How to Use MHA Tracker

The whole app comes down to three moments: an hour of setup, a 20-second weekly habit, and two days a year when the paperwork is simply ready. Here is each one.

Moment one

The first hour

When you sign in for the first time, the dashboard walks you through setup itself with a short checklist. Four steps, and the app checks them off as you go:

The Getting started checklist on the MHA Tracker dashboard, showing four steps: housing status, designated allowance, first expense, and first receipt — The dashboard's own checklist. It disappears once you finish.

Two of the steps matter more than they look. Your housing situation (own, rent, or parsonage) decides which categories and worksheet the app builds for you. And your designated allowance is the amount your church board officially set for the year: every chart in the app measures against it, so enter it exactly as the board approved it. If your board has not designated an amount yet, that is worth fixing before anything else, and here is how designation works.

Moment two

The 20-second habit

This is the whole product. When a housing bill arrives or you pay for something for the home, open the app and tap Add expense. Date, amount, category, who you paid. Then photograph the receipt right there, before it hits a drawer.

The Add expense form filled in with a utility bill: date, amount, category, payee, and a place to attach the receipt — One form, one tap from saved.

The MHA Tracker dashboard showing the allowance usage bar and monthly figures — Every expense moves the bar, so you always know where the year stands.

Why the photo matters: a bank statement proves you paid someone. Only the receipt shows what you bought, and the housing allowance exclusion covers what the money actually provided. Expenses with no receipt and no noted electronic copy get a small red flag in your list, so you can come back to them. Do this once a week and you will never do it in a panic in April.

Moment three

Two days a year

In December, your board sets next year's designation. Open Reports and the estimator projects next year from what you actually spent, adds a cushion you control, and prints a board-ready worksheet with sample resolution wording. Designating a little generously beats designating low, because a designation can never be raised looking backward.

The printable Housing Allowance Designation Worksheet, built from the year's real spending — The worksheet your board sees. Built from your real numbers.

At tax time, the annual report has the year in one place: totals by category, your spending next to your designation, and every receipt you photographed, downloadable in a single file for your tax preparer. That is the payoff of the 20-second habit: two of the year's more stressful days, already done.

Questions about the housing allowance itself, like who qualifies or what expenses count, live in the Housing Allowance FAQ. MHA Tracker is an educational recordkeeping tool, not tax advice.

Start with this year

Enter your designated amount, add what you have spent so far, and you will know where you stand today.

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