Church management software allows religious organizations to manage and keep track of service attendance, schedules, memberships, events, activities and operations. Compare and read user reviews of the best Church Management software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
Talk to one of our software experts for free. They will help you select the best software for your business.
Casebook
Jumbula
Simon Solutions
GivingTools
Nuverb Systems Inc.
Duplie
Raklet
Churchteams
BONGAS
Faith Teams
Attendance Now
Gyve
Church Community Builder
Flocknote
Faithlife
Breeze Church Management
Icon Systems
GiveHub
GraceSoft
Servant PC Resources
Planning Center
ACS Technologies
Continue to Give
Pushpay
Circuits & Systems Computers & Peripherals
Personify
Suran Systems
FlockBase Software
SeekerWorks Inc.
ChurchApps
Church leaders have so many responsibilities advancing their church’s charter and overall mission that when it comes to church administration and week-to-week operations, they require a comprehensive and capable yet streamlined church management system (ChMS). Fortunately, many solutions exist. From dedicated church accounting and bookkeeping applications to comprehensive suites capable of managing all concerns from financial to personnel to events, many management systems suites are capable of managing everything.
That said, selecting the right application can be a challenge. Church leaders must find a program that is easy to use yet capable of meeting current needs. Additionally, the system must be able to evolve with the church.
For anyone needing guidance on how to select the best church management software, the following buying guide will provide time-saving assistance.
In a church, behind the scenes of weekly sermons are the necessary administrative, personnel, and tax reporting tasks. Church management systems provide all the elements necessary to automate much of these tasks by facilitating communications, enhancing staff collaboration, and making daily operations a breeze. Although church management systems have varied functionality and price ranges, systems with common standard functions are available to meet the needs of organizations large or small. These standard functions are discussed below.
From standard address-book functions that track phone numbers and addresses to tracking volunteers and visitors, effective church management systems should offer church leaders a variety of member management capabilities. In addition to address-book functions, the system should offer database capability and allow list customization for such actions as charity events, contacts, and outreach. Finally, so that all this information is available at the touch of a keystroke, it should offer basic search capabilities and reporting.
Privacy and information-security needs require the software to provide secure organization and management of all donations, from individuals to large corporations to funds raised by events.
Perhaps the most basic of features, the church management software must provide secure accounting functionality. It should also offer the ability to create basic or complex reports as well as track money from multiple sources.
Right behind accounting functionality is the need for a church management software system to provide the ability to track events. Churches regularly hold events, both on and off site, so the ChMS must be able to track the details of those events. It must also track the event locations. Coupled with the accounting functions, it should be able to track outgoing payments or funds raised by events. It should also be able to provide reports on specific event-related property or equipment used in the event. This equipment can range from church vans to multimedia equipment to room tracking, necessary to prevent over- or double-booking. Other features should include modern deployment capabilities such as online or smartphone registration. Payment processing is a must-have feature along with the ability to track event-related funds and prepare event-specific reports.
Functions should include tracking of current, past, and future volunteer openings as well as information on volunteers such as history and availability. Scheduling functionality is an absolute must as is a volunteer’s preferred form of contact, phone or email, for instance, for outreach and follow-up.
Church leaders should opt for a ChMS with comprehensive outreach and communication capabilities. As growing the organization is of importance, look for functions to increase member and social engagement. These features include the ability to manage email marketing campaigns, newsletters, and direct mail. Additionally, these functions should offer auto-update features and work in tandem with the event management functions to plan activity and track events.
Attendance and child safety
The church management software must have the ability to track both attendance of regular members and occasional visitors. Attendance tracking functionality should dovetail with event management functions for seminars, camps, fundraisers, retreats, and other events. Touch-screen capabilities will expedite the check-in process by allowing visitors to sign in by themselves. Additionally, functionality should be able to track children as well as guardian registration. Tracking should allow administrators to track child names by classroom or nursery, and functionality should also be able to track a person’s location throughout the day as events move between rooms.
Note: Although many of the standard features are offered in some form or another in many non-profit management software systems, a comprehensive ChMS, as opposed to a basic suite, offers options designed to serve the needs of specific churches and other faith-based organizations by effectively managing inter-organizational member relationships.
Of course, prices increase with the number of available features. High-end systems will offer community members online communication and support as well as a full suite of attendance and security tracking options. Finally, high-end systems are best for organizations looking for volunteer-management solutions.
Conversely, inexpensive systems designed for smaller churches will offer basic functionality designed primarily to manage membership, e-mail, and finances.
Growing churches, large churches, or even mega-churches will obviously need a full-featured ChMS that manages every possible need. Small churches, however, can meet their budgetary limits and still manage their record keeping by selecting a church management software suite designed to provide only the essential operations and record keeping.
It might at first seem that organization administrators will immediately know which type of ChMS will meet their needs, but knowing how to match precisely a systems functionality with the specific needs of every church is very important. Identifying the basic needs of an organization will facilitate the process of church management software selection.
In a small church, members might be well acquainted, but in order to maintain membership and financial levels, membership, attendance, and donation tracking capabilities are important. For a small church not able or interested in taking time to install a ChMS, vendors often offer installation services. For organizations with limited technology, online subscription services are also a common possibility. Subscription services are also known as “software-as-a-service,” and they can streamline administrative tasks without the need to establish a full-blown technology department.
Midsize or larger organizations with member counts between 250 and 2,000 often have more resources. More resources typically come with greater financial tracking and reporting needs. Of course, increased financial tracking and reporting necessitate member and contributor information security. Greater security can be accomplished through full-service suites that offer double-entry accounting and reporting. Full-service suites can also track spending across a variety of domains: fund, project, or department. Just as important, they can automate other fiduciary requirements such as payroll, taxes, donations, and fixed-assets.
Churches of this size typically handle memberships of 2,000 or more. In addition to having a vast number of members, corporate organizations and megachurches often have multiple regional or even national chapters. Some even have online and physical locations across the country. A few others are global. Such scale requires a ChMS with central database capabilities, so a leader can access and manage operations from any location. In fact, such a central database is the only way to accurately manage wide-scale outreach operations and events. Additionally, a full-featured ChMS is the only way to connect a vast number of members, volunteers, groups, and other integral personnel and allow them the ability to stay apprised of the larger organization.
A church that successfully selects the best ChMS for its current and future needs can enjoy a variety of benefits.
Ability to keep a secure database of contacts, allowing visitors and members with reporting responsibilities up-to-date information for the best possible organizational and stewardship decisions
Increase membership engagement through company-wide communication capabilities
Tax-reporting compliance and audit protection through the secure tacking of donations through admin-panel processing and report generation
A more empowered membership via automated event scheduling
Churches often select the wrong ChMS. In doing so, they miss out on opportunities or fail to capitalize on the core features of the ChMS. The most common mistakes are as follows:
Mistakenly select church management systems that do not integrate between departments, have limited donation tracking or accounting features, or do not scale with the church’s growth
Failure to plan for basic accounting, bookkeeping, IRS compliance, or other tax-related issues
Select a non-standardized system that cannot integrate the technical requirements of different vendors
Failure to take advantage of ChMS vendor training, so staff can implement and benefit from all the features
For any church, large or small, shopping for, reviewing, and purchasing a ChMS can be overwhelming. Although many features are available to meet so many types of church needs, and although the process seems difficult, the process of properly evaluating a ChMS is critical for the ongoing success of the church.
A recent case study of buyers across a complex striation of organizations revealed four basic preliminary actions that dramatically increase the successful match of software with church needs. These steps include the need to review vendor or software company references, employing an attorney to review the software service contract, examining the vendor’s fiduciary and business viability, and submitting a request for proposal (RFP).
Organizations that focus on the “most successful” strategies while also avoiding the “least successful” strategies are able to maximize productivity and company growth. They are able to do this because they carefully identify their needs with the features of the software. In doing so, they are less likely to waste time considering software that will never meet their organization’s current or future needs.
Any church administrator knows that budgeting, donations, and IRS compliance are concerns capable of positively or negatively impacting the organization’s ability to grow, thrive, and meet the needs of members and their communities. Additional concerns to consider when selecting a church management system are as follows:
Online software systems available for purchase or available through subscription offer effective ways for churches to increase donations. Conversely, one of the chief obstacles to organizational growth is the inability of a ChMS to successfully handle financial management tasks. For small or large churches, cloud-based management software allows for real-time information retrieval, reviewing or program assessment—from any location.
Such ease of use makes possible strategic proactive decisions to increase growth. A recent case study determined that 80 percent of churches with weekly attendance of 1,000 use a cloud-based system to meet their needs and expedite sustained growth. Regarding small churches, 55 percent of successful small churches also use cloud-based systems. The study finds that churches employing cloud-based systems for online donations experience near double the rate of contributions.
In recent years, online donations to faith-based organizations have grown by over 15%. This increase in donations is a trend that experts expect to continue, so providing potential donors the ability to donate either online or via their smartphone is critical.
Perhaps one of the best methods to increase communication among church members and volunteers is the use of social media. Sites such as Twitter or Facebook help facilitate member support. When combined with the use of social sites, outreach conducted via email significantly increases member communication.
The cost of church management software can vary widely depending on the type of software and the features included. For example, a basic platform may include core features such as membership management, donation tracking, and event scheduling for free or at a much lower cost than a more comprehensive package. However, more advanced systems can include built-in websites, communication tools such as email blasts and texting campaigns, financial reporting, analytics capabilities to track engagement metrics, volunteer management tools, and other integrations with third-party services such as payment processors for an additional fee. The cost of these packages can range from several hundred dollars per month up to thousands of dollars per year depending on the size of your organization and the features required. It’s important to research various vendors thoroughly to ensure you get all the features you need without paying for extraneous ones you won’t use. Additionally, many providers offer discounts or longer-term contracts that may help reduce costs while still providing everything your church requires. Overall, it pays to shop around in order to find the right pricing structure and feature set that meets your needs best!
Church management software can integrate with a variety of types of software, such as accounting software, membership databases, donation tracking databases, online giving platforms, email marketing platforms, calendar systems, project management tools and data analysis programs. These types of software allow church administrators to manage an array of functions within their organization from one source. For example, integrated accounting software allows churches to generate reports on donations or other income associated with their organization. Integrated membership databases allow administrators to quickly search for records on members or volunteers within their organization. Donations tracking databases allow churches to stay organized with who has donated and how much they have given. Online giving platforms allow donors to give money right over the internet which is then deposited into the church’s bank account. Email marketing platforms make it easy for churches to send out updates or announcements automatically and efficiently while calendar systems help keep church events organized and in view at all times. Project management tools help ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner while data analysis programs give churches insight into trends related to their congregations activities. All these different types of software can be integrated with church management software to create an efficient system that makes managing a church easier than ever before!