Givum | October 05, 2021 Finding great church software that fits your needs is not an easy task. We want to help!
We love serving churches large and small here at Anedot. We kept that in mind as we put together this guide for church leaders.
Below is a guide to choosing the best church software in 4 categories:
- Church Management Software (ChMS)
Software that helps churches manage important information related to membership, attendance, online giving, and more.
- Church Accounting Software
Software that helps churches manage their contributions, finances, and payroll while integrating with other important church software.
- Church Project Management Software
Software that helps churches manage projects large and small, and even day to day tasks. Other great project management software features include time tracking, gantt charts, and more.
- Church Worship & Presentation Software
Software that helps churches plan and manage weekly services, events, and gatherings.
Church Management Software
Best Church Management Software:
A great Church Management Software (ChMS) should be the backbone of your church software.
You want to choose a ChMS that fits your budget but also has the features that your particular church and ministry demands. Typically, churches use their ChMS of choice for several years before finding a new solution.
The list below are great options and may be a fit for your church.
RockRMS
Rock is an open source church management system that focuses on the heart of ministry - people.
Fully-featured and mobile-friendly, Rock is building a vibrant community and innovative new solutions to meet your ministry goals. Owned and shepherded by a non-profit ministry itself, Rock will always focus on meeting the needs of the organizations it serves.
Why we like it:
- Built for churches large and small
- Modern and easy to use interface and features
- Thriving community of users and developers
- More affordable than competitors
- Open Source
Ministry Platform
MinistryPlatform is an exciting customizable Church Management System (ChMS) that allows you and your church unlimited flexibility.
MinistryPlatform is a complete system out of the box and includes a robust API and flexible schema so you can manage your people, events, groups, and donations in ways that work best for you.
Planning Center
Planning Center is a set of seven online software products designed to help you find freedom to focus on what matters in your ministry.
You can subscribe to individual products, or use them all together as a full church management system. We have tools to help you manage your membership database, schedule volunteers, plan services, check people in, take signups, process online donations, manage your calendar and facilities, and coordinate small groups. Every plan includes full access to support.
Breeze
Our mission is to provide small and mid-size churches the most intuitive ChMS available, at a great price.
With Breeze, manage attendance, securely check in children and print name tags, group contacts, mass email and text message contacts, offer online and text giving, run extensive reporting, and much more. Best of all, there's no contract, no setup fees, and we'll even move in your existing data at no cost!
FellowshipOne
Church management software by FellowshipOne is designed to assist churches and other related organizations with structuring and managing all aspects of daily operations, all in one cloud-based, integrated platform.
Church Accounting Software
Best Church Accounting Software:
Whether large or small, your church accounting software should be embraced and loved by your church’s accounting and finance staff.
You also want to choose a church accounting software that has a strong history and future. Similar to church management software, you will want to commit to an accounting software for at least 5 years as the complexity of migration and workflows can be challenging.
The list below are great options and may be a fit for your church.
QuickBooks for Church
QuickBooks for Church is a church accounting software and app that allows you to manage your business anywhere, anytime.
Used by over 4.5 million customers, QuickBooks provides smart tools for your business, yet is easy to use. You can organize your books, manage expenses, send invoices, track inventory, and even run payroll. With QuickBooks, you can get organized, save time, and even get paid fast by adding payment features.
Why we like it:
- Modern and easy to use interface and features
- Integrates with dozens of other software
- Beautiful data visualization (dashboard/charts)
- Widely used and known by professionals
- Strong development history and future
Xero
Xero is a beautiful, intelligent small business platform designed to make life better for small businesses and their advisors, and to help them grow and thrive.
Xero’s online accounting software platform provides the foundation on which businesses can build a complete business solution. It connects businesses with their bank, accounting tools, their accountant, payment services and third-party apps, so everything is securely available at any time, on any device.
Wave
Wave offers 100% free, real double-entry accounting for small businesses.
As a cloud-based software, Wave allows you to access your data from anywhere, add unlimited collaborators and work on all of your businesses from a single login. Wave eliminates data-entry and puts the financial reports you need at your fingertips, allowing you to spend more time doing what you love.
Your accounting is also seamlessly integrated with invoicing, receipt scanning, payment processing and payroll.
ShelbyNext Financials
Being responsible financial stewards is a vital part of a ministry's call to serve His Church well.
ShelbyNext | Financials is a state-of-the-art, Cloud-based software specifically designed to meet the needs of churches, ministries, non-profits and denominational headquarters. Available features include general ledger, payroll, accounts receivable, accounts payable and more.
Fulfills your financial requirements for governing boards, financial committees, internal staff, and outside agencies.
Church Project Management Software
Best Church Project Management Software:
Project management software helps church leaders to define projects, project tasks, and assign project team members to the project. Other features include: time tracking, gantt charts, file sharing, and more.
The list below are great options and may be a fit for your church.
ClickUp
ClickUp is one app to replace them all. It's the future of work - where anyone can work on anything.
More than just task management - ClickUp offers docs, reminders, goals, calendars, scheduling, and even an inbox. Fully customizable, ClickUp works for every type of team, so all teams can use the same app to plan, organize, and collaborate.
Why we like it:
- Great support and learning resources
- Constantly being developed and updated
- Thriving community of users and developers
- More affordable than competitors
Monday.com
The single easiest way to maximize your team's resources, this drag-and-drop platform provides managers with instant clarity on their team's capacity at a glance.
Start within an hour using ready-made templates, and leverage workflow analytics to make better data-driven decisions about your priorities. Then redistribute your team's workload by reassigning tasks to remove bottlenecks before they can delay your deadlines.
Asana
Asana is a remote work tool that helps teams orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives.
With Asana, you can connect all your work in one place and bring teams together, anywhere. From lists to boards, to calendars and gantt charts, organize work your way. Join more than 100,000 paying organizations and millions of teams across 190 countries who use Asana to get more done. Get started in minutes to try Asana.
Teamwork
Teamwork is project management software that helps in-house teams & agencies improve collaboration, visibility, accountability and ultimately results.
With all the features you need to plan, collaborate on, and deliver your work, it takes care of the details so your teams talents are freed to achieve the results that matter to your business. Use Teamwork to manage everything from delivering client projects, to executing marketing campaigns, to sprint planning and product launches.
Church Worship & Presentation Software
Best Church Presentation Software:
Every week, your church depends on software to put lyrics, graphics, and important information in front of your congregants.
Your church presentation software should be robust and dependable. The list below are great options and may be a fit for your church.
ProPresenter
ProPresenter is the industry-leading worship presentation tool for churches of all sizes.
Features include rock solid stability, volunteer-friendly ease of use, the ability to display worship lyrics and scripture verses, video playback, PDF chord charts, and more on a projection or LED screen.
Built for Mac & Windows, ProPresenter is used by churches including North Point Community Church, Willow Creek Community Church, Saddleback Church, and many others.
Why we like it:
- Built for churches large and small
- Modern and easy to use interface and features
- Widely used and known by church worship staff and volunteers
- Great support and ongoing product development
Proclaim
Proclaim is easy and intuitive worship and sermon presentation software created for the Church.
It offers over 15,000 pieces of media, motion graphics, and more to engage congregations, in the sanctuary or online. With unlimited installs available on Mac and PC, teams can work together at the same time, from anywhere!
Pastors can prepare sermons. Worship Leaders and AV techs can import songs and items from SongSelect, Planning Center, and more. Teams can also publish sermons automatically.
Planning Center
We have tools to help you manage your membership database, schedule volunteers, plan services, check people in, take signups, process online donations, manage your calendar and facilities, and coordinate small groups. Every plan includes full access to support.
Playlister
We believe Kids Pastors are stretched too thin. Our church presentation software is the way church leaders can save time - all by just building a playlist each week.
The days of sitting through curriculum downloads and then running USB sticks to your TVs are over. ProPresenter can stay in the auditorium and out of Kids Ministry. You don’t need to be a pro at editing videos to send them to parents at home. Welcome to a new era of ministry technology.
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