One of the more recent issues related to church accounting software that we have seen is the level of integration between the traditional church accounting software and the more modern church management software. There are lots of questions about what the difference really is, and which one does your church really need?
The traditional church accounting software helps with keeping track of the finances of the church. Some more generic programs will let you build in limited information about who makes a donation or possibly some information about your members for tracking. However, most of the specialized church accounting software doesn’t have the full range of functions that the church management software applications have.
If you are primarily focused on organizing your churches finances for budgeting and keeping track of income and expenses, then you probably just need church accounting software to accomplish that task. Many of the basic accounting software programs that you can buy online or in stores can handle the functions that the church would need, however use caution as some of them can be overwhelming to learn and setup for your church.
Church management software is a more robust and full fledged software package that will allow you to track numerous things. One of the main reasons that many churches have gone with the full management software is because most of them incorporate accounting into the software. The church management software will allow you to keep track of members, their donations and tithes, building and assets, inventory, different ministries and outreach programs, church fundraisers and more.
Often times the main benefit to selecting a church management software program over just the accounting software system is integration and flexibility. Many of the more current versions that you can find offer a great benefit over store bought systems. They are still database driven systems, however you can define a lot of different fields and information yourself.
When the full church management software was first coming out, there wasn’t much flexibility built into the system. You got what they gave you as far as what information would be stored and how things were organized. Now, many of the systems are a basis for you to start with and create, modify and organize how ever you desire. Not to mention that you can now dump several different programs that wouldn’t talk to each other, or you had to export data from one program into another to get a report, church management software has come a long way.
In order to decide which software solution is best for your churches needs, you really need to take an inventory on what you currently have in place. How well does it work? Are you able to expand easily? Are your reports easily generated or do you have to export and import several times from several programs to get the final result? If your answers are “not well”, “no” and “Yeah right!” then maybe you should begin looking into some of the different church management software packages that are available.
Just remember, if you are a smaller church or just need to functions of keeping track of your tithes, payroll and other expenses, then maybe your best option is to look into what church accounting software programs you should use. However, if your church is growing or you are tired of all of the fuss over different programs, seriously considering church management software could be a wise investment.
