This is from an email I received: “I belong to a small church and we are looking to update our software. Can you recommend software that is membership/financial based for churches?”
My reply:
Your church size is a big factor – the larger it is, the more robust a system you’ll need; the smaller it is, then you can patch-work a couple of systems. Here is some info:
Do you want to handle all your financials “in-house” or are you comfortable out-sourcing your financials? For several years I’ve done out-sourced financials for several clients. I’m biased but I strongly encourage you to out-source your financials to a trusted person. With the internet, your financial person can be several states away. All info (bills and even checks) can be emailed for posting by this company. This saves the church in many ways (no office for a person, no computer to purchase, no employee benefits to pay for, etc.) but it costs a little more in terms of straight wages (because the other company has to cover their own benefits & taxes). If you want to go that direction, I can give you a quote and the names of other companies doing the same thing.
If you do this in-house, then you have several decisions to make:
- Do you want a system that combines both? That will cost more, be stronger and extremely effective in handling your needs, and require initial training plus on-going training of the staff using it.
- Do you want to install the software on your own server or have it online? If you put it on your server then you also need to have it backed up and that will cost about $500 or $750 a year. Having someone else host your data online will cost (price varies) but there is a LOT of peace of mind knowing that your data will never be lost.
- Training is a must. Every dollar invested in training will yield results in efficiency and effectiveness in very tangible ways. Get the training!
Lead On!