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Manage Events

Learn how to add events, delete events, edit events and more.

Add Event

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Calendar”
  2. Select the “Events” tab from the top right.
  3. Click Add Event
  4. Fill out the event information and click OK

Editing Event

To edit an event:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Calendar”
  2. Select “Events” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the action button on the row corresponding to the event you want to edit. Select “Update” from the dropdown list.
  4. Edit the fields as required
  5. Click on the “Ok” button to save the edited group.

Delete Event

To delete an event:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Calendar”
  2. Select “Adult” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the action button on the row corresponding to the event you want to delete Select “Delete” from the dropdown menu.
  4. Confirm that you want to delete the event.

Publish an Event to Mobile App

Once you have created an event and satisfied with the details, you can publish the event to the mobile app.

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Calendar”
  2. Select “Events” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the action button on the row corresponding to the group you want to edit. Select “Publish” from the dropdown list.
  4. Click on the “Ok” button to confirm.

System Preferences

The system preference module allows you to set defaults functionalities of the system.

To do that, go to Administration > Preferences on the menu.

Main TAB:

This is where you choose some defaults settings for the system to use. Fill in as required.

  • Name of church: Enter the name of your church
  • Church Tagline/Slogan: Your church’s slogan
  • Member’s ID prefix code (Max 3 characters & no spaces): The code that you use as member ID/tithe ID prefix
  • Use code as member ID prefix: Indicate if the code specified earlier should be used as prefix for member IDs generated automatically by the system
  • Church Phone Number: Your church’s phone number
  • Church Email: Your church’s email address
  • Church Logo: Upload your church logo
  • Language: Select the system language
  • Country: Select your country
  • Timezone: Select your timezone
  • Date Format: Select the date format you want to use
  • Days to prompt for password change: Set this value to the number of days after which administrators will be required to change their passwords. Enter 0 if you do not want to password to expire
  • Can people register to become a member using the mobile app?: Indicate if people can register to become a member of your church using the mobile app
  • Show residential Map: Indicate residential map should be shown when you view the details of your members
  • Maximum age for children: This is used by a dashboard widget to list children who have passed the threshold to be moved to youth category. Enter 0 if you do not want to define max. age
  • Maximum age for youth: This is used by a dashboard widget to list youth who have passed the threshold to be moved to adult category. Enter 0 if you do not want to define max. age

User Defined TAB:

Also known as customizable data fields, the User Defined Fields tab page allows you to set the titles used for user defined fields in the Membership Manager. These field names will be used in the Adult Membership Manager.

ItemDescription
Character FieldsFive user defined character (text) fields are supported. Enter the titles here.
Numeric FieldsThree numeric fields are supported. Enter the titles here.
Checkbox FieldsThree logical (true/false) checkbox fields are supported. Enter the titles here.
Date FieldsTwo additional date fields are supported. Enter the titles here.

Users & Roles

Church Manager app has an authorization feature to ensure that the right person is performing an action in the system. For example, some churches may require that certain users are not allowed access to financial information or certain specific information about the system.

Church Manager app achieves this through what we call Roles. A role defines what the administrator can do and cannot do. Users of the system are categorized into roles. A role is made up of specific tasks that a user is allowed to perform. A task is a specific action a user can perform with the system. An example is adding Tithe information to system.

Add Role:

To add/create a role:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Administration”
  2. Select “Roles” from the menu bar.
  3. Click on “Add Role” button
  4. Complete the fields as required
    • From the Basic Information Tab
      • Enter the name of the role
      • Enter a two-character code which uniquely identifies this role
      • Enter a description for this role
    • From the Tasks tab
      • Select the specific actions users with this role can perform
  5. Click on the Save button to save the role.

Edit Role:

To edit a role:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Administration”
  2. Select “Roles” from the menu bar.
  3. On the row corresponding to the role you want to delete, click on the action button at the far right.
  4. Complete the fields as required
    • From the Basic Information Tab
      • Enter the name of the role
      • Enter a two-character code which uniquely identifies this role
      • Enter a description for this role
    • From the Tasks tab
      • Select the specific actions users with this role can perform
  5. Click on the Save button. The edited role will be saved.

With the roles created, we can create users and assign them roles.

Add Users:

To add Administrators/Users to the system,

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Administration”
  2. Select “Users” from the menu bar.
  3. Click on “Add User” button
  4. Complete the fields as required
    • The Enabled field determines if the user can log into the system. To prevent an administrator to log into the system, select No.
    • Select the role to assign to the user
  5. Click on the Save button to save the user details.

Edit User:

To edit a user:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Administration”
  2. Select “Users” from the menu bar.
  3. From the User List section, click the action button on the record you want to edit.
  4. Edit as you want.
  5. Click on the Save button. The edited user details will be saved.

Delete User

It is generally not advisable to delete a user. The system associates a user to the actions he performs while using the system. Deleting a user will make it difficult to associate a user to actions previously performed.

If you want to prevent a user from accessing the system, edit the particular user’s profile (see Edit User), and select No from the enabled field. This will disable the user and prevent him/her from accessing the system even if he/she inputs the right password and username when logging into the system.

Automated Messages

You can set up automated messages like birthday greetings in ChurchOffice. These messages will be sent every morning to members who are celebrating their birthday, or those who have made contributions that you want to acknowledge.
Setting up these automated SMS/Email messages is simple. We will look at setting up contribution acknowledgement and birthday greetings messages.

Set up Contribution Acknowledgement messages

To set up Contribution acknowledgement,

  1. Click on the app launcher, then select Communication.
  2. From the SMS dropdown, click on contribution acknowledgement.
  3. Click on the action button to the right, then select edit.
  4. On the message form, Under the SMS tab, enter the sender’s name that should appear when the member receives the message.
  5. Edit the message. The placeholders listed above can be placed in your message. They will be replaced with the actual value when the message is being sent.
    Note: Do remember to add the curly brackets when you add a placeholder.
  6. Under the Email tab, follow the same procedure as before.
  7. Then click OK to save.

Set up Birthday messages

For automated birthday messages,

  1. Click on the app launcher, then select communication.
  2. From the SMS dropdown, click on birthday message.
  3. Click on the action button to the right, then select edit.
  4. On the message form, Under the SMS tab, enter the sender’s name that should appear when the member receives the message.
  5. Edit the message. The placeholders listed above can be placed in your message. They will be replaced with the actual value when the message is being sent. Do remember to add the curly brackets when you add a placeholder.
  6. Check the activate SMS notice.
  7. Under the Email tab, follow the same procedure as before.
  8. And that is it. Automated messages will now be sent every morning.

Communication Overview

The communication modules allows you to send automated SMS to acknowledge receipts of contributions from members.
You can also manage news, devotions and top up sms using this module

Accepting Online Givings

You can setup Church Manager app to accept online giving. We have incorporated payments gateways that you can configure to receive givings.

In order to start receiving payments online, you have to set up a payment gateway.

Payments Gateway

A payment gateway is an ecommerce service that processes credit card or direct payments for online retailers. We currently support PayPal and Paystack.

Add Payment Gateway

  1. From the menu, select Online Payments, then Payment gateways.
  2. Click Add Gateway.
    1. On the new gateway form, select the payment gateway you want to set up.
    2. Enter the required details to complete the configuration form,
    3. If we want members to pay for the transaction fee, we will enter the fee here. If you want to charge a fixed amount, you can enter that value instead.
  3. Click on save.

Process Givings

Once members have made payments, you will have to process the payments to add to their records

  1. Go to Finance, select Online Giving, then Givings.
  2. From here, you can see all the contributions, pledges and donations that have come in.
    • Under the contribution tab, you can filter to see what has been paid for various contribution fund account.
    • Under pledges, you can see what has been paid towards various pledge account.
  3. With contribution tab selected, click on the check all checkbox. This selects all the contributions.
  4. Click on the process button.
  5. Select the batch (only currently opened batch will be listed) you want to add these transactions to. If you have not created one, now is the time to go and create the batch.
  6. Click ok to save

Follow the same procedure for the pledges and donations.

Pledge Funds

Pledge Fund sub-module allows churches to record who pledged to give what and how much have been redeemed.

Note: To create pledge accounts, read the overview here. Make sure you choose the account type as Pledge.

Add Members who have Pledged

To add members to a pledge:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the pledge fund name corresponding to the fund you would like to add a fundraiser to.
  4. Click on “Add Member” button.
  5. Fill in the details
    • Type the member’s name or ID to bring up the member
    • Enter the amount the member is pledging
  6. Click on “Ok” button to add the member to the list of fundraisers.

Add Pledge Payments

To add a pledge payment:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the pledge fund name corresponding to the fund you would like to add a fundraiser to.
  4. Click on “Add Payment” button.
  5. Fill in the details
    • Type the member’s name or ID to bring up the member
    • Enter the amount the member is paying
  6. Click on “Ok” button to add the payment to the fundraiser’s payments.

Contribution Funds

To understand how contributions are recorded, you need to understand contribution batches.

Contribution Batches

A contribution batch is a collection of contributions that are grouped together. A batch would typically represent a series of contributions given at the same time on a given date. For example, contributions collected on a particular Sunday morning. Each batch would have a name to uniquely identify it. The system will suggest a name for you but you are free to change it.Each contribution received would have to be associated with a batch. A batch would have to be manually closed (Posted in ChurchOffice Terms) to prevent any addition. SMS acknowledgements are only sent when a batch is posted.

Add Batch

To add a batch:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. On the “Funds” page, click on the contribution fund you want to add the new batch.
  3. On the list of batches page, Click on “Add Batch” button.
  4. Fill in the details as required.
    • Name: The unique name used to identify this batch
  5. Click on “Ok” to save the batch.

View Batch

To view details for a given batch:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. On the “Funds” page, click on the contribution fund the batch is part of.
  3. Click the batch name corresponding to the batch you would like to view the details.
  4. You will be shown a list of all contributions within that batch as well as summary information.

Post Batch (Close Batch)

To close a batch:

  1. Follow the procedure in View Batch
  2. On the list of all contributions page, click on “Post Batch” button
  3. Select the date the posting is being done.
  4. Click “OK” to post the batch

Change Batch

Once a batch is closed, you cannot make changes to it. There are occasions one would like to make changes to it due to wrong entry of contribution details.

  1. Follow the procedure in View Batch
  2. On the list of contributions page, click on “Unpost Batch” button to make changes to a batch. The batch is now ready for changes to be made.

Add Contributtions to a batch

To add a new contribution:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. On the “Funds” page, click on the fund the batch is part of.
  3. Click the batch name corresponding to the batch you would like to view the details.
  4. On the list of contributions page, click on “Add Contribution” button
  5. Fill the form as required
    • Start typing the person’s name or member’ id (envelope number)
    • Select the Month the tithe is being paid
    • Select the Year the tithe is being paid
    • Enter the Amount being paid
    • Select the Date the tithe was paid
    • Select the payment type. Some payment types would reveal more fields for you to enter associated details
  6. Click “Ok” button to add the contribution

General Fund

This category is for funds received by the church for which there is no need to capture the details of the person giving the money. These are funds like offering.

Add Transactions

To add a transaction to a general fund:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the fund name corresponding to the general fund you would like to add a transaction to.
  4. On the transaction list page, click on “Add Transaction”
  5. Fill in the details as required.
  6. Click on the “OK” button. The new transaction will be added to the list of transactions.

Delete Transaction

To delete a transaction from a general fund:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. Click the fund name corresponding to the fund you would like to delete a transaction.
  4. On the row corresponding to the transaction you want to delete, click on the action button at the far right.
  5. Select “Delete” from the dropdown menu. Confirm that you want to delete the transaction. The transaction will be deleted.

Finance Overview

The finance module is all about donor management. It provides easy ways to manage contributions (offering, pledges, tithe, welfare and donations) received from members. It also gives you the ability to capture simple expenses made by the church.

It is important to be aware that the financial module is not a form of accounting or payroll software. It is a donor management system. It is used predominantly for tracking givings, pledges and simple expenses in your church.

Funds

A Fund in ChurchOffice refers to all sources of income received by the church. For easy capturing, funds are categorized into three.

  • General Fund: This category is for funds received by the church for which there is no need to capture the details of the member giving the money. These are funds like offering/offertory.
  • Pledge Fund: This category records payments from members and track how much they pledged and how much have been redeemed.
  • Contribution Fund: This category records payments from members who make recurring payments. It differs from pledge fund in that you do not track how much they have pledged and how much they redeemed. Examples of such funds are tithe and welfare.
  • Donation Fund: This category records payments from individuals who make a onetime payment.

Add Fund Account

To add a fund account:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. Click on “Add Fund” button.
  4. Fill in the details as required.
    • Parent Fund Field. Funds can be nested, choosing a parent fund will cause this fund to be a child of the parent fund
    • Type Field: Select the type of fund from the dropdown list. See General Fund, Contribution Fund, Pledge Fund
  5. Click on the “Ok” button. The new fund you just created will be added to the Fund List.

Edit Fund Account

To edit a fund account:

  1. Navigate to “Drop container > Finance”
  2. Select “Funds” from the menu bar.
  3. On the row corresponding to the fund you want to delete, click on the action button at the far right.
  4. Fill in the details as required.
    • Parent Fund Field. Funds can be nested, choosing a parent fund will cause this fund to be a child of the parent fund
    • Type Field: Select the type of fund from the dropdown list. See General Fund, Contribution Fund, Pledge Fund. Note: The type of fund cannot be changed if you have added transactions to this fund.
  5. Click on the “Ok” button. The edited fund will be saved.