A cloud-based approach to administration is clearly the most cost effective approach for churches with their hard-pressed staff and widely-dispearsed congregations.
So far, I have not been able to find a UK competitor that is nearly as well developed. Nothing short of constant innovation and improvement will suffice in this marketplace and the ChurchSuite team have demonstrated that commitment.
Queries are answered swiftly and there seems to be a readiness to respond where possible to user suggestions. It is great to find a company that is working so hard to provide church communities with the administrative support they need.
Since introducing ChurchSuite, I have received lots of positive feedback from our congregation. They like the intuitive nature of the 'My ChurchSuite' interface and they don't even mind receiving the various email and SMS reminders of their upcoming responsibilities.
We have adopted the whole suite of modules and use the majority of them extensively. The recent development of the much hoped-for Planning functionality is a great addition to an already accomplished line-up: Address Book, Children, Calendar, Small Groups and Rotas - all of which will surely lay at the heart of most church requirements. The Bookings module has added considerable efficiency and income to our day to day running and is an obvious choice for those with busy spaces and varied users to manage. The Giving module is a superbly simple way of organising donations and making Gift Aid claims. From the importing bank transactions step to submitting the claim online can be as little and 10 minutes of work; I wouldn't be without it. The only module that feels slightly underused from our perspective is Attendance, but this has risen in importance during a time of increased need for tracking our movements. Some churches with a more advanced approach to weekly 'check-in' will find this functionality extremely helpful. All in all, each of these modules has been very helpful in bringing various sources of data and disparate approaches to volunteer management under one umbrella system.
I am very happy to recommend ChurchSuite to churches of any size.