Special Church Management Software Issue of Christian Computing Magazine!

Icon Systems recently had the honor of contributing to another Christian Computing Magazine cover story – you can read the full article here. The 2011 Church Management Software (ChMS) Overview is put together by the magazine’s various ChMS company sponsors. It is an excellent resource for organizations on the market – whether they are purchasing church management software for the first time or simply looking for a better fit.

Make sure to check it out for sure if you participated in our customer feedback survey last month – we included many of your comments! (In case you were wondering – yes, getting quoted in a magazine cover story gives you bragging rights for at least a year so by all means feel free to shamelessly forward the article to everyone in your contact list!)

Unfortunately due to word count restrictions, we could not include all of your fabulous testimonials, but we would sincerely like to thank each person who responded to the survey; every single one of the numerous endorsements and suggestions we received help us continue to deliver affordable, complete church management software solutions to churches everywhere.

8 Things to Do When You Review Church Software in the Cloud

1. Define your needs. Make a list of the things you want the software to accomplish and rank them by importance. Getting caught up in all of the hype is easy, so knowing your priorities before you get started will help keep you on track.
2. Take the program for a test drive. Sign up for a free trial so you can see the system for yourself. It is probably a bad sign if you can’t ‘try it before you buy it.’
3. Contact the support team. Did a real person answer your call? How long did it take for them to respond to your email? Sometimes software companies forget about the Service part of SaaS. If you can’t get technical help or answers to your questions, it does not matter if the program has all the features you need and more. The quality of service is what is really going to matter to you at the end of the day.
4. Find out what kind of training is available. Does the company provide training? If so, does it cost extra? Do you have access to training as well as support during the free trial?
5. Talk to people already using the system. See if anyone you know is using the system and ask the company for customer references (If they refuse, it might be a red flag – maybe no one is using the software or maybe the people using the software are unhappy.)
6. Analyze the security and compliance. Is the data secure and encrypted? Who has access to your data? How often are backups performed? Can you get a copy of the backup file?
7. Ask if they have a Disaster Recovery Plan. How often do they test it? Does it work?
8. Read the contract. Will the price increase every few months if you don’t sign a long contract? How often is your subscription cost adjusted (whether it’s up or down) based on your usage level? Do you own the data?

Use Facebook for Church Member Interaction!

Build a Fan Page Your Church Can Be Proud Of: Five Nifty Facebook Tips for Churches

You can use IconCMO for organizing members and groups, contribution reporting, fund accounting, and even payroll – why don’t we have a place for church members to interact with each other like other church management systems?

For starters, everyone already uses Facebook. Well, not literally everyone, but half of the site’s 750 million active users log on every day. Since so many people already use Facebook on a regular basis, participation is much more likely and you can get their attention more easily. Not only can the church securely use Facebook in a variety of ways, but did we also mention that Facebook is easy to use and fun?

Another reason is the fact that Facebook is free. Facebook costs your organization absolutely nothing to use. Why would you choose to pay for software that does the same thing? The church really needs a back-end database for things Facebook cannot do – tasks such as reporting contributions to the IRS, organizing membership data, and complying with fund accounting guidelines required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB.) Social media applications like Facebook facilitate communication whereas church software assists with managing church administrative responsibilities.

We put together a list of some nifty how-to resources available to help your church get the most out of its Facebook page while staying safe online.

1.      Getting started can be the hardest part. If you would like to create a Facebook Fan Page for your church but have no idea where to begin, the Pages Manual (hyperlink to http://www.facebook.com/advertising/02.10.2011.pages_manual.pdf) is a great resource.

2.      Learn How to Stay Safe with the Facebook Security Manual

https://www.facebook.com/safety/attachment/Guide%20to%20Facebook%20Security.pdf

3.      Create a Closed or Secret Facebook Group

http://www.squidoo.com/createfacebookgroup

4.      Share Documents on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2380274266

5.      Sync Facebook Events with Google Calendar

http://www.switched.com/2010/11/29/sync-facebook-events-google-calendar-how-to/

While we are on the topic, Google Calendar is another great FREE tool available.

6.      Bonus Tip: Add Google Calendar to Your Website or Blog

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=41207

Facebook Statistics retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

6 Steps to Maintaining your Church Tax Exempt Status.

Lauren Hunter did a wonderful write up of what to look for in church software. Please read the full article. Below is just a summary of some of the information you will find.

Know what regulations pertain to churches and what organization creates them. Understand and know why you cannot keep balances in the revenue and expense accounts. Additionally, liabilities should not have fund balances because liabilities are money owed and not money the organization owns. Does church size matters when it comes to accuracy of church reporting or does the church have to report the financials at all?  There are two major repercussions of having bad financials. One is moral and the other is legal.  When an organization is out of compliance trust is lost in the community, which is the moral issue and is very hard to recover. The other is the church can lose its tax-exempt status and cannot claim to be a tax-exempt organization legally. Find out where to go to get more information. Tell us what you think.