spring the same scene plays out: a shoebox of receipts, a return that asks for numbers nobody wrote down, and that feeling of walking into the accountant's office already apologizing.
If that's you, you're in good company — most pastors are there. So before any feature, any number, any button, hear this:
You are not behind. You're one entry away from started.
ClergyTrak was built by Stephen Bloomfield — a pastor for forty years, and the keeper of exactly that shoebox. This is the tool he always wished someone had handed him.
Why it's worth those minutes
There is a provision with your name on it.
Ministers hold a provision most taxpayers never see: the housing allowance (IRC §107). Done well, part of your salary is set aside for your home and excluded from federal income tax — for many pastors, the largest tax benefit they will ever have. It stands on three numbers, and it is only as strong as the lowest one.
$30,000
Your ceiling
$24,000
$27,000
1 · Board designation what your church set in advance
2 · Actual expenses what you really spent — receipts prove it
3 · Fair Rental Value what your home would rent for, furnished, plus utilities
And there is a second thing nobody sits ministers down to explain: self-employment tax (SECA). For Social Security and Medicare you count as self-employed on ministerial income — even with a W-2 in hand — so your church generally cannot withhold FICA as employer on ministerial wages the way it would for other staff. You may still ask for extra federal income-tax withholding (Form W-4) toward your SE liability, or claim Form 4361 if approved. Housing that is excluded from federal income tax still counts in your self-employment tax base unless Form 4361 applies. Most pastors learn this the year it surprises them. You're not behind; nobody told you. ClergyTrak names the number and helps you set one steady amount your church can withhold from each paycheck, so it is handled before it is due. What SECA means for your paycheck →
Receipts fade. Memory rounds up. Documentation holds.
Come January, documentation is the difference between a guess and a number you can stand behind.
The lay of the land
One account. Two doors. Four rooms.
ClergyTrak is one product with two doors — the iPhone app in your pocket, and this website on a big screen. The phone is for the moment; the web is for the year. Behind the doors there are only four rooms to know. That's the whole map.
The Command Center — your year at a glance
Your dashboard here on the website: the three numbers side by side, housing and ministry totals, and a readiness checklist that shows what's still missing. Add expenses here too — catching up on a past month is far easier on a full screen.
Fair Rental Value — the third number, documented
What your home would rent for — furnished, plus utilities. Almost nobody documents it, yet it can set your ceiling. ClergyTrak builds an honest estimate from live local rental comparables, with the sources kept on file.
The Year-End Packet — January, already in a folder
When your board or CPA asks for the numbers, print the packet: the year's totals, the three-number check, receipts accounted for, checklist complete. A year of quiet capture becomes twenty minutes of assembly.
And if you get stuck anywhere — ask Ezra.
The ClergyTrak assistant answers in plain language, grounded in IRS sources, with the citations shown under every answer. Educational guidance — not tax advice.
The simple way to start
Don't organize your whole life. Do one small thing.
You don't owe anyone a finished spreadsheet today. Starting looks like this:
Confirm your board designation
Five minutesAsk: do you have a written board designation for this tax year? Record what the board adopted — amount and date — on Designation Day. Receipts cannot protect months that were never designated.
Add one expense
Two minutesThis month's mortgage or rent payment is perfect. Vendor, amount, date — typed once. That's a real start, not a symbolic one.
Snap the next receipt
Ten secondsNext time a store hands you a receipt for the house, open the app and point the camera. Approve what it reads, and get on with your day.
That's the whole ask — designation first, then one entry. The catch-up tools, the imports, and the reports will be there when you're ready. Next January, when someone asks for your numbers, you'll simply have them.
From one pastor to another
You've been faithful in the big things. Let this be the year the small one got easy.
One receipt at a time, ClergyTrak turns your year into quiet proof — no shame, no scramble, no shoebox. Free to start, and built by a pastor who has stood where you stand.
Free to start · No card required · Same one-time email code for new and returning pastors · Your records stay yours · Not tax advice