I know this questions comes up from time to time, and now it is our turn to ask. We are looking at moving off of Shelby v5 accounting, and our Finance Group is asking “What are other churches using for Accounting?”
Can you give me some feedback on the system you use, and your average weekly attendance, they asked that too.
Thank you, Mark Rrock
Intacct. around 6000 weekly. Also has some integrations with MP thanks to us and Seacoast
I was just going to post this identical question! We are in the same boat but moving from ACS Finance. Would also love feedback on what people are using/recommend. We have heard good things about Intacct, Netsuite and GP/Dynamics. Heard Intacct is pricy but worth it if we can swing it. Thoughts?
I consult heavily in the ChMS and Accounting solution space… let me know if I can help (nickn@mbsinc.com),
Nick
Hey Mark,
We use Intacct as well. Our weekly attendance is around 5000.
Hey Ted, I’m interested in knowing what type of integration with MP you have between MP and Intacct.
We moved from V5 to Arena but kept financials in V5 and then later moved those to Shelby Next Financials. Our AWA is ~2,000. The Financials transition was actually pretty smooth thanks in large part to the skill of our accounting staff. As long as we’re using Arena the integration between the Membership and Financials side of the database has been great. I imagine if we ever moved to another ChMS we’d probably keep using SNF unless that ChMS had a robust replacement.
For anyone considering a switch in accounting systems, it would probably be well worth your time to talk with Higher Ground Technologies. 901-333-7777. If you’re a Ministry Platform Church, this is even more exciting!
(I"m not an employee of Higher Ground, nor compensated. I just believe in what they’ve come up with.)
Fellowship Greenville uses ShelbyNext Financials and we have about 2500 per week.
Intacct - have roughly 14,000 weekly - Would love to see if anyone is integrating intacct with Rock.
Late to this thread but we use Quickbooks 
We have roughly 4500 weekly and are hoping to upgrade our financial system next year.
Dynamics NAV is a good option.
You can put NAV on an Azure VM connected to SQL Database to make it fully cloud ready. Then for your HTTPS connection, you can use a service like Incapsula to add 2 factor (SMS or Authenticator) to screen the traffic. You can whitelist IP addresses for the desktop clients to connect securely to the VM which also uses an encrypted channel.
We use ACS financials. I love our finance people but other than our new controller most are very reluctant to any change. We have used ACS for 15-20 years.
We are on Shelby V5, stayed on it after moving ChMS from shelby to Fellowship one a decade ago, now we are planning a move to Ministry Platform but finance still wants to hold on to Shelby for now. ~3500 4 campuses
I never thought our Financial Services would let go of Shelby v5, but much to my surprise, THEY are talking about making a switch. What a difference being told that Shelby v5 will be going away at some unspecified point in the next 5 years makes! It also helps that we changed over to Ministry Platform which handles the contributions side pretty well, so all they have to find a solution for is the general ledger/AP/AR side.
I don’t know what they will settle on, but the opportunity to make a change is exciting!
Followup Question – what makes your chosen software AWESOME… or AWFUL? What about the software makes your accounting team ministry superheroes?
Jeremy Hoff
Shepherd Church
(818) 831-9333
Dynamics NAV on Azure Cloud with SQL Database (Azure):
Our Christian school will need to replace our current accounting software (Logos GL, hosted version) and we have options from Ministry Brands of ParishSoft or ShelbyNext Financials. What opinions exist of those 2 vs. some version of QuickBooks?
We do not need integration with any ChMS, since all student data exists in ProgressBook Suite.
Products like Intaact are WAY out of our price range.
I am the finance person at our church, avg attendance is about 700/week, and I have a quote from Sage Intacct that is 3 times what we are currently paying for all of ACS… I would really like to move from ACS Financials, but can’t find anything that would do what it does for the price. Mark, did you ever get a satisfactory answer?
Hoping to update this discussion to the present. Could you take a minute to share where you are at these days with your accounting software? Accounting Software and Implementation Costs