IconCMO Blog - Page 3 of 27 - Church Management Software

VolunteerSpot is now SignUp.com

September 15, 2016 By Michelle Leave a Comment

Icon System’s partner company VolunteerSpot recently announced they’ve changed their name to SignUp.com.

VolunteerSpot has a new name and a new look—and that’s it. Since our founding, people have used our helpful solutions for every kind of activity that relies on successful group coordination, not just volunteering. Our new name lets us better serve the needs of our entire audience. We still offer the same great tools and solutions for coordinating people and generating successful participation. Your account and all your activities are still here – just log in as usual and get going.” – Karen Bantuveris, Founder and CEO

Read the full announcement at http://signup.com/Our-New-Name.

About SignUp.com

SignUp.com offers FREE and easy online volunteer coordination tool and online signup sheets. Save time and say goodbye to reply all email, spreadsheet juggling, illegible clipboard signup sheets and phone-tag. SignUp.com makes it easy for ANYONE in the congregation to schedule, sign up and remind volunteers. SignUp.com’s premium service includes advanced features like hours tracking and custom registration fields.

P.S. Don’t have a SignUp.com account yet? Use promo code ICON100 to receive three additional months free with your paid premium upgrade.

Save Time and Money with IconCMO

September 6, 2016 By Connie 16 Comments

Staying organized and communicating with members of the congregation can be inexpensive and easy with IconCMO. Monthly newsletters, bulletins, schedules, and calendars can be created in Word or Publisher, converted to PDF and attached to an email message without the high cost of printing and mailing, not to mention the time spent folding and stuffing envelopes. If an event is canceled, send out a quick text message notifying members.

Email and Text Message Setup:

Go to Organization: Preferences: Personal and enter the church email address you want to use for outgoing emails. This will automatically populate in the “From” field when sending emails.
Go to Organization: Preferences: Church Membership
- Click Maintain Phone – Email Types
- This is where you will title the phone numbers and emails you wish to maintain e.g. Home Phone, Cell Phone, Work Phone, Personal Email, Work Email
- When you title the cell/mobile phone, be sure to check the “Cell Phone?” box on the right. When entering someone’s phone number, this will allow you to select the carrier and send them text messages. Cell phone carriers must be identified in order to send text messages.

Member Email Setup:

Go to People: Members: Mem-List
Click on the drop-down arrow next to “View” and select “Email Addresses”
At the bottom, select the “Email Name” e.g. Work email, Personal email
Type in the member’s email address
Select Opt-In Preferred, Opt-In, Opt-Unknown, or Opt-Out
If the member does not want their email address listed in the church directory, check the “Unlisted” box
Click “Save Email”

Member Text Message Setup:

Go To People: Members: Mem-List
Click the drop-down arrow next to “View” and select “Phone Numbers”
Select the Phone Name e.g. Home Phone, Cell Phone
Type in their phone number
Select their carrier using the drop-down arrow
Click “Save”

Once emails and phone numbers are entered, you will want to create groups to contact e.g. Teachers, Parents, Ushers. Groups can be entered by household or by member. If you are entering by the household, the email address listed for the household is the one that will be used. If you want specific members within the household to receive the email, set the group up in Grp-Members.

Groups Setup:

Go to People: Groups: Grp-Members or People: Groups: Grp-Household
Under Add New click “Group Category” and enter the name – click “Add”
Select the category you created and under Add New click “Group”
Enter the name of the group – click “Add”
Select the group, such as Teachers
Add members to the group.
- You can do this by selecting your criteria, active, age range, name range and then click “Find”
- The members will populate in the list on the right
- If you want a member to be in this group, click the “No” to change it to a “Yes”
- When you are done, click “Show Group Only” to make sure you have added everyone

Once your groups are set up, you can begin sending emails or text messages by selecting the group you wish to contact and clicking on either “Text Message” or “Group Email”.

Contributions Statements can also be emailed monthly or quarterly so members can review their giving. Or save even more time by setting up the Parishioner’s Module to allow members to review their giving whenever they want.

Do you know how to spot a tech support scam?

August 15, 2016 By Josh Leave a Comment

According to Wikipedia, a technical support scam (often abbreviated tech support scam) refers to a class of telephone fraud activities, in which a scammer claims to offer a legitimate technical support service, often via cold calls to unsuspecting users. Such cold calls are mostly targeted at Microsoft Windows users, with the caller often claiming to represent a Microsoft technical support department. (Side note: it’s not likely anyone would call and fraudulently pretend to be an Icon Systems representative. But if you’re ever in doubt, get the person’s name and call them back on our support line.)

Church staff and volunteers should be aware of techniques used by scammers. For tips on identifying and avoiding scams, head over to the Federal Trade Commission’s website and read this article on Tech Support Scams.

Are you using the Parishioner’s Module?

August 8, 2016 By Connie 16 Comments

The Parishioner’s Module is one of the most useful resources available for church members and staff. And the best part is, there’s no additional cost! It’s already included in your subscription to IconCMO. If you aren’t familiar with the parishioner’s module, it’s a secure self-service login where members can view their own contact information, contribution history, and access a church directory. It’s even mobile-friendly so members can sign in using their smart phone or tablet!

Step 1: Set up your customized login page

We just released an exciting new feature that allows church staff and volunteers to log in via a customized login page. Click here for more information and instructions.

Step 2: Assign security permissions

As households are added in IconCMO, they are automatically assigned a user name in the parishioner’s security window. But the church controls the type of access members are given.

No-Access is initially assigned to all households entered into IconCMO. So by default, households do not have access to the parishioner’s module.
Read-only access allows members to login and view their information. If anything is incorrect, members can email changes to the church office directly from the parishioner’s module.
Read-write access allows members to view and make changes to their own contact information. (For obvious reasons, members cannot make changes to their giving history or other members’ information in the church directory. They would need to notify the church office of any errors.)

IconCMO Parishioner Security — By clicking on the blue text under Access Type, you can determine if members have No-Access, Read-Only or Read-Write access.

Step 3: Give it a try

If you’re interested in taking the parishioner’s module for a test drive, follow these steps.

If you’re not already, set yourself up as a household in your church’s database (you can delete it later.)
Go to Web-Services: WS Setup: Parishioner Security.
Search for your last name and click on the blue No-Access under Access Type.
Change your security to the Read-Only or Read-Write.
After you change the access type, you will notice a message at the bottom of the box that reads, “Send email to “your name” telling them their access has been granted?” Click Send Email.
When you log in, make sure you are using the new user name that was emailed to you, not your staff login.
You will be prompted to change this. Note: Make sure you use a different user id and password than your staff login for IconCMO.

Step 4: Generate reports

Don’t worry, if you give members read-write access so they have the ability to change their personal information, you will always be kept up-to-date by running these reports in the People – Households – Hse-Reports window.

Parishioner Changes – Provides the church with the member’s name, information that was changed and the date it was changed.

Parishioner Last Log in – Provides the names of households who have accessed their information.

What’s your backup plan?

August 5, 2016 By Michelle Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a customer using Revelations, our Windows-based church management software (ChMS).

Thank you for calling Icon Systems, this is Michelle.”

“Hello, this is Peggy from Peace Church*. My computer crashed, can you help me get Revelations on my new computer?”

“I’m sorry to hear! I’ll show you where you can download the program from our website, then once it’s installed we can restore your data onto the new computer. Do you have your backup file handy on a flash drive or disk?”

*crickets chirping*

“Ahh…no, we didn’t make any backups.”

This isn’t the first call I’ve received of this nature, and unfortunately it won’t be the last. The story is a little different each time; maybe someone broke into the church office and stole the computer or the church was devastated by a fire.

My heart goes out to churches in these situations because if they didn’t back up the data, there is nothing I can do to help. The only option is rebuilding the database from scratch — including contribution history. If a hard drive crashes, there are companies that specialize in data recovery but their services are costly and there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to retrieve the data.

No matter which ChMS you’re using, ensure your data is protected from

Fires and theft
Malware and cyber attacks
Natural disasters (e.g. tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes)
Equipment failure (e.g. hard drive or server crashes)
Human error (sometimes mistakes happen)
Unforeseeable circumstances

Properly back up your ChMS database

Establish an effective back-up procedure and store back-ups securely off-site. It’s important to regularly test restoring data from your back-ups. Make plans to help you keep working and recover quickly should the worst happen.” – Geoff Duncan for Digital Trends

Read the rest of the article on Digital Trends exploring the pros and cons of different backup methods.

If you’re using a cloud-based ChMS

Evaluate cloud services carefully. Using a reputable cloud computing service could be safer than running software in-house — providing you do your research. Check where your data is stored and how it is protected.” – Start Up Donut

For a complete list of tips on preventing IT disasters, visit startupdonut.co.uk.

Technology is always changing and Icon Systems ensures necessary precautions are taken each year to protect our clients’ most valuable asset – their data. We take data security for IconCMO, our web-based ChMS, very seriously so you can have peace of mind knowing your data is safe and secure. Below is an article outlining security precautions and backup procedures Icon Systems has implemented for IconCMO.

Skeptics vs. Cynics: Web-Based Church Software Security

Moral of the story

Having a proper backup plan means if something happens to your computer, you simply need to purchase a new one (which is hopefully covered by insurance) and log into your database online or reinstall your desktop program and restore the data. Yes, it’s inconvenient but it’s not nearly as much hassle as rebuilding your database from scratch.

*Names changed to protect customer privacy

How to budget a mortgage payment

August 2, 2016 By Josh 9 Comments

Budgeting is important to most church organizations and is a highly-utilized feature in IconCMO. However, budgets can only be set for revenue and expense accounts, which can pose a problem if you want to budget for a liability account such as a mortgage.

Photo Credit: pixelmattic via Compfight cc

For example, a typical Mortgage Payment of $1,000 looks like this:

Credit Checkbook (Asset) = 1000.00
Debit Mortgage Loan (Liability) = 800.00
Debit Interest (Expense) = 200.00

The entries are in balance and you are able to post the check or journal entry; however, in this scenario you are only able to budget for the $200 interest expense since $800.00 of the payment when towards your mortgage liability account.

Here’s the solution

Go to your Chart of Accounts and create an expense account called Budget Principle, then Create a sub-account underneath it called Budget Offset. Add the corresponding entries when you make a check or create a journal entry to record a mortgage payment.

Credit Checkbook (Asset) = 1000.00
Debit Mortgage Loan (Liability) = 800.00
Debit Interest (Expense) = 200.00
Debit Budget Principle (Expense) = 800.00
Credit Budget Offset (Expense) = 800.00

With the two additional entries, you can now budget for your mortgage principle. Budget Offset is a sub-account of Principle Expense, so it will not show on the Statement of Activities report since they offset each other.

I hope you found this helpful. If there’s any other accounting scenarios you’d like to see in future posts, please comment below! 🙂

What are pass-through accounts?

July 25, 2016 By Connie Leave a Comment

Pass-through accounts are established when a church collects money on behalf of an organization or event and does not want to record the money as income. These accounts are set up as liabilities instead of revenue accounts since the money will only pass-through the church to another organization.

Try our church management software.

Follow the instructions below to create liability pass-through accounts in IconCMO.

Part 1: Accounting Setup

First, decide if the money can stay in the general fund or if the church wants to create a new fund. To create a new fund:

Click Add New Account.
Go to General Ledger: GL: Fund Maintenance.
Type in the Fund Name and click Add.Then, add your accounts.
Go to General Ledger: Funds: Chart of Accounts.
- Account Type: Liabilities
- Liabilities: Other Current Liabilities
- Type Detail: Other Misc Current Liabilities
- Sub-account of: Not a sub-account
- Account Name: Pass-Through

Repeat the process for any sub-accounts you want to add under Pass-Through. I have created a sub-account called Food Pantry under my pass-through account.

Part 2: Contribution Setup

Go to Contributions: Management: Cont-Maintenance
Type in the Fund Name on the right and Save.
Select the fund you created and click on Accounting Link.
- Accounting Fund Affected: Choose the general fund or the fund you created
- Banking – Checking
- Contribution Liab – Food Pantry

If you’re looking for a good report for these accounts, go to General-Ledger: GL:GL-Reports. The Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet) will give you a report with all your liability account information.

Learn more about how to do fund accounting the right way at our fund accounting page.

UPDATE: Go to our post on recording donations for hurricane relief to learn how pass-through accounts apply to hurricane relief efforts.

Now you can customize the IconCMO login page!

July 21, 2016 By Michelle Leave a Comment

We’re excited to announce we’ve made some updates to the login page! First of all, you can now put a button on your church’s website that links directly to the IconCMO login page. No more searching Google or locating a bookmark every time you want to log into your account!

Example of button you can put on your church's website (you can customize the text.) — Example of button you can put on your church’s website (you can customize the text.)

Once you have the button on your church’s website, it’ll lead you to a customized login page featuring:

Your church’s logo
Your church’s name in the browser tab and below the logo
Your church’s phone number pre-filled, saving you a step

The basic process will remain the same: church staff and volunteers will log in with their existing user ID and password to access the church’s IconCMO database. Church members with access to the parishioner’s module can use the login page to view their contact informant, giving history, and an online church directory. (Note: if your church isn’t using the parishioner’s module, don’t worry! This update doesn’t automatically grant members access; you’ll still need to do that manually.)

What to do when two members of the church get married

July 18, 2016 By Josh Leave a Comment

You know how to add a new member into IconCMO. But what happens when two members of the church get married? You already have both of them in your membership database, so you need to merge the two records together. And what happens if they’ve given contributions?

church-member-wedding-rings — Photo Credit: briannalouder via Compfight cc

Here’s an example

Let’s say John Anderson and Mary Smith got married on July 1st. Both of them gave contributions prior to being married. In this case, you will need to transfer the donations and print 3 separate contribution statements: one for each of them before they were married and one for their joint giving. You will also need to determine which household you wish to keep. For this example we will keep the John Anderson household and move the member record for Mary Smith to the John Anderson Household.

First, let’s transfer the contributions

Go to Contributions → Envelopes → Env-Maintenance → Add/Edit Member #’s and enter a zero next to Mary Smith and John Anderson. You must do this in order to transfer the contributions or you won’t see their names.
Go to Contributions → Management → Cont-Transfer and execute two transfers.
Transfer contributions from Mary Smith Household to the Mary Smith Member.
Transfer contributions from John Anderson Household to the John Anderson Member.
Go to Contributions → Management → Cont-Maintenance → Check your funds to ensure no outstanding pledges are assigned to the Mary Smith Household.
Go back to Contributions → Envelopes → Env-Maintenance → Add/Edit Household #’s and delete the envelope number for the Mary Smith Household. If her number goes to zero instead of erasing completely then there is probably a pledge or contribution still out there that needs to be cleaned up.

Contribution Transfer IconCMO — Transferring contributions from one envelope to another

Second, we’ll transfer Mary Smith to John Anderson’s household

Go to People → Members → Mem-List.
Click on the Last Name of the Member you wish to transfer.
Click the down arrow next to “View: Select an Item” and select Member transfer.
In the white box next to the find button enter in the Last Name of the household you wish to transfer the member to and click find button.
Click on the Last Name of the Household you wish to transfer the member to.
Press the transfer Member button.

Member Transfer — Transferring a member from one household to another

Third, we’ll update the household record and John’s member record

Go to People → Households → Hse-List and select the John Anderson household.
Change the First Name field from “John” to “John & Mary”.
Change the Mail To field from “John Anderson” to “John & Mary Anderson”.
Click Save.
Click Add – View Members.
Select John at the top left window.
Change the relationship field of John to Husband.
Click the Save Member button.
View John’s Special Events.
Add the Marriage date and click the Save button in the Special Events window.
Click the Copy to Spouse button.

Member List Form — Updating relationship and special events

Lastly, we’ll update Mary’s member record

Select Mary at the top left window.
Change the relationship of Mary Smith to Wife.
Change the last name field of Mary Smith to Anderson.
Add the name Smith to the Maiden name field for Mary.
Click Save Member.
Go back to People → Households → Hse-List and open the Mary Smith Household.
Press the “Delete” button. You do not need to archive since the household is empty.

And you’re done! Bookmark this page so it’s handy next time there’s a wedding in your church.

What everybody ought to know about blue light

July 14, 2016 By Michelle Leave a Comment

“Attention Kmart shoppers!” Blue lights

No, not the flashing blue light alerting you to special discounts! I’m talking about the blue light that comes from fluorescent light bulbs, LED lights, and the screens on our computers, cell phones, and TVs. Blue light naturally occurs in sunlight and plays a very important role because it cues our bodies to be awake and alert during the daytime.

But according to Harvard Health Publications, blue light also has a dark side.

(W)e may be paying a price for basking in all that light. At night, light throws the body’s biological clock—the circadian rhythm—out of whack. Sleep suffers. Worse, research shows that it may contribute to the causation of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.”

Blue light from screens may also cause eyestrain, headaches, and fatigue.

What can you do to minimize these harmful effects?

During the day, take frequent breaks from looking at your screen. Avoid screen time at least two or three hours before bed. If you absolutely can’t avoid screen time before bed, use computer glasses or install a program to help block the blue light.

A few of us in the Icon Systems office have Gunnars, special computer glasses engineered to eliminate digital eye strain and block artificial blue light. http://www.gunnars.com

Others in the office use f.lux, a program that makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. Download it free for Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux at https://justgetflux.com.

What do you do to minimize eye strain?