Manageable Church Management

Check out these answers to your most pressing software questions.

by Jennifer Schuchmann

Why is it that the same problems continually nag church computer users? To find out, Your Church approached representatives from ACS (Automated Church System); By the Book; Computer Helper Publishing (maker of Church Windows); Logos Management Software; Parsons (a division of FindEx); PowerChurch Software; Servant PC Resources; Shelby Systems; and Suran Systems and asked them to answer your most pressing questions. Here are their selected responses.

We've just gotten new church management software, and I'm worried about security. How can we keep sensitive information, such as contribution records and the pastor's counseling notes, secure from staff members who need access to the system but don't need to know everything?

Security is a big issue. And software companies have developed numerous ways of dealing with it.

Wes Haystead, president of Logos Management Software, says: "The objective is to allow everyone on the staff (and authorized volunteers) to access a single data source, but with limits on their access to specific kinds of data." Logos's software allows users to be blocked from a complete module (i.e., Contributions), specific menus within a module, specific routines on a menu, or specific tabs within a routine. In addition, Logos provides comment fields with additional password security—blocking curious users from knowing that comments even exist.

Greg Moyer, general manager at Servant PC Resources, Inc., says his company's Servant Keeper software features more than 80 levels of security for each user. "Thus, you can be very specific about customizing each user's security level," he says. Security levels range from read-only rights to unrestricted access. In addition, users may be given the ability to add, update, and/or delete in some, none, or all areas of the program.

Church Data Master plus (CDM+) from Suran Systems has a separate menu item to track confidential notes. Any user can be blocked from these notes.

"Additionally, in a multiple-staff environment only those notes entered into the program by a specific user can be viewed by that user," says Randy S. Clay, the president of Suran Systems.

Roll Call, church management software from By the Book, uses a hierarchal password system. "There are four basic levels of passwords, and each level has added attributes," says Scott McGlasson, media director for By the Book. Passwords provide a range of security levels from view-only to complete access. Also, confidential comments can be made that are not visible to users without a high-level password.

Recently, our pastor visited a church member in the hospital. The patient's roommate overheard the conversation with the comatose patient and said "Pastor, I'm over here!" In a growing church, where it is hard to remember faces, how can we avoid making that mistake again?

"There is probably no way that any software program will be able to prevent people from making embarrassing blunders," says Haystead of Logos. "But, a good church management program should let users quickly view and print family or individual photographs."

Maureen Wygant, director of marketing for Computer Helper Publishing, says: "The easy way to accomplish this is by having a photograph of each person right on the personal information screen. In Church Windows, by simply clicking on the photo icon, a person going out for hospital visits can see pictures before leaving the church."

Shelby Systems's software offers a printable individual information sheet that includes a photo, a map, and driving directions. Servant PC's Servant Keeper allows users to create a picture directory for any group, including hospitalized members.

ACS is currently testing two new applications that could help. Pattie White, director of marketing and training, says: "PalmACS stores member names and key information right on a Palm Pilot. So, if the pastor is at the hospital reviewing a list of those who've been admitted, he can quickly cross-check to see if any are from his church. With a Web-enabled handheld device [and an Internet connection], he could access ACS information from anywhere using the new ViewACS program."

With the current economy, we need our financial software to do more than just track information. We need it to analyze and project future trends and help us present the information to decision makers. Can church management software do this?

The experts agree that good church management software should be able to analyze data on its own or in cooperation with other software tools, such as Microsoft's Excel. Here's a sampling of what some companies are doing.

CDM+ from Suran Systems can generate a six-year history report that analyzes the number of givers each year and the average amount per giver.

"If the church is supported by a few who give generously, then the church is vulnerable if something happens to that shallow support base," says Suran President Clay. "In planning stewardship campaigns it is helpful to know where support is coming from age groups, leaders, those involved in groups rather than those not involved. Because of the integration of membership information and financial information, church management systems are an excellent source for this type of data."

Most systems offer a combination of standard and customizable reports. Roll Call's standard reports include the ability to compare donations by different factors, such as date and attendance.

"Just click donations and attendance, and you're there," says McGlasson, who says it is vital for churches to be able to look at the same data in different ways. Roll Call from By the Book also offers user-customized reports.

If the reports provided with a system don't meet your needs, most systems allow you to export data to be used in spreadsheets, such as Excel, which can allow you to do more projections and analysis. PowerChurch Software offers built-in reports, customized reports, and the ability to export into Excel. Carla Bracalente, office manager for PowerChurch, says many people export information into spreadsheets because they are familiar with them from other experiences at work or home.

Software from ACS allows data to be extracted in summary, in detail (by individual), or by individual with names omitted (for security reasons). "Simple straight line projections are one approach," says Pattie White, "but for most churches a good projection is more sophisticated than that. Spreadsheet tools make it manageable."

I need to combine data from several parts of my software program into one report. For example, I need to know how many shut-ins over the age of 80 have contributed this year but have not received a visit from the pastoral staff. And the education pastor wants to see the Sunday school attendance pattern for church members who volunteer versus those who don't.

With today's software, there's actually not much that can't be done. Different software packages offer different options.

"What you're really asking," says McGlasson from By the Book, "is to find different sets of people with specific characteristics. With Roll Call all you need to do is define what you want. Our query engine does this very well."

"The examples given [in the question above]," says Jerry Mitchell, training manager for Shelby Systems, "require combining data from various modules, such as Membership, Attendance, and Contributions. Not only is this possible, but the novice user is now given more help to actually accomplish it. Report wizards [programs], filtering techniques, and menu items, or pick lists, guide the user to get what's wanted." Mitchell adds that advanced users can take advantage of other software programs, such as Microsoft Access, for even more in-depth data mining.

The "groups" feature in Servant Keeper allows users to choose criteria from the Membership or Contributions modules to create an unlimited number of specific groups, which then can be accessed throughout the program.

"Once you have [defined] the group that you need, you can print any directory, mailing label, or personalized letter for that group," says Moyer of Servant PC Resources. "We even have a section of the Report Manager that allows you to do a times missed/present report, so that you can find just the information you need, such as visitors who have attended any amount of time in any date range or any church member who has been either active or inactive as a volunteer."

Software from Parsons Church Division can be customized. If the company's list of standard reports doesn't give users the information they need, they have the power to design their own reports from scratch, says Britt Edwards, vice-president of sales for Parsons. Users can create reports that give them information on virtually anything they want.

PowerChurch Software also allows customization. "For every church, there are a hundred unique reports that are needed," says Bill Jones, customer support manager. "PowerChurch Plus makes it easy to define and create your own specialized reports with a custom Report Writer that comes standard with our software." The Report Writer allows users to control sort order, page layout, font type and size, and more.

White from ACS says: "The ACS search option adds virtually unlimited power for combining criteria from member records, visitation history, giving records, attendance history, and so forth. The searches can be stored, too, which means if the education pastor routinely wants a report, it's easy to re-run it when needed."

Our denomination requires specific quarterly reports. Is there a way that our church management software can make this task easier?

Software companies would happily create standardized reports if churches were truly standardized. However, there are variations in reporting within church denominations, regional offices, and local headquarters. In addition, many churches really don't want the requirements of a quarterly or annual report to dictate how they operate on a day-to-day basis, thus standardized reports are never really standardized. However, vendors have come up with various creative solutions to this problem.

"Two churches rarely want to track information precisely the same way, even within the same denomination," says White of ACS. "That's why we moved to offer churches the ability to create customized reports from their data, so they can meet denominational reporting requirements and also have the flexibility to use information the way they see fit at the local level."

Software from Shelby Systems, PowerChurch, and Parsons (Membership Plus) each offer standardized reports and the ability to create user-customized reports for special needs.

Computer Helper Publishing provides a unique solution to denominational issues. "We have seven different denominational versions of the program," Wygant says. Along with Classic Church Windows, Computer Helper Publishing offers Methodist, Episcopal, Nazarene, Lutheran, Catholic, and Presbyterian Church Windows.

"The advantage of these versions is that the fields are already set up to track the information needed for that dreaded annual report," Wygant says. "You simply select the information by choosing a pre-set report criteria, retrieve the information needed, and fill in the report."

If all else fails, Haystead of Logos recommends sending a copy of your denominational report to your software vendor to see how they can help.

We live in a college town, and each year we have a huge number of addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses that need to be updated. Can software help?

"Good church management software should provide a place for primary and alternate addresses," says Clay of Suran Systems. "It should provide an easy way to activate one address and store the other for future use." Suran does this through an address window feature.

With Parsons's Membership Plus, addresses can be flagged as current, alternate, seasonal, or one-time. Designators can be applied to all members in a family or only to an individual.

Servant PC Resource's Servant Keeper allows you to keep an alternate address for every individual and family in your database. The alternate address is used during the time frame you specify. For example, a permanent address can be used over the summer and a college address during the school year.

In the future, it's possible address changes could be done via the Web. ACS is now creating Web-application prototypes that will enable members to alert the church to changes in contact information. "We're proceeding carefully, since security issues abound," White says.

If a new area or zip code requires you to change several records at once, Shelby Systems lets users change the information for an entire group without having to update each record separately.

Church Windows from Computer Helper provides an easy-to-use grid that speeds up data entry. And the Logos Mail Manager provides built-in cass (coding accuracy support system) software, which ensures that new or modified addresses are valid.

Our church is located in an area with lots of power outages. Is there a way to protect the data that I am entering in the computer, so that when the system goes down I don't have to start over each time?

"Our technical-support line fields many calls from customers who have experienced power outages or hardware failure resulting in some sort of data loss," says Jones of PowerChurch Software. "If the church has a recent backup, the solution is as simple as restoring that backup." PowerChurch, like most companies in this article, includes backup/restore features in its software.

"Find out when new data is actually saved to the hard drive," says Haystead of Logos. Some programs may store new entries only in batches, which makes that data vulnerable, he says. In Logos, once an individual record is entered, it is saved instantly. Thus, if your power goes out after entering several hundred transactions, they will all be saved, except for the record that was in the process of being entered.

Many companies include this feature in their programs. You may also want to make sure your software can reprocess index files, archive old information, and provide data integrity reports that can check for errors. Membership Plus from Parsons includes these features, as do others.

Computer Helper Publishing includes a built-in backup program, but warns that the church has an additional responsibility to take the backup disks and cds off-site. "It does no good to have backup disks that were destroyed in a fire!" Wygant says.

"If you are in an area where power outages are frequent, or even if you fear that a power disruption may occur, you should really consider some type of universal power source (ups)," Haystead says. "This is a backup device that gives you approximately 5 to 15 minutes of battery life in order to complete what you are doing, save your work, and shut down your computer until power is restored. These devices can be purchased at any local office supply or computer store."

Management software has become a necessary tool for overseeing a congregation's affairs. If you've got problems, speak up. There's probably a solution.