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Published January 01st, 2017 by

How to Choose the Best Church Management Software

How to Choose the Best Church Management Software

With all the excitement about the creation of church management software, many church leaders had become too overwhelmed about the sea of choices that they have to face. Of course, many providers are now plaguing the market today because of this hype. With their confusing jargon, positive claims, and boastful advertisements, it is indeed hard to choose the right software for a certain church.

Just like any others, it offers a wide range of functionalities that streamlines the tedious tasks of managing documents and a lot of data. But it doesn’t mean that a certain ChMS can solve all the church needs. There are features that could only be used by few churches. If you are going to purchase a system that has many capabilities but your church doesn’t need them, it could mean losing a great deal of money. The price could vary depending on the functions, number of users, monthly basis, etc.

If you are not careful about other factors such as the price, security features, type of tracking system, then you will end up wasting the church’s money. Plus, if it doesn’t integrate with other software that you are already using in your church, then there will more chance of confusion in the data-entry. ChMS solutions are just like software for businesses, it is important to select the best one that fits your needs because it will shape your whole operations.

So, how can you weed out all those confusing options in the internet? How can you know if a certain church management system is just a waste of money as compared to others? What if you find out that the features that you are paying for are useless to your church? Also, you have to consider a lot of factors before you can actually proceed to the selection process. You have to list down the needs that you want your software to help you with in the church. What are the preferences of the church members? Do you need a cloud-based system so that they can access the database whenever they want? Do you need to integrate it with the accounting, childcare, document software that your church?

How can you do all these tasks? How to start you research? Many questions will start to pile up if you really don’t know what you are going to do. But the answer lies all in your hands. The ones that are tasked to choose the software for their church must learn how to do it right. Otherwise, it would be total waste of time and money. They can look for reviews about the top church management software. You can read blogs and articles to learn some tips about choosing the right software. Learn the features that the software can offer. There are obviously a lot of ways on how you can get the best result in the selection process. You just need to be diligent to learn and eager to look for the best software for your church.

But remember when we said that you must do it right? You problem is that many sources are not helpful at all. Pretty much all ads will say the same thing, that they are the best. Some articles will only favor the software providers who paid them. Some will also be misleading if you are not familiar with the jargon in this particular field. Other reviews are also not reliable because they do not give honest customer feedbacks. Some will cherry pick the good feedbacks of customers but will not publish the bad ones. As you make your research, you might notice this if you visit multiple websites. One review might say that the software is perfect for this type of church. Then, if you go to other sites, you may discover that there are actually hidden charges that it is actually known for.

Maybe you are now discouraged because you don’t know what you are going to do or what to look for. Thankfully, there is still a safe way to select the best church management software. You can start that by reading honest reviews and rankings of the top church management software in CrowdReviews.com. Then you can start reading blogs in that same site. After that, you can now proceed to the assessment of your church’s needs.

So now, to help you in your quest in finding the best church management software, here are the things you can consider and tips that you can follow.

How Much Does Church Management Software Costs?

With the number of vendors that offers a wide range of software solutions, there’s no surprise that there is also a variety of pricing methods. The pricing methods usually depend on the number of users or the installation fees of the self-hosted system. There are also vendors that offer a subscription method of pricing. Some may also charge you with in a monthly basis.

If your church is on a budget, you can narrow your choices by looking for the vendors that offers low-cost packages. This ranges from $0.03 per member basis, $0.07 per user and monthly basis, up to $50 for a one-time payment for the license fee when using a self-hosted system. As for the medium package solutions, the price can range below $1000 plus some extra charges for every add-ons, extensions features, and integrations. The most advanced church management software solutions can be expensive but it offers different modules that can be operated separately.

You may also want to resort to open-source software if your church is on a tight budget. These ChMS systems are free to download and use. You can also just access them using in the web. They could also ask for an upgrade or for additional functionalities but you will have to pay a very low-cost fee in that matter.

What Are the Features that You Need for Your Church?

The main purpose of this software is to manage and store the basic information of the members. This includes the contact information such as email, address of the family, contact number, etc. It can also be used to collect the demographics such as the number of males and females, the age of the members, who are already baptized, birthdays, marriages, etc. On the other hand, many systems can vary depending on what kind of information you’re going to store. There are some systems that can only track those mentioned information but cannot process other complicated ones such as the family tree, the number of divorced members, affiliations of the members, etc.

Talking about the communication between the church members, the church management software can also help in this aspect. On the other hand, there is also a variety of communication features that can be offered by different vendors. There are systems that can arrange the contact information based on the family group, age group, affiliations, department, etc. There are also features that let the users to post events in the database so that the members can be notified. If communication is a vital part in your church needs, be sure to pick a church management system that has the best communication feature for your church needs.

In the selection process, never overlook the quality of user interface. You must consider how the members can cope up with the kind of software you have chosen. Is the software easy to operate? Are there any confusing functionalities? It is important to know these stuff first before finally implement the software. You can use the free-trials offered in some software providers. You can also ask the provider if there will be user and technical support included in the package.

Some churches will need to protect valuable or confidential data in the software. So, it would be useful if the software has a user role system. This means that the server can restrict or put a certain level of control over the access of the members in the database. This feature is very important to protect data that concerns individual finances, donations, church expenses, or just anything about money.

Self-Hosted Versus Cloud-based ChMS System

It is important to know the pros and cons between these two. When selecting the best solution for your needs, it is important to assess the demography of your members. How old are the majority of the members? Do you think they can operate gadgets such as smartphones and tablets?

You can consider these questions when choosing the right church management software. A cloud-based system is perfectly suited for a church with middle-aged members or younger. One benefit of using this type of software is its accessibility using the internet. The update, support, and hosting will also be the responsibility of the vendor. So, you will not have to hire IT personnel to maintain your software. You also don’t have to worry about the backup system because the provider usually has it covered. However, it will be more prone with hacking and other security issues. Plus, you will have to pay in a monthly or annual basis if you choose this software. Then, if the system down, you will have to wait for your provider to fix it.

The self-hosted or the installed software is the opposite. It is usually used by churches with old-aged members. It can only be operated by using a server that supports multiple computers in the church facility. There should be an admin who will manage the operations needed in the server. Maintenance and upgrade depend on the preference of the admins and users. The admins should provide a backup support like external hard drives or flash drives. Hacking is not a problem but you usually need to purchase the whole system including the hardware.

How Can You Use This Article?

You can consider these factors when choosing the best software for you church. After reading this, you may also read further about church management software to have a broader research for the selection process. Now, you might have some ideas or preferences about a certain ChMS but you still have a long way to go. So, be careful.

Look for the pertinent blogs, reviews, and rankings. You can check out CrowdReviews.com to learn more about church management software.

John Tovar

John specializes in the creation and planning of business-centric mobile applications and mobile website design and development.

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