With a bustling congregation of more than 3,700 members, multiple church services and activities, Christ Episcopal Church of North Carolina used to find themselves dreading carving time out of their busy schedules to complete the annual parochial report. Until, ACS Technologies created a simple solution with the ACS Parochial Report. Now, Christ Episcopal Church has gone from dreading reporting time to seeing it as a manageable and beneficial process compiling useful data throughout the year.
Reporting Frustrations.
The annual Parochial Report always took an inordinate amount of time for several of the administrative staff members including Suzanne McCary, the 
parish administrator. It was a project that they just kept postponing because of the amount of time it consumed with running reports and gathering information from various sources for both the membership and financial sections.
An Easy Solution.
ACS Technologies approached Christ Episcopal Church to be a beta test site for a new solution Episcopal ACS which includes three main components: Recommended Templates, Automated Register of Church Services and the ACS Parochial Report, which provides tools to eliminate the headache of preparing the annual report. ACS Parochial Report is a software program that automatically calculates all information needed for the parochial report at the push of a button. Since implementing the software, McCary and her team are able to rely on it to read the church data and compile the appropriate figures for their annual Parochial Report. Once McCary and her team defined the fields they needed for the report, their work was done. Now they can focus on other responsibilities.
McCary believes that even though this is their first year of using the ACS Parochial Report from ACS Technologies, it has already saved them several hours in time and energy each month. McCary and her team are actually looking forward to preparing the annual report for the Diocese next year, because they know that their monthly figures have already been chronicled; therefore, most of their work will already be done.
Benefits.
McCary is a true believer in software solutions to remedy administrative hurdles and highly recommends the ACS Parochial Report to other churches. By implementing this solution, churches can:
- Save time by reducing the repetition and workload for the staff especially when the annual Parochial Report is due
- Reduce the likelihood of possible data errors by creating an audit trail
- Have the ability to quickly gather other information, which is useful to the Vestry and others in the organization.
Bonus.
While the ACS Parochial Report was created to ease the effort in compiling data for reporting to the Diocese, Episcopal ACS also helps streamline other reporting requirements throughout the church year as discovered by McCary. She is using the Automated Register of Church Services to compile a monthly report on church worship attendance for her Vestry. She discovered that worship attendance information can be gathered regularly and kept in the Automated Register of Church Services, making it readily available for quick reporting. In addition to McCary, the assistant to education, the membership secretary, the
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"ACS continues to step up to the plate in product innovation, training and the desire to improve their software line. I applaud their continued efforts and results this is a wonderful tool!" |
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- Suzanne McCary
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Hands On Support.
ACS Support Services helped Christ Episcopal Church setup and implement the ACS Parochial Report. McCary and her team described the ACS support team as "very kind and patient. Everyone felt at ease with the support members and their step-by-step approach in showing us how to use the application."
About Christ Episcopal Church.
Above all, Christ Episcopal Church aspires to help each other grow into the fullness of God's wishes for us. They aim to treat each other with the love of Christ, to approach God with the faith of Christ, and to serve the world in the Spirit of Christ in order to take after Him in our life together with Him. Established in 1943, Christ Episcopal Church is located in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is a church home to 2,500 adults and more than 1,200 children.
Web Site: www.christchurchcharlotte.org
ACS Technologies Products & Services Used
Episcopal ACS: Parochial Report, Automated Register of Church Services
People Suite: People, Access ACS, Connections, Reservations, Contributions, Attendance
Financial Suite: Payroll, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger
Growth Tools: Report Designer, CASS It!, Ministry Scheduler
To learn more visit www.acstechnologies.com/episcopalacs
or call 1-800-736-7425 (Churches)
or 1-843- 413-8170 (Dioceses).
ACS Technologies Group, Inc.
ACS Technologies designs desktop and Web-based software solutions that help over 22,000 faith-based organizations manage their information better. We have been dedicated to serving churches, schools, and other organizations for over 27 years. To discover how we can further help meet your needs, call us today at 1.800.736.7425.
