Church Windows Software

Kommentare: Overall experience is very good. I would rate it very well. Adequate support makes all the difference in helping to apply a good experience in working with any kind of software uses.

Vorteile: I like how all of the options and functions are easy to find and navigate through in finding the information and the end result of printing out a report, labels, or directory listing that I am looking for. All of the information is easy to read, find, and use when I am able to print out a listing and read it correctly.

Nachteile: I did not like how the instructions are somewhat muddled and a little hard to interpret sometimes. The system itself is easy to use, but however the steps in order to understand in how to use the software is not necessarily the easiest to understand. Whenever I have contacted Church Windows phone support they have always been very helpful, but sometimes it gets confusing in order to know how to ask the certain questions to under to achieve the end results for what I am looking for. I am going to explore more so in newest coffee break webinars in order to access the features and function to help me understand the system and help me to navigate around it much better.

Kommentare: Overall, Church Windows has served us well, and we would be unlikely to consider switching to a new church software program. There is untapped functionality for us within the current suite of modules - for example, we have not historically used all the options for tracking attendance and communicating with members. We look forward to making even better use of it as time permits our secretary and volunteers to learn how to use those parts of the program.

Vorteile: We use Church Windows for accounting, payroll, membership records, and donation tracking, so it is an integral part of our church administration. Because we are careful to enter data accurately and use the suite of software systematically, Church Windows is an excellent way for us to manage information and make timely reports to church leaders. We like having one software package to handle so many of our functions, and there is some efficiency to the learning curve because of similarities across the various modules. One of the best things about Church Windows is the quality of the tech support. Our annual fee allows us to contact the support staff whenever we have questions about how to do something or correct something, and since the software is used by several individuals (a staff person and church volunteers) with varying degrees of expertise, questions do arise. The tech support staff is knowledgeable, clear, and responsive to both email and phone inquiries. That helps keep our system running like a well-oiled machine!

Nachteile: Some of the modules seem less user-friendly to us. For example, the Donations module where we record individuals' giving and generate reports for tax purposes is not intuitive to use, and we found it very difficult to set up quarterly and annual statements in the form and format that we desired, when we began using Donations when the software publisher updated an earlier Church Windows module, Contributions. We interacted extensively with tech support in the course of that transition, and, although they were as helpful as possible, we felt that the software was less flexible than we would like. So, the bottom line is that it can take some effort to learn how to use the software, and in an environment where there is turnover in the church office or among the volunteers handling church administration, that is a bit of an obstacle.

Vorteile: Church Windows is a very user-friendly software. It's easy to navigate through the different modules. I use the Accounting, Payroll, Membership and Donations modules the most. I went to their location in Columbus for one day of training when I started using this software. It was very helpful and our instructor, CSR, was excellent! Since then I have been able to breeze through the accounting module with ease. It's great for printing financial reports for meetings, payables and receivables, tracking income and expenses, creating individual funds, writing checks and processing payroll. For the most part it's super easy to use! If I do have a question that I just can't figure out, I call their customer support and they're very friendly and helpful.

Nachteile: The only draw back to Church Windows is when you call customer support, they can't help you right away. Someone has to call you back, normally it's within the hour. But sometimes it can be longer depending on the day and time you call. By the time you get a call back you're on to something else and you have to go back and remember why you needed them to help you. There have been times that I have figured it out before I get a call back. I believe you can pay more for immediate assistance, however I don't call very much so it's not worth the extra cost to our church. Some may want to pay the extra to get immediate assistance until you're more familiar with the software, then you can switch to the lower cost. Because it won't be long you'll be proficient and won't require much support!

Kommentare: We are a medium size church and I am the part time bookkeeper so my thoughts on the program are related to the parts of the software I use (as well as the integrations with the other modules) For the money, it's hard to beat how easy the program is to use and how quickly I can accomplish most tasks with it. I've looked at some slick web based programs that handle "work from anywhere" better, but they cost thousands of dollars per year when you add up all the features you need, and they don't offer the flexibility and ease of use Church Windows offers.

Vorteile: Church Windows does a lot of things nicely. I love the way the Donations module dumps our members donations into income accounts in Accounting with the press of a button. Payroll, which is tailored for churches (handles ministers with no problems) also integrates with Accounting automatically. The Accounting module allows me to book typical church transactions quickly and easily, but provides the ability to do complex accounting transactions as well. While lots of church management programs claim to handle fund accounting, Church Windows does true fund accounting which allows our church great flexibility in tracking designated donations and spending. While not perfect, the program is an excellent value.

Nachteile: Church Windows has a web based version that uses browsers to view Windows type screens and I find this clunky to use. I'd much rather have an app on my phone that I can use to pull up membership data when I need someone's phone number and an Accounting app that would let me enter transactions remotely when I'm away from the office. The Accounting module also lacks an easy way to handle credit card transactions - I'd like to see something like Quicken that let's you check off the charges when you reconcile the monthly credit card statement. It handles credit cards fine, just not as easily as Quicken or Quickbooks.

Kommentare: Despite the above reasons, I am very happy with Church Windows. It gets the job done and the reports are clear and concise (when I can locate the ones I need!). The customer service is second to none. They have always gotten back to me the same day and they are wonderful about walking me through things that I do not understand.

Vorteile: The features are really great. It has everything we need and even some things that we don't! The reports are clear and concise and there is a variety as far as what types/kinds of reports are available.

Nachteile: The user-friendliness ability is lacking. There seem to be way too many steps to do one task. Also, it is not compatible with our label machine so we have to do our labels though the program provided by the label maker (Dymo) instead of through Church Windows, which is what we would prefer. One thing I really, really wish that Church Windows offered was the ability to separate families/people into groups that we choose as opposed to the default groups. There is also no way to do a mass delete of people/families, this is especially inconvenient for people who have only attended once or twice or for a function of one kind or another. Instead, I have to go through the entire list of people one by one and delete them. If I had a couple of days to devote just to that task, then maybe I could get it done but I don't so I can't! There should be a way for people to automatically drop off the rolls after "X" amount of time. It is a huge hassle to manually go through 1000+ people in order to see who needs to be dropped or moved to inactive.