Church360

Benefits:

The program is well organized and relatively easy to use without too much instruction. It is easy to look up congregation members, track giving and generate reports and mailing lists.

Drawbacks:

The layout is a bit cumbersome on the member pages. It would be better if everything were in list form, rather than having everything so spread out on the page. Also it would be great to have some ability to customize the page layout with the exact information that each church/ministry needs.

In sum:

It is a well thought out program that we use daily. With some minor tweaks, it would be a bit more user-friendly with regard to inputting and maintaining parishioner information.

In sum:

Our church "upgraded" from Member Connect in December 2014 and the transition has not gone well for us. Unfortunately a lot of the things that made Member Connect an easy tool to organize our small groups and emails was replaced with a much clunkier system. Most importantly for us as a mid-sized congregation (250 worshipers), the calendar and group system only has two tiers (the master calendar and then all the group calendars below), which means you can't really create sub-groups for anything. The calendar function is clunky (for example, you can't skip to a specific date, you have to click through each month to get the date you're trying to find). And the email system relies on Outlook, which means you can't schedule emails to send at a future date if your computer is off. The website is nice and pretty user friendly, and the customer service is generally pretty responsive, but overall it's a poor administrative tool. When all is said and done, I think we'll be looking for a new database system sometime in the near future.

Benefits:

This product has given us capabilities which we didn't even know we had and the efficiency and effectiveness to implement them.

Drawbacks:

This product has consistently provided us with a quality experience and has opened new doors for us on a consistent basis.

In sum:

This product has provided us with a new level of confidence! Thank you!

Benefits:

For church finances, I believe this has the most functionality and is the easiest to use on the market.

Drawbacks:

I wish they could update the software and add more than just financial management tools, such as managing individual giving and tithing.

In sum:

Pros - many features with separation by function and control of whom may access what features with levels of authority to view only, update, or manage; many built-in reports; flexible "do-it-yourself" reporting tool; powerful extract capability; several standard reports in ELCA reporting format; knowledgable and technically saavy telephone support staff. Very flexible in how it may be used within the church. Software updated based on user feedback. Cons - Can't think of any.

Benefits:

It used to be easy to find information...until the redesign. The best thing is that it does give me the information for the paperwork from the national headquarters.

Drawbacks:

The whole redesign. Used to have a screen in Membership where all the important information would be easy to see. Took it away. Used to show the last time they came to church. Took it away. Used to be easy to search for information. Scared to think if I transfer over to 360 things will only be worse.

In sum:

Shepherd Staff. Used to be wonderful, but when it was reworked it made it harder for the secretary to do their jobs.

In sum:

Since switching from MemberConnect we can no longer send emails out to our congregation as 360 has caused our domain to be flagged by many of the Internet providers in our area. We are now looking for an alternative website company to work with as 360 tells us the problem is our problem and not theirs. Sorry but for $79.99/month that is not a good answer or a good solution. Do yourself a favor and beware of this product.

Benefits:

Not much - Had big expectations from Shepard's Staff Financial package -

Drawbacks:

Too many to list but as an overview - as a CPA of almost 40 years I have never seen an accounting program with so many issues - Balance Sheet does not include Equity. Statements do not have company headers (so if you have 2 different books as we do for our early learning center and our church - the statements do not have which book they are representing). General ledger does not have beginning balances or ending balances for accounts - just the current transactions - cannot save customized reports for future months use - General Ledger is sorted by account names (program does not use account numbers) so the general ledger does not follow the Balance Sheet/Income/Expense format - Bank reconciliation: report does not show DIT/O-S checks - can't sort transactions by type - only by date - very cumbersome flipping through bank statement - bank rec doesn't have totals by deposit,checks,electronic funds so if you are off you have no idea which area to review - deactivated accounts still show up on financial statements - had dedicated accounts (Liability in Shepard's Staff) that came over as a postive asset - totally messed up the balance sheet cash account - 1st person I spoke with at client services was not helpful and very condescending - finally got the manager involved to get my balances correct.

Benefits:

Ease of use Affordability Fantastic customer service Generate reports easily

Drawbacks:

No payroll module

In sum:

We converted from a DOS based program to Shepherd's Staff 10 years ago, selecting SS for ease of use, good customer support and affordability. It has met our needs very well. They offer an online accessible product called Member Connect that draws from the information in Shepherd's Staff. We believe this product is a great value especially for small to mid-sized congregations.

Benefits:

"I want to..." window made it easy in all modules to do the most common features with ease. Had everything that we needed to do all church business and member record keeping.

Drawbacks:

Could have better Icon's for quick understanding of product.

In sum:

I give it a 4.8 stars out of 5. Very good and the tech support has to be rated near the top!