Lack of Accountability. For a variety of reasons at one time or another, church staff are required or called upon to do something that might not be specifically what they intended to do. Case in point. Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Bishopville, South Carolina. No one would have ever suspected that the financial and accounting aspects of this church could withstand the chaos that it experienced when the church secretary abruptly abandoned her position. Not only was the secretary gone, but the records that she had been keeping did not accurately reflect the bank statements or the day-to-day transactions that had taken place over the years.

When the church turned to Katherine Woodham, director of Christian education for the past nine years, she was compelled to step in and help however she could. When the initial shock wore off and the church staff recognized what had been going on, things were even worse off than they had thought. Having never been involved in financial or accounting processes at the church before, Woodham jumped in feet first to remedy the situation. Fortunately, the former church secretary had left behind her password to their system. At least that piece of information was accurate!

As Woodham began the long and tedious job to unravel this mystery, she immediately began printing out reports. “I was so thankful that our church was using ACS. I don’t know what we would have done without it. The product made it easier for me to step in and begin to figure out what was really going on and where the church actually stood financially,” remarked Woodham. With a phone call to ACS service and support, they were able to provide her with detailed steps as to what she needed to do to get back on track.

Rebuilding the Books. The first task was to set up a Windows environment and create a new set of books for 2004. Fortunately they noticed that the church had paid support for a Windows environment; they just weren’t using it. With a call to ACS Technologies, the Windows disc was sent out immediately and Woodham was able to start to input the chart of accounts. Then she began the process of re-entering data from bank statements over the past six months coupled with the daunting task of demystifying the possibility that there had been some sale of stocks and other financial information. “Things were just a mess but we were able to pull everything together,” admits Woodham.

Back Up and Running. By the middle of July, Bethlehem UMC was able to run its first set of financials that accurately recounted where they were. It was a great feeling to be able to say, “Here’s where we are. I think that even our Administrative Board was surprised to see us up and running so quickly. We couldn’t have done it without ACS. My husband is a CPA and he concurred with me that this project wouldn’t have been possible to get all this information straightened around in such a timely manner without a system that was so user friendly,” Woodham added.

The decision to purchase ACS was one that was made back in 1990. The church learned of ACS Technologies because one of its members actually worked for the company and thought that the church could benefit once it saw what the product could do. After a demonstration, Bethlehem United Methodist Church was instantly pleased and chose to go with ACS Technologies as their software management solution.

Present Status. Woodham is still the director of children’s ministry and currently works as the church secretary too. She uses ACS to produce the Children’s Ministry newsletter but tends to use the financial suite of products more frequently. Just the other day she was auditing membership and had to produce a year-end report. She needed to be able to input what year every member joined the church and their membership history (if they were transferring their membership from another church). She also needed the minister’s name in charge when they joined because this information was required by their governing body, the United Methodist Conference.

In the process of formatting this project, it seemed overwhelming to flip through the pages and cross reference everything. Woodham called ACS support and within less than a minute, she had an answer to her problem.

“I haven’t experienced one frustrating moment since I put my hands on this product last June. I have friends who work at other churches in the same role and I hear them discussing the difficulties that the year-end reports and other year-end tasks bring. I haven’t experienced any of these problems. I keep wondering if I am doing something wrong because to me, it just seems too easy!”

Overall, Bethlehem UMC has recovered from its crisis and come out having more confidence in ACS and even recommending it to other UMC churches with which they have contact. Woodham was able to organize and structure all the church’s valuable data and is confident that despite any future challenges, ACS Technologies will be there right by her side.

About Bethlehem United Methodist Church
Bethlehem UMC is a small church, averaging 121 members per Sunday in their worship service and around 70 in their Sunday School program.  Their mission states, "As a body of believers, Bethlehem United Methodist Church will serve Christ by nurturing, witnessing and reaching out to all." The present church was built in 1913 and continues to be a vital part of the life of the small town that surrounds it.

ACS Technologies Products and Services Used
People Suite: People, Contributions, Special Mailings
Financial Suite: General Ledger, Payroll, Accounts Payable