How a lodge chooses between a secretary OS and a lodge OS

Ask this first, out loud, before anyone opens a pricing page. What must a successor be able to open in June without last year's inbox? If the answer is a sitting list, a sent notice, a dining count, and a register the next Secretary can inherit, you are buying a secretary desk. If the answer also includes who has paid, what matched the bank, what Gift Aid is reclaimable, which enquiries became candidates, and which Almoner cases are live, you are buying a lodge operating system.

A successful lodge can answer those questions in committee without a weekend of reconstruction. Software is useful only if it makes the answers cheap to keep. A summons PDF that cannot collect a dining reply is still a file. A cash book that cannot produce an HMRC pack is still a cash book. A website that cannot hand an enquiry to an owner is still a brochure.

Size is not the argument. A thirty-member lodge still produces a dues year, a handful of dinners, a current account, and a public door. Handover is the argument. If the sitting officer is the only person who can reconstruct the year, the lodge does not have a system. It has a volunteer.

The market talks as if there is one product called lodge software. There is not. There is a secretary operating system, and there is a lodge operating system. A Master who treats them as the same SKU will either overpay for a desk he already needed, or underbuy the money job and spend another year reconstructing April.

A secretary OS is a digital desk for the Secretary's week: events and meetings, attendances, a table plan, generating a summons (and, on some products, generating minutes), a member and contact list, a candidate tracker, and often a Treasurer's cash book so dues and charity funds are not a separate spreadsheet. Delegates can log in. Permission sets keep the Treasurer out of welfare notes. The lodge still banks cash, still files Gift Aid by hand if it files at all, and still owns a website somewhere else, or nowhere.

A lodge OS is the small organisation on one record: branded website and member portal, meetings and summons, dues and donations, Gift Aid and the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme, treasurer bank reconciliation, candidates with owners, Almoner cases with access control, and, if the Province wants it, a rollout across lodges. Card money, if taken, is part of that record. The Secretary week still has to close. The difference is that dining money, unpaid dues, and the reclaim sit on the same meeting and the same member.

Neither job is morally better. A lodge that only needed the first and bought the second will ignore half the screens. A lodge that needed the second and bought the first will keep a paying-in book next to a £5 subscription and call that modern.

Committee does not need a feature matrix. It needs four answers that can disagree in public. Who was mailed for the next meeting, and who is dining. Who has paid this year's dues. What hit the bank last month. What Gift Aid is still unclaimed, if the lodge files. If any of those live only in one brother's head, the year will not survive installation.

The Secretary owns the first answer. The summons should already have gone from the sitting list. Ceremony, dining, and apology are three answers, not one yes. Guests sit on that meeting. The Steward locks a kitchen count. After the night, attendance writes back so next year is not a paper sheet in a box. How you word the inner business is lodge work. The summons and RSVP guide on this site stays on that week. This page only needs the rule that a notice which cannot collect a dining reply is still two systems: the PDF, and the chat.

The Treasurer owns the next three. Raise the year from the sitting list. Put card, bank, and recorded cash on the same row. Match the lodge CSV to known payments and leave unmatched lines visible. If the lodge files Gift Aid, hold a valid declaration on the named member, apply a decided charitable split on the subscription, count unnamed cash on the night, and leave a pack a successor can open. The treasurer software guide, the Gift Aid guide, and the Gift Aid declaration guide on this site stay on those desks. This page only needs the fork: a cash book can record that money moved. A reclaim pack is a different job.

The Almoner and the brother who owns candidates own the rest only if the lodge has decided those records should survive handover. A welfare list on a laptop, and enquiries in a Secretary inbox, are not a pipeline. They are a hope that the same volunteer stays.

Say this clearly, because it is true. If the pain is the Secretary's hours, and the lodge is happy to keep money in a paying-in book, a secretary operating system at £5 a month is the correct purchase. That is not faint praise. It is the cheaper tool doing the job it publishes.

The brief looks like this. The summons is still a word-processor file. Replies arrive as texts. The table plan is rebuilt each month. Attendance lives on a sheet that never reaches the member. The next Secretary will inherit a shared drive named after last year's Master. The Treasurer has a cash book he already understands, or a paying-in book he is willing to keep. Gift Aid, if anyone mentions it, is an April conversation with a folder, not a reason to change platforms.

In that brief, paying more does not make the summons go out. A lodge that will not open a member portal will not reclaim more Gift Aid by owning one. Buy the desk. Put the Secretary and a successor on it. Invite the Treasurer as a delegate if the product publishes that. Leave the paying-in book where it is until the lodge can name a different pain.

The usual mistake in the other direction is equally cheap. A lodge that can already name unpaid dues, an unmatched bank, unclaimed Gift Aid, dining money off the summons, and a website that does not feed candidates is not looking at a secretary desk. Paying £5 and hoping Gift Aid reclaim appears is the wrong purchase for that job.

The Working Tools (theworkingtools.co.uk) calls itself masonic lodge secretary software. That is their phrase, not ours. The public pricing page, checked on 2 September 2026, listed £5.00 per month for the lodge, additional lodges at £3.00 per lodge per month, and a 30-day free trial. An annual payment option is published via Settings, then Subscription. Delegates do not pay extra. Treasurer, DC, Almoner, Mentor, and a successor get their own login. Permission Sets control what each can see, so the Treasurer can handle the finances without seeing the Almoner's welfare notes.

The public features page and the repeated Secretary / Lodge / Lodge management lists name what they sell. Secretary tools: events and meetings, attendances, table plans, summons and minutes generation, expenses. Lodge tools: members and contacts, incoming candidate tracker, Treasurer's cash book (dues tracking, charity funds, printable year-end), Almoner's list and welfare, and a DC's ceremony planner. We will name that planner because they publish that it exists. We will not describe what it does. Lodge management: a 90-day planner, assets, handover, reminders, delegates. They also publish cloud access, off-site backup, and GDPR / security claims. We are repeating the labels on those pages. We are not auditing them.

The treasurer page is a real cash book, not a footnote. On 2 September 2026 it described lodge-relevant categories, subscriptions and dining fees against members, who has paid dues, email reminders from the app, charity funds kept separate from general funds, figures for the Charity Steward, year-end numbers for auditors, branded PDFs, dining numbers from the Event Planner, and officer expenses with receipts. Categories can be customised for Chapters and other Orders. Do not pretend that product cannot show who has paid or send a reminder. Those pages say it can.

What those same public pages still do not describe is an HMRC Gift Aid or GASDS reclaim pack. The homepage and features describe a cash book and charity funds. They do not describe declarations stored on a named member, a charitable split applied to a dues run, GASDS on counted cash, or an HMRC-ready export. We will not invent that they lack a cash book. We will not invent that they have HMRC Gift Aid reclaim. If their public pages later claim Gift Aid reclaim, believe their page, not this paragraph.

Buy The Working Tools if that published desk is the brief. A Secretary who needed events, a summons, a table plan, a register, a cash book, and a successor login has been offered a serious cheap product. The compare page on this site stays on that distinction: secretary OS versus lodge OS. This article is the longer buying guide behind it.

The other brief has a different shape. The Secretary week may already be closing, or it may still be a mess, but the pain the committee can name is money, reclaim, the public door, and records that have to sit together.

Unpaid dues are not a reminder problem if the Treasurer cannot see who is paid, waived, or on a plan from the same sitting list the summons used. A bank that does not match is not a bookkeeping hobby. It is a month the lodge cannot explain. Gift Aid that lives in a 2019 folder is not charity. It is an unclaimed figure the lodge already publishes as typical. Dining money that lives off the summons will never match the Steward's count. A website that does not create a candidate with an owner is a brochure. Almoner cases that live on a private laptop will not survive the next installation.

Those jobs are one record seen from several chairs. If they live in five tools, they drift by the third meeting. If they live in one brother's laptop, they will not survive June. Paying for a secretary OS and then hoping the reclaim, the bank match, and the public enquiry appear is how lodges stay on the typical unclaimed figure already on the LodgeHub Gift Aid and pricing pages.

This is still not a reason to trash the cheaper desk. A lodge that has not yet decided it files Gift Aid, has not yet decided a charitable split on the subscription, and is not taking cards, does not need a lodge OS to send a summons. It needs a Secretary who will use the desk it buys.

Most committees reach this page because someone said Gift Aid and someone else said we already have a cash book. Those are not the same sentence.

A cash book can show that a brother paid, that dining money came in, and that charity funds sit in a different category. That is useful. The reclaim job is different. Gift Aid applies to a genuine charitable gift from a UK taxpayer who has made a valid declaration, not to a private club fee. If the lodge has decided that part of the annual subscription is a donation, that charitable portion can sit on the same declaration as later named gifts. Unnamed cash in a tin is a different HMRC scheme (GASDS), subject to HMRC's published conditions, and needs a night-by-night count. The Gift Aid declaration guide on this site stays on the document. The Gift Aid guide stays on dues and alms. This page only needs the buying rule.

If the Treasurer cannot open a valid declaration on a named member, show which of this year's gifts it covers, and leave a successor a file HMRC would recognise, the lodge does not yet have a reclaim desk. Buying a secretary OS will not create that desk unless that product's own pages say it will. On 2 September 2026, The Working Tools' public homepage and treasurer pages did not.

LodgeHub already publishes the only illustration this page will repeat. A typical 30-member lodge reclaims £1,125 a year: £225 from the itemised charitable portion of dues, and £900 from eight festive boards, plus GASDS on cash up to £8,000 a year. Those amounts assume the lodge recorded the payments, held valid declarations, applied a decided split, and counted the tin. They are not your books. Do not quote them in committee as if they were. Do not invent a higher figure.

The lodge (or its charity) files with HMRC. The reclaim lands in that charity's bank. No software vendor should touch that money. If a demo cannot say who files and where the reclaim lands, you are not looking at a reclaim product. You are looking at a cash book with a charity column.

The festive board is a dinner attached to a meeting notice. If the summons lives in one product and the cover charge lives in another, month-end is archaeology. The Steward's count and the Treasurer's night will disagree, and Gift Aid on named alms will be rebuilt from a tin.

A working night is ordinary hospitality. Diners are on the meeting. Payment is recorded against that meeting. Cash is counted before anyone goes home. Named charity gifts keep a name. Unnamed small cash stays on its own line if the lodge wants GASDS. Card status, if you take cards, should already show that the payment succeeded. An unpaid cover is still a cover once you have accepted it.

The Working Tools publishes dining fees against members and dining numbers from the Event Planner. That is a real night on a secretary desk. What their public pages do not claim is webhook-verified card processing, a member portal for paying the cover, or a Gift Aid pack tied to that same meeting. If the lodge only needs the count and a cash-book line, that can be enough. If the lodge also wants the cover, the tin, and the named gift on the same record as the summons and the declaration, the dinner is no longer a separate hobby.

The festive-board software guide and the summons guide on this site stay on the kitchen and the week. This page only needs the fork the Master can use: one source of truth for who is dining, and one for what the night took.

A public site that cannot create an enquiry with an owner is a brochure. An incoming candidate tracker that starts from a name the Secretary typed is still useful. It is not the same as a website that feeds the pipeline. If the lodge's actual pain is a dead public door, a secretary OS that publishes a tracker is not the wrong product. It is the wrong job.

Almoner work is discretion, not a committee spreadsheet. The Working Tools publishes an Almoner's list and welfare record, with permission sets so the Treasurer need not see those notes. LodgeHub publishes Almoner cases with access control. Both are naming a real care desk. Neither page on this site will describe a case, a visit, or a private circumstance. The buying question is only whether welfare, money, and membership have to sit on the same member so a successor can open the year without two laptops.

Candidates and welfare are why some lodges outgrow a secretary desk without anyone having failed. The Secretary week is closing. The cash book is in use. Then an enquiry arrives on a personal email, or a case lives on a phone, and handover fails in a different chair. That is a lodge OS brief. It is not a reason to pretend the £5 desk never worked.

No product files Gift Aid for you. No product decides the charitable split on the subscription. No product takes a valid declaration from a brother who has not given one. No product counts a tin that was never written against a meeting. No product writes the inner business of the summons. Those remain lodge work.

A secretary OS still leaves the bank match, the reclaim pack, the public website, and card money (if you want them) on other desks, unless that product's own pages say otherwise. A lodge OS still leaves the lodge to raise the year honestly, to lock a Steward count, to take declarations, and to file. Software that claims to remove those jobs is selling a slogan. Ask to see the leftover list in a walkthrough.

The test is still June. Can a successor open the sitting list, the last closed month, the reclaimable figure if you file, and the live cases the lodge has authorised, without telephoning last year's officers? If the answer depends on a personal inbox, you bought a diary.

A lodge already on The Working Tools for the Secretary week, and now wanting Gift Aid reclaim, bank match, and a public site, may keep the secretary OS for a while. This article will not invent a migration kit. We have not published one, and we will not describe a clean import we cannot show.

If you run both, keep one source of truth for who has paid and one for who is dining. Two unpaid lists will drift by the third meeting. Two dining counts will disagree on the afternoon of the board. Decide which product owns the dues year. Decide which product owns the RSVP. Write that down. Do not chase a brother from both.

Ask in a walkthrough what a LodgeHub sandbox would hold next to a secretary OS you already like. If the answer is a second membership list and a hope that they stay in step, you do not yet have a plan. You have two diaries.

Named competitors are real. Buy the one that publishes the job you actually have. We will not invent a feature or a price their live pages do not state.

Lodgi (lodgi.org) is a name lodges already mention. We could not reconfirm a public price on 2 September 2026 (the public homepage sat behind a bot check from this desk). Treat it as a name until you can open their page yourself. Do not copy a historic figure into a committee paper.

Lodge Master 5 (lodge-master.co.uk) is a festive-board dinner desk: meetings, menus, hosting the summons, public sign-up, dietary notes, and cards on that dinner. The festive-board guide on this site stays on that product. It is not a treasurer operating system and not a Gift Aid pack. Lodgical and LodgeAccounting are slice players some Treasurers already know. Name them in committee if someone already uses them. This page will not invent their features or their prices. Lodge Manager is another name in the same breath. We will not invent a price for it here.

The Masonic Charitable Foundation Relief Chest is not a secretary OS and not a lodge OS. It is a charitable destination. MCF's public pages already cover Gift Aid on donations into a Chest. LodgeHub sits beside that choice. It does not replace MCF, and this page will not pretend it does. A Chest form is not automatically the lodge year's declaration desk for dues and named gifts that never entered the Chest. The longer note on that pairing is already on this site.

Once the lodge can name the job, software is a way to stop that job living in one brother's laptop. LodgeHub is the tool at the end of that decision, not the opening line. Its public pages already state the product facts we are allowed to use: branded website and member portal, meetings and summons, dues and donations, Gift Aid and GASDS, treasurer bank reconciliation, candidates, Almoner cases with access control, and provincial rollout.

Card payments go through Mooov. Standard processing fees pass through at cost. They are not marked up. The processor is not the books. Status on a card payment should already show that it succeeded. We will not invent a fee table.

Published prices, as on the pricing page: Essentials from £149 a month billed annually (or £169 monthly). Complete from £229 a month billed annually (or £259 monthly). Group from £349 a month for two lodges, then £119 per extra lodge. Province from £2,000 a month plus £35 per lodge (typically £4,500 a month). No setup fee is published. A free walkthrough can set up a sandbox with lodge branding. Office in Chelmsford. Brand is LodgeHub, one word.

Those figures do not raise the year. They do not take a declaration you never took. They do not count a tin you never wrote down. A £5 secretary OS the lodge actually operates beats a fuller platform nobody opens. If you only need the Secretary week and that cash book, The Working Tools may be enough, and you should buy it with a clear conscience. If the meeting must sit with dues, the bank, Gift Aid, the public site, and Almoner cases on the same record, book a LodgeHub walkthrough and ask the questions at the end of this page.