Churches use church management software to input similar information: membership lists, contributions, visitors. But how they use that information varies widely from one congregation to another, even within the same denomination, according to CMS providers, who are keenly attuned to what functions their customers want and use, as well as actively disseminating the latest information on the functions their software performs.
Through training and support services, clients can learn about upgrades — many of which are timesavers. For example, new scanning capabilities in various CMS allow users to apply barcodes for data entry of things such as attendance or contributions. That saves time entering data manually.
Logos Management Software recently introduced an online giving function that transfers automatic updates to the church database.
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Haystead said he recently worked to train a woman at a church in North Carolina, who had been using Logos since the program was based on a DOS platform. In about two hours of training he showed her new features that now save her hours each month.
One faster feature Haystead said he hears about most from clients is the donor statements that now print in six or seven keystrokes. “That scores really, really well,” he said, “particularly when you still have people in the office who remember when it used to take three weeks.”
A mailing add-on at Logos automates large mailings such as statements that must be mailed out at the end of the year. It also prints out post office forms and places documents in the most cost-efficient order for a cheap postage rate. “It actually does almost everything but go out and stick the piece of mail into the person’s mailbox,” Haystead said.
Help is a click away
The changes and intricacies toward timesaving have been addressed by Helpmate Technology Solutions in a new interactive FAQ message board placed on the company’s Web site in April. The board, called KnowledgeBase, offers a searchable database of questions and answers and provides a way for users to suggest new topics.
In general the questions are functionality questions, most gleaned from Helpmate’s customer support database, according to Helpmate president Paul Schuster.
“Whenever you provide customer support, you’re going to get recurring questions or questions that are similar,” Schuster said. “Publishing that on the Web site like we have gives people 24/7 access to that information.”
Other CMS companies, such as ACS Technologies, also offer support via their Web site. ACS has a “Tips and Tricks” page its clients can access, in addition to training and other support services, including webinars and an FAQs page.
Simplifying church business may be only a matter of learning new CMS upgrades and shortcuts.
