Look after your ministers. Lose the paperwork.
A benefit card for every religious practitioner, connected to your church's own account. Salary sacrificed amounts load each pay cycle, ministers spend on their living costs, and every transaction is recorded automatically. No claim forms. No shoebox of receipts.
Same day setup · Signed digitally · One minister or fifty
Built around one exemption, and nothing else.
Australian tax law (section 57 of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act) exempts benefits that registered religious institutions provide to their religious practitioners principally for their pastoral duties.
Unlike the capped packaging schemes used by charities and hospitals, this exemption has no dollar cap and the benefits are not reportable. Vestry Benefit is built around that one exemption and nothing else, which is why it can be this simple. It works the same whether you have one minister or fifty.
Retire the spreadsheet only one person understands.
Ministers wait weeks
Reimbursement forms and a manual ledger someone calls the Minister's Expense Account, and ministers waiting weeks to be paid back.
Treasurers carry the risk
A spreadsheet reconciled late at night before an audit, with the record-keeping risk carried personally by whoever keeps it.
Nothing is documented
New treasurers inherit a system nobody wrote down, and the whole arrangement lives in one person's head.
Built for another sector
The packaged alternatives built for hospitals and charities come with sales calls, setup queues and paperwork designed for a different sector.
Running the same day, no printer required.
Verify your church in minutes
Sign up through our secure self-serve onboarding, powered by Stripe Connect. Your church gets its own account. The money is always yours.
Sign two documents, digitally
For each minister: a salary sacrifice agreement (signed before the pay period it covers, as the ATO requires) and your church's declaration that the person meets the ATO's definition of a religious practitioner. We provide the templates and the ATO references, and recommend your church confirm eligibility with its own adviser. Ten minutes, no printer.
Set up payroll in five minutes
We give you the exact Xero pay item configuration so PAYG and Single Touch Payroll report correctly from the first run.
Balances load each pay cycle
The sacrificed total moves from your church bank account into your church's Vestry account, and each minister's balance updates.
Ministers spend with their card
Including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Cash withdrawals and cash-like purchases are blocked by design, because that is what keeps a benefit a benefit.
Xero receives one tidy journal
One monthly journal, automatically. Vestry keeps the complete transaction history for more than five years and can produce an audit pack in one export.
Compliance that's structural, not paperwork.
Self-serve, same day
Set up the same day you sign up, with every document signed digitally.
A card for every minister
Individual balance and card for each religious practitioner, physical and virtual.
Cash blocked at the card
Cash access blocked at the card level, so compliance is structural rather than paperwork.
Live for everyone
Live balances for ministers, live oversight for the treasurer.
Xero, handled
Payroll templates on setup and automatic monthly journals from then on.
Agreements on file
Signed agreements and declarations stored against each minister.
Audit-ready records
Five-year record keeping and a one-click audit pack export.
Clean leaver workflow
Unspent balances handled cleanly when a minister moves on.
Who counts as a religious practitioner?
The s57 exemption has three parts: a registered religious institution, a religious practitioner, and benefits provided principally for pastoral duties. The middle one is where most questions live. The ATO's view is set out in Taxation Ruling TR 2019/3.
Typically within the definition
- Ministers of religion recognised by ordination, commissioning or similar authority
- Acknowledged leaders in the congregation's spiritual affairs, authorised to conduct worship and ceremonies
- Full-time members of religious orders
- Students in full-time training for ministry
Typically outside it
- Administrative, operations and finance staff
- Youth, children's and worship workers whose duties are not principally pastoral
- Contractors and volunteers who are ordinary adherents of the faith
- Employees of bodies that are not registered religious institutions
Vestry never decides eligibility.
Your church confirms that each participant is a religious practitioner and that benefits are provided principally for pastoral duties. We provide the templates and the ATO references. Four questions worth taking to your adviser:
- Is our church a registered religious institution with the ACNC?
- Is this person recognised as a minister by ordination, commissioning or similar authority?
- Are their duties principally pastoral?
- Is the salary sacrifice agreement in place before the pay period it covers?
Sources: ATO Taxation Ruling TR 2019/3 · Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986, s57. General information only, not tax advice.
Two cards, opposite jobs.
Vestry Card and Vestry Benefit both put a card in someone's hand, and they do opposite jobs. Vestry Card spends the church's operating money on church expenses. Vestry Benefit spends what a minister has packaged from their own remuneration. Different money, different rules, and Vestry keeps them cleanly apart.
The fine print
Vestry does not hold your funds. Accounts and cards are provided by Stripe. Vestry provides software and administrative services on your church's instructions and does not provide tax advice. Your church confirms that each participant is a religious practitioner and that benefits are provided principally for pastoral duties; we recommend obtaining independent advice.
For ministers: exempt benefits are not assessable income and do not appear on your tax return.
One login. One supplier.
The modern minister's expense account.
Join the waitlist and be first to run exempt benefits properly, without the paperwork.