[CS-FSLUG] Church Management Software

[EnzoAeneas]

My girlfriend who is an accountant performs payroll and it takes her
forever. And her company still outsources the tax portion.
I would have to agree with Tim's approach on the financials. At least
until we get a subject matter expert involved in the project.

As for localization, I am all for it. Our spanish ministry would
definitely benefit from something like this as they start their own
church.
Again Tim, great insight.

Kevin

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Tim Young <Tim.Young at lightsys.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>  I have refrained from speaking up too much about this topic.  First of
>  all, let me say that I think it is a very good project, lest my other
>  comments lead you to think otherwise...  :)
>
>  I am involved in building a similar project for mission organizations,
>  "Kardia" (kardia.sf.net).  The web-site is woefully out of date.  But
>  suffice it to say that we are hoping to have our first usable version
>  out in a few months.  Kardia is focused entirely on missions, and would
>  take a lot of work to get it to function for a church.
>
>  While I do not know which priorities you should take, I would like to
>  mention that "payroll/tax" is a HUGE item.  The finances in general are
>  a bit rough.  Every church will have it's own chart of accounts and own
>  accounting practices.  Building a financial package that works for a
>  large group of churches will be very difficult.  We are doing this in
>  Kardia for missions, and it is a massive undertaking.  Most software out
>  there for missions, even the $300,000 versions, does not contain payroll
>  as a part of it.  A few had it in it, but they dropped it because of the
>  complexity.
>
>  My recommendation is that you look at your question of which modules to
>  start with on two fronts.  Yes, look for the highest impact items you
>  can find, but balance that out with items that can be done in a timely
>  manner.
>
>  I think that, with a little bit of work, you could find a way to
>  export/import to quickbooks, kMyMoney, or some other financial
>  management software.  While this would not be the long-term solution, it
>  may give you a good jump-start.  If financials are one of the things you
>  want to start with, tying it in with another program at the beginning
>  may get you a fair bit farther in the beginning.
>
>  The other thing I would like to mention, is that, if you can use one of
>  the many multi-lingual code design systems, that may help as well.  What
>  you are making will be very helpful for churches here in the States, but
>  it will be equally as useful overseas.  If it is easy to build
>  translations, then you will have increased your audience by a huge
>  margin.  So I would like to encourage you to look into that.
>
>  So, with those comments, let me re-ask Robert's question:  Which of the
>  following will make the biggest impact on churches in your initial
>  target audience.
>
> > * Track donations
>  > * Track attendance
>  > * Promotional mailings
>  > * Worship service scheduling (bulletins, announcements, others?)
>  > * Worship service execution (slides, recordings)
>  > * Manage ministry/administrative teams
>  > * Time tracking for employees
>  > * Pay bills
>  > * Payroll, taxes, and other accounting goodies
>  > * Membership roll
>  > * Mailing list
>  >
>  >
>  - Tim Young
>
>
>
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