Boy what a hassle! That’s generally how most preachers feel about the finances of the church. Wouldn’t it be incredible if we never had to deal with the money? Even Jesus handed the money purse off to someone else. Who wants to deal with it?!
My wife currently handles the offerings of the church. For years we have struggled to find a software that makes the accounting of the tithes and offerings simple. I hate to say this, but about 10 years ago, I believe the accounting software people had a product that was easy enough to use for most people in most churches. Then something sinister began to happen. They started making these programs able to do more. And More. And MORE! To the point that even someone like myself who is very familiar with computers and various programs has a hard time figuring them out.
Last year we purchased one program that was recommended to us which was supposed to be able to store the contributions of the church on a server outside of our own computers for security and privacies sake. I loved this idea and quickly purchased the program. It cost over $35 per month. I thought this price was not too bad if it would help us to record the giving of the church and save us if the computers died or the church caught fire… We’d still have an off site record.
I spent 3 evenings of extremely valuable time trying to figure that program out. I never was able to get it to work. We paid for that program for several months before my wife finally said, “Forget it, I’ll just make my own spreadsheets!” She was frustrated and I was angry that the contribution softwares had gotten so sophisticated that they were now very hard to use by many people.
After talking to other Pastoral friends, and asking them what they were using for contribution software, I heard many of them say that they too had not been able to find a software that was simple to use, safe and inexpensive.
Well, after over a year of searching for a program for our church to use, we have found a superb software that a Programmer/Minister has developed, which is in my opinion, the best contribution/attendance tracking software available. Now if your church needs all the bells and whistles that so many programs have, then I say pay the extra dollars and deal with all the frustration those programs may offer.
However, if all you are looking for is an extremely simple, extremely inexpensive, extremely secure contribution/attendance tracking software, then I highly recommend to you the same contribution accounting program that our church is using, www.CFSLive.org.
It literally only took my wife and I seconds to learn how to use this software. It is extremely easy to use and provides all the reporting you will need with one simple click of a button. Did I say how easy this program is?
I recently contacted Rev. Ken Schramm, the developer of this program, and told him how much I appreciated finding a program that was so uncomplicated to use. He graciously offered a remarkable blessing to the churches that I would tell about www.CFSLive.org. Ken is kindly offering an incredible 3 months free usage of Church Family Solutions to anyone who mentions that they heard about CFS from Preach-It Ministeries. Here is the amazing part of this offer, the price is already more than 7 times cheaper than the software I paid for this year and never could get to work. (No free months to try it out either.)
I wholeheartedly recommend www.CFSLIVE.org to your church. If you don’t already have a contribution reporting software that is working for you or one that is costing way more than you care to afford, I encourage you to give this program a try for the next 3 months absolutely free.
I hope you will be as happy with www.CFSLive.org as we are.
Rev. James Smith
