Who Can See Giving and Donations
Giving is the most sensitive information your church holds. TimelyChurch lets you decide exactly who can see it -- without taking away anyone's ability to do the rest of their job.
The short version
- Giving has four levels: Reviewer, Counter, Bookkeeper and Administrator. Each role in your church sits at one of them (or has no Giving at all).
- Only Bookkeepers and Administrators see who gave. Everyone else who works with money -- Reviewers, Counters, and people who only use Accounting -- sees the word "Donor" wherever a name would be.
- Everyone else -- team leaders, ministry leads, Sunday school directors, volunteers, members -- never sees another person's giving unless their role includes Giving.
- Every member can always see their own giving in the member portal, including their year-end statement. That is separate from staff access and is never restricted.
The four Giving levels
| Level | Sees | Can do | Cannot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reviewer | Giving totals for the period, fund and campaign progress | Keep an eye on the numbers | See who gave, open the list of gifts or a single gift, see giving history or statements, enter gifts |
| Counter | Everything a Reviewer sees, plus the deposit batches they opened | Enter gifts, open a deposit batch and add the gifts they recorded, look people up by name to attribute a gift | See gifts someone else entered (those read "Donor"), close a batch, mark it deposited, export |
| Bookkeeper | Donors, giving history, each gift's page, pledges, giving statements, every batch, and the Giving tab on a person's profile | Everything a Counter can, plus edit gifts, generate and email statements, and Close Batch | Refund a gift, export donor data, Mark Deposited, Reopen a closed batch |
| Administrator | Everything | Everything, including refunds, donor exports (Export reports... on the Giving page, Export CSV and Download All on the statements page), Mark Deposited and Reopen | -- |
When a Counter looks someone up to attribute a gift, the search matches names only and shows the person's name with a partly hidden email hint (for example j***@example.com), so they can tell two people with the same name apart without seeing anyone's full address.
A Reviewer or Counter who opens the Giving page sees the totals at the top and, in place of the list of gifts, a Donor details are private panel: "Your role shows giving totals only. Seeing who gave, giving history and statements needs Contribute access in Giving." Counters also get Add giving and Deposit batches buttons there.
Note: Messages in the app name the levels by the words View, Count, Contribute and Manage. They mean the same four levels: View = Reviewer, Count = Counter, Contribute = Bookkeeper, Manage = Administrator. So "... needs Contribute access in Giving" means "this needs the Bookkeeper level or higher."
One rule for donor names
Anyone below the Bookkeeper level -- including someone whose role has Accounting but little or no Giving -- sees "Donor" instead of a name everywhere a gift appears:
- Campaign pages -- recent donations and pledgers read "Donor".
- Deposit batches -- a Counter sees by name only the gifts they entered themselves.
- Person profiles -- the Giving tab does not appear.
- The Accounting ledger -- a gift's line reads "Donation from Donor (Cash)" instead of the donor's name, and the edit window opens without the donor.
- The bank-import review queue -- a matched donor reads "Donor" and the donor picker is locked.
- Donation notifications -- they still arrive, with the amount but no name, and link to the Giving dashboard rather than the gift. See Donation Notifications.
- AI assistants -- if your church connects one through the MCP Connector, it follows the same rule as the person who connected it.
Recording income with a donor from Accounting creates a gift, so it needs the Counter level or higher; changing who gave an existing gift needs the Bookkeeper level.
Good to know: The description your bank sends with a transaction (for example a transfer memo that includes the sender's name) is shown exactly as the bank sent it. It is the bank statement your books are reconciled against, so TimelyChurch does not change it.
Setting a role's Giving level
Open Administration → Roles & Permissions in the sidebar, edit the role (or click New Role), and find Giving & Donations under Finances:
| To make someone a... | Set Giving & Donations to |
|---|---|
| Reviewer | View |
| Counter | View, then tick Create as well (the row shows Custom) -- or start from the Counter template |
| Bookkeeper | Edit (View, Create and Edit) -- or start from the Bookkeeper template |
| Administrator | Full Access (this includes Delete, which allows refunds and exports, and Close, which allows Mark Deposited and Reopen) |
Giving statements and pledges have their own rows in the same section. A Bookkeeper who should send statements also needs Giving Statements, and one who works with pledges needs Pledges.
The built-in roles already sit at a level: Finance Admin is an Administrator, and Accountant (Read-Only) is a Reviewer -- it sees totals and reports but not who gave.
Keeping administrators out of Giving (Donation Privacy)
Many churches want administrators who can run people, events, groups and settings -- but who should not see what members give. There is a setting for exactly that.
Open Church Settings (at the bottom of the sidebar), stay on the Profile tab, and find the Donation Privacy card. Tick "Restrict donation access to finance roles" and click Save Donation Privacy.
When it is on:
- The Administrator role keeps every other permission -- people, events, groups, check-in, settings, everything.
- The Administrator role stops seeing Giving, Funds, Pledges, Budgets, Accounting and Giving Statements.
- Roles that have finance permissions of their own -- Finance Admin, Accountant (Read-Only), or a custom finance role -- are not affected by the switch. Their Giving level still decides what they see.
Churches that joined TimelyChurch from August 2026 onward start with this setting turned on. Churches that joined earlier start with it off. Until someone chooses, their administrators see an amber notice on the Finances pages ("Every Administrator can currently see Giving — new accounts wall this off by default.") with a Review link. It opens the Donation Notifications page, which explains the change in full; there, Restrict now turns the setting on and Not now hides the notice.
Who can turn it off again
Any administrator can turn the restriction on. Turning it off requires an account whose own role includes Giving -- for example a Finance Admin. An administrator who is walled off sees "Only someone with donation access can remove this restriction. Ask a finance admin or the church owner."
This is deliberate. If any administrator could switch the restriction off, view the giving, and switch it back on, the restriction would not mean anything.
Someone who needs both admin and finance
A person can hold only one role. If your bookkeeper also runs the office, you have two options:
- Leave them as an Administrator and do not turn on the restriction (they keep everything).
- Create a new role from the Executive Administrator template (New Role → Start from a template). It lists the administrative permissions and the finance permissions explicitly, so the restriction never applies to it. Check the Giving & Donations row before you save: tick Close if this person also marks batches deposited or reopens them.