ACS

Vorteile: As a small nonprofit, we have used ACS General Ledger, People, and Contributions for over 15 years. What I like best is that it is an affordable, integrated, double-entry accounting system designed specifically for churches and small non-profit organizations. The People and Contributions modules allow us to easily monitor pledges, acknowledge donations, summarize gifts by fund, and report on subsets of our donor base using criteria we choose. The General Ledger offers the custom budget-actual reports and statement of financial position (non-profit balance sheet), as well as the summary of restricted accounts that is not found in typical for-profit packages. ACS also allows your administrator to set specific user permissions customization, so you can limit each user to only the functions that he or she needs. Vendor support is key, and we have found the vendor support behind ACS to be very solid. The software does not do everything, but what it does it does well. When we have had problems or questions, ACS technical support has pro-actively worked them out. In most support sessions, the ACS rep is temporarily granted remote control of our local computers and works directly with our data and reports. Support reps are readily available when we call, and they are very knowledgeable of the product.

Nachteile: Overall, we like ACS. I don't have a lot of criticism. The addition of a functional expense statement would be very helpful, since this is the format used by the IRS on Form 990 (required of most 403(b) organizations but not for most churches). Direct delivery of GL reports by email would also be helpful, but printing to pdf and emailing is not terribly difficult. As our number of donor records and years of data have grown, I have found the software to slow down somewhat, particularly when running custom extracts of donor data.

Kommentare: In general, many of the features of your software are frustrating and not intuitive. I was a programmer and it seems your programmers need to spend more time using the product in real world applications. It should be word like in functions like word. Copying and pasting, formatting those types of applications.

Vorteile: #1 Pro is that ACS addresses the most important tasks a church is in need of.

Nachteile: I have found many thing that weren't intuitive. Uploading of photos ok although no way to standardize within the program (cropping sorely needed) and downloading photos isn't intuitive. The modules are limited, all the data in Access needs to transfer into the people suite for reporting purposes. Access pretty useless for reporting purposes. Using the volunteer management is not really practical to use as intended. Although you have made changes where you can transmit data to excel or word. OnDemand stings because you can't save locally in an easy manner. Many times our church has served more or less as your beta testing because we actually try to use all the features and give feedback but we get nothing in return for that. We only do that because it is lacking features or functionality.

Kommentare: My experience with ACS has been very good. I started with them when we all had DOS computers and moved up to the windows platform. Now, we are able to have versions of the software on our phone. The system has the capability of being backed up to the cloud and does not need to be kept on your church's server. There is also an alternative for more contemporary churches called "Realm."

Vorteile: ACS gives you the total package in church software. It helps you efficiently mange both the "people" side of the job and the "accounting" and numbers side and will allow them to communicate with each other. There are several modules that will allow you to track different aspects of the member or prospect in the life of the church and this system does it very effectively. It has been around for a long time and they have perfected the software.

Nachteile: Because the software does so many functions and can be tailored to almost any church of any size or situation, it can be a little confusing. Therefore, training is vital. They excel in offering wonderful training through their company and through local trainers.

Kommentare: Crucial information that aids in caring for our church family.

Vorteile: I love that this software has been refined and is extremely reliable and fast. Efficient data entry and keyboard functionality. Powerful reporting. Covers the basics of what a ChMS should offer with ease, speed and power.

Nachteile: This software is dated. It's "cloud" based, but lacks lots of modern communication tools such as text communication, easy email distribution and remote web-based functions like small group attendance, and volunteer management. In all honesty, ACS is so big and has so many add-on features, it can probably do all of these things, but it's hard to know all of the functionality because it's not easily explained anywhere (and I've been a user for 12 years). Also, it's reporting process is not difficult for someone with some background in reports, but it's far too complex for an average pastor or lay-leader to use - which requires a database person to run reports. Also, no customizable dashboards, etc. So, it will probably do most everything you want, but you'll need a ChMS expert to figure it all out and run the reports...

Kommentare: ACS is a church software product with several different suites to choose from. I found the People Suite, then Realm, extremely helpful in keeping member records, and the Financial Suite gives the church the reports and information needed for making budget decisions.

Vorteile: ACS Realm is a simpler version of ACS People Suite, and much more intuitive. The implementation was smooth and the transition fully backed by their wonderful customer service. I also love getting a live, knowledgeable person on the phone within a few seconds of calling.
Payroll is also very easy in ACS Financial Suite.

Nachteile: The Financial Suite is not intuitive, but mistakes have gotten easier to fix due to upgrades. The church is still waiting to switch to ACS Realm Financials, as payroll cannot be done there, despite well over a year of promises that it is happening soon. It would be helpful for Realm input of donations to flow to the Financial Suite.
Also, ACS People Suite gave options for certain reports that cannot be run in ACS Realm.