Questions we get often.

CarbonHRM is HR, payroll, and reporting software built specifically for churches, ministries, and non-profits. It handles the things general-purpose payroll misses — housing allowance, 403(b), Form 4361, pre-pay payroll, and the other ministry-specific cases that normally require workarounds or spreadsheets.

Churches, ministries, religious non-profits, and other non-profit organizations with employees. If payroll for your staff involves housing allowance, clergy tax exemptions, 403(b) retirement plans, or pre-pay payroll models, you’re our target audience.

We’re a platform built for ministries, not a ministry ourselves. Our team has deep experience with the kinds of organizations we serve, but we’re a software company. The platform is secular software — customers from any kind of non-profit can use it.

Pricing depends on your staff count, which modules you use, and whether there are integration needs. We’re a contact-to-buy platform rather than self-serve — that lets us pair pricing with the right transition support. Start a conversation and we’ll come back with numbers for your specific situation.

Core HRM and Payroll as the foundation, plus the mobile app for your staff. Every other module is optional — turn on what you need, skip what you don’t.

Every transition is different — the system you’re coming from, how much history moves, and how much hands-on help you want all vary. We scope it together as part of the conversation. See the migration page for how the process works.

Yes, natively. Housing allowance is a first-class concept in the payroll model. It flows to W-2 Box 14 correctly, excludes from Box 1, and is tracked through the Symmetry Tax Engine for correct federal/state/SE tax treatment.

Fully supported. 403(b) is distinct from 401(k) in our deductions model, reports to W-2 Box 12 with code E (not D), and supports the 15-year ministry catch-up rule. See the ministry realities we handle.

Yes. Pre-pay payroll (the Church of the Highlands model) is supported via a dedicated pay profile. The calculation engine runs forward-looking payroll and carries over previous-month overtime automatically.

W-2, 1099-NEC, 1095-C (ACA), and Form 941 with Schedule B for semiweekly depositors. State quarterly returns for many states (A-1, G-7, DR-1094, WH-1605, and others). Local occupational tax returns (Birmingham O-1, Pelham PR-1, and others). See the Tax Reporting module for details.

Yes. The mobile app supports geofencing on time entry — when an employee clocks in or out, their device location is checked against a configurable radius around your campus or worksite. Entries outside the geofence get flagged for manager review (or blocked, depending on your policy). See the mobile app page.

Yes. Every employee belongs to a department (and optionally a campus, location, or fund), and earnings flow through your GL allocation rules. Payroll outputs split labor cost across the right cost centers automatically — no manual reallocation after each run. See the Payroll and Accounting modules.

The mobile app is optional. Everything employees can do on mobile (clock in, view paychecks, request time off, etc.) is also available in the web app. Most ministries we work with have a mix — some staff use mobile, others stick to desktop. Both work fine.

GL codes and a journal-entry export work today, so any GL can take the output. Direct integrations with Sage Intacct and QuickBooks Online are on the roadmap. See the Accounting module.

Yes. The Analytics module is powered by a full open-source BI engine — your raw payroll, HR, and time data is available for custom dashboards and exports. We ship a starter library of reports (payroll register, FUTA/SUTA, headcount, time-off balances, and others) and you build whatever's specific to your ministry from there. See the Analytics module.

We don't run payroll for non-US employers — taxes, benefits, and compliance vary too much country-to-country to do well alongside US ministry payroll. But US-employed team members who travel or live abroad can use the platform: time entry, approvals, and self-service all work from anywhere with internet.

Most migrations take 30–60 days from contract signature to first live pay run, with one or more parallel pay runs in the middle to verify calculations. Specific timelines depend on the complexity of your current setup, the number of employees, and how much year-to-date history needs to move.

Yes. We move year-to-date totals from your current system, reconcile them, and generate W-2s at year-end that include data from both systems. Mid-year switches are normal for us.

Yes — in some ways it’s simpler. We still rebuild the data model properly, but there’s no vendor-specific export format to wrangle. Smaller ministries often come to us from spreadsheet-based payroll.

We set it up. Our transition team handles the migration — pulling your data out of your current system, reconciling totals, configuring pay profiles, running parallel pay periods, training your team. See how migration works.

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Sensitive fields like SSN and bank account numbers carry an additional layer of field-level encryption on top of that. Multi-tenant isolation is enforced platform-wide — one org cannot access another org’s data, full stop. See the security page for more.

SAML SSO for enterprise organizations is on the roadmap. If you need it today, let us know — timeline can shift based on customer demand.

In U.S. cloud infrastructure with encryption at rest. Specific hosting arrangements are available to share with your IT or legal team on request.