FLORENCE, SC, May 18, 2006—As the largest provider of church management software for Catholic parishes and dioceses in the United States, Parish Data System (PDS) strives to continually improve product offerings, support services and training events in order to keep up with the technological demands of the ever-changing church technology landscape. With the release of PDS Version 4.0, the company has added important enhancements to its Church Office, Formation Office, School Office, Ledger, Ledger/Payroll and Facility Scheduler modules. PDS continues to provide powerful technology management tools to the organizations it serves, and strives to offer even better client support and training services through new programs such as the Preferred Client Program.

“Our goal is to be the best single source provider for every technology solution and service a Catholic parish or diocese needs,” comments Father Mike Boyle, founder of Parish Data System. “Over the past year, we’ve worked extremely hard to make sure the 4.0 release includes many of the improvements suggested to us from our valued clients. We’ve added a new Preferred Client Program, new features to all our products, website building technology, better support and more training.”

PDS now offers better support to clients, more product training and user groups, guaranteed annual updates and cost saving promotions to offer greater advantages to customers. PDS continues to provide the most comprehensive assortment of solutions in our industry and has developed a reputation of leadership in both service and technology.

PDS Church Office 4.0™
Church Office Management™ is the easiest way for a church office to manage the details of its members, keep track of families, sacraments, pledges and know who is involved. This church software management program provides integrated mail management tools, multiple ways to track and categorize family members, methods to track member involvement, special dates, interests, talents, ministries and attendance. PDS has continued to focus on enhancements in areas of the application that can assist organizations with more efficiency, better usability and increased performance. Recent enhancements to PDS Church Office with the version 4.0 upgrade include:

• Better Contribution Tracking - New dedicated "Envelope User" checkbox field on the family screen to more easily identify those families that use envelopes for contributions.
• Family Opt-out - New dedicated "Send no mail" checkbox field on the family screen to simply mark those families that should not be included when printing letters and labels.
• Archive Information - Get Inactive records out of the way by using new feature in delete. When deleting a family or member users now have the option to keep the information in the data file, but make it invisible to the program. If the information is ever needed again, just use the Add command to make it visible again.
• Tracking Marriage Info - New sacrament Status of "Widowed" was added, which allows users to keep the information on the first marriage while entering and displaying the information on the second marriage.
• Display Pledge Balance Due - Quick Posting of payments now displays the Balance Due so users can easily see if the pledge is complete. If it is, users can extend the pledge or add a new rate to start a new one, right from the posting process.

“I really love the new version of PDS! We’re centralizing and combining our information from paper files and Excel spreadsheets, and PDS is able to organize and hold all our information in one central place. Since we’ve upgraded to Version 4, we’re now able to utilize a lot of other fields including the legal fields that we weren’t using before. PDS is so easy to use and access our church information. We’re a Preferred Client, and I love the fact that no matter who you speak to in customer support, they are able to handle problems quickly and efficiently,” exclaimed Jenny Dwyer, Parish Data Clerk, St. Mary Church in Woodstock, Illinois.

PDS Ledger 4.0™
The Ledger Management program is a complete accounting solution for Catholic organizations. The program allows for Chart of Accounts set up and assists in overall financial management for churches. Invoices and checks can be created and printed as needed from office computers. Accounts are updated automatically. Print the Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports to quickly view the church financial position. PDS has included new processes to assist churches in merging or deleting historical information without compromising the integrity of stored financial data. Other recent improvements to PDS Ledger with the version 4.0 upgrade include:

• Update Chart of Accounts - New processes screen makes it easy to manage existing data and keep the chart of accounts up-to-date.
• Remove Old Accounts - New Delete Transactions process allows for the removal of old transactions but leaves the monthly totals on the Chart of Account Detail screen intact.
• Clean Up List of Vendors - List of Vendors and Income Sources can be cleaned up with the new Delete/Merge Vendors and Delete/Merge Income Sources. Accounts can also be merged and totaled or consolidated.
• Correct Invalid Accounts - New correct transaction process to correct transactions connected to invalid accounts.
• Data Range Available - New option on the General Ledger report allows users to select the date range on a “starting date to ending date” rather than “starting month to ending month”
• New Reports - New Drill-Down Chart of Account report allows users to preview the list of accounts and their totals. New Statement of Cash Flow report can be used to explain the difference between the beginning and ending amount of cash.

“The enhancements made in Ledger 4.0 are terrific!  We really appreciate all of the hard work that went into the upgrade. We especially like the Merge Accounts and Merge Vendor features that are allowing us to 'clean up' our Chart of Accounts and Vendors. Moreover, each time I have contacted customer support I have had my issues resolved in a very timely manner. The people in customer support are very friendly, helpful and most importantly, patient,” comments Marda Weakley, Finance Department, Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky.

Improved PDS Support & Training
PDS has spent countless hours improving its customer support and training services. As a result of joining a larger organization and making best use of trained resources, support calls will be answered within five minutes or less. Separately, PDS has focused on optimizing relationships with independent dealers and selected dioceses. PDS now offers seven different hands-on training classes that are held in Phoenix, Arizona and in Florence, South Carolina; In addition, there are 25 unique classes available online. Please visit www.parishdata.com/training to register for a class today.

PDS Preferred Client Program
The PDS Preferred Client Program offers free software upgrades with all the latest enhancements, F1 Help revisions, and important regulatory changes affecting churches and schools, including tax updates. The program offers unlimited toll-free phone support, 24/7 online access to the knowledge base, live online chat with support representatives, response to e-mail support questions and remote assistance service using a Web-based desktop streaming application. Other special services include free Web site strategy assessment, monthly e-mail newsletters, Web-based client profile management, recorded online classes, exclusive offers and special announcements. Members are guaranteed at least 10% off any hands-on or online classes and special pricing for custom Extend™ Web site designs.

About Parish Data System
Since 1978, Parish Data System (PDS) (www.parishdata.com) has been creating quality software programs for Catholic organizations. PDS has gained Catholic market leadership through providing software and services to over 10,000 parishes, schools and dioceses worldwide. Products include: PDS Church Office, Formation Office, School Office, Ledger, Ledger/Payroll, and Facility Scheduler. PDS and ACS Technologies’ combined strengths and staff provide the industry's best support and training and offer the broadest line of software solutions. PDS software is used by the majority of parishes in the majority of dioceses in the United States, making it the industry leader in Catholic management software and services. The PDS vision is to continue to be the "standard" for information systems solutions for Catholic churches, schools and dioceses.