IconCMO Blog

Excel meets IconCMO church software

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An update for IconCMO and its Reports!

The largest report related release to date for the IconCMO church software solution. The developers have given churches the ability to download reports in an Excel format from the IconCMO church management software (ChMS) solution. The enhancement greatly increases the flexibility of the IconCMO church software. Users can modify the standard reports and add various headings, data, etc. to the downloaded excel file to create their own customized reports. The majority of the reports in IconCMO were modified to offer this feature to our clients.  Additionally, we also changed the screens for reporting. The developers are laying the groundwork for future reporting styles to be added to our flagship church software product.

In addition to this great enhancement we have also included the normal export screens to go directly into Excel.  Now the system will directly send the data into Excel for the user – saving time in retrieving data for the end user!

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Streamline Church Software and Reduce Cost with Cloud Computing!

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PR Contact:
Lauren Hunter Public Relations
916.838.2184
lauren@laurenhunter.net

Streamline Church Membership Management, Church Fund Accounting,
and Reduce Church Software Costs with Cloud-Based ChMS, IconCMO

IconCMO Offers Cloud-Based Financial and Administrative Technology Advantages to Churches

Moorhead, MN, April 25, 2011—As churches seek to increase efficiency on smaller budgets, looking to cloud-based church management software (ChMS) has incredible advantages. While there are many church technology providers on the market offering robust church management solutions, few have complete fund accounting, contribution, and payroll modules in addition to membership management—all in one integrated web-based church management system.  Read the full Press Release!

Website Event Calendar

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For churches interested in linking the church’s website calendar to IconCMO church software so your members have an event calendar to view. It now has 15 minute increments instead of 30 minutes. We made this adjustment to better serve churches and the various different ministries that start at the quarter hours. This change will also reflect in the API’s (Application Programmer’s Interface) that is used to update church’s website. If your website is already linked to the IconCMO then there is nothing else the user needs to do. If the church is not using the API’s to link the IconCMO church software to the website please visit our developer’s center webpage and learn more about this functionality. The tab called “Sample Code” would have the code to put on your website. It also has an example of what the default calendar looks like. As always we are here to help. If you need help setting this up please give us a call.

Thanks
The Development Team!

Finding the Right Church Software

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Finding the Right Church Software?

Creating quality software can be a very difficult process.  Especially since everyone’s opinion on what makes quality software will vary.   Quality software can be categorized in a variety of ways such as:  Easy to use, flexible, to feature rich applications.  What are the advantages of each?  How do these categories affect a multi-site system?

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Recent Study – Churches Offering Online Donations.

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According to a recent study conducted by Lifeway and 1003 protestant churches 55% of churches offer online giving with attendance of 500 or more.  Two-thirds of churches with online giving offered it for 2 years or less. It also found churches in larger cities used it more often. To check out all the statistics please review the study. With this growing trend it is essential to have church software that can handle seamless integration.

MultiSite Churches & Campuses – The Synergy they Produce!

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Multisite churches and campuses grew out of mega churches as a possible solution to fix churches that were too large and ran out of room in their current facility. The success of these early mega churches led to a conceptual change for smaller organizations that appeared to be stalled in their current growth or looking for new ways to reach a certain area of the community. The synergy that comes out of multiple facilities that share common goals, values, resources, etc is enormous. According to research at Leadership Network there will be 30,000 churches that will merge in the next 2 years or merged in the past 2 years in the US alone. There are similar trends in other countries.

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Bar coding for bulk mailing – does it really save a lot of money for non profits?

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Many non profits are lead to believe that barcoding gives huge discounts when they bulk mail. What many organization do not realize is they must be CASS/PAVE certified. This certification is an expensive endeavor for smaller organizations.  Because of the expense for these certification the organization will actually lose money unless they are mailing out thousands of “mail pieces” at a time. Here is an example of the cost of non bar coded and bar coded for “mail pieces” for the not-profit industry.

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Email History for Households Added to IconCMO!

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It has been an exciting time at Icon Systems for the Development team.  Today Icon Systems uploaded all new code for the entire IconCMO system to work faster on the Internet and eliminate cache issues in browsers.

Included in this upload was additional enhancements like email history. This function is found in two areas of the system:

  • Household Menu (Hse-List)
  • System Menu (Email History)

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Small Groups, Cell Groups, Core Groups, Bible Studies – All have the same function

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What do all these names have in common?

They serve the same function, in that they are to bring the community together on a more personal level and increase our spiritual growth within the church.  They are also to help bring new people into the church and get them involved in the church’s mission. Imagine if the church could mobilize their entire congregation to donate at least one hour a week towards a group function. How many things could get done in that time to help the church fulfill its mission? Groups  are especially important in the larger churches where on any given Sunday you may not know the person’s name next to you.

Every church has a different name for these groups such as bible study group, men’s or women’s bible studies, youth groups, core groups, reach groups, home groups, connection groups, and the list goes on and on…

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