With approximately 4,000 registered families, St. Patrick’s is one of the largest Catholic churches in the West. Vonnie Schlimgen, the church’s Coordinator of Census and Finance, has used Parish Data System (PDS) since 1984 at her previous church, and since 1996 at St. Patrick’s. As a veteran PDS user, she wasn’t entirely eager to upgrade to the new version of the software since using the previous version was second nature for her; however, by working side-by-side with PDS over the last few months, Schlimgen is happy that she’s now using Church Office, as it has proved to have extremely valuable enhancements and additions that now make her job even easier.

“We knew that moving from version 17 to Church Office would present some obstacles, but we moved forward with the transition because we knew our church would benefit in the long run,” comments Schlimgen. “Through the experience, we found out what a good support group we have in PDS. They have worked with us through countless details and have even been able to aid us in locating and solving several minor programming glitches.”

Smooth Transition. Knowing that the transition would be an ongoing process, the church decided to run both versions side-by-side until the new program was operating at optimal performance and until they were confident that all their data had been transferred over accurately. They ran both versions simultaneously and cross-checked all transactions for nearly four months to ensure that all their data was migrated successfully.

“By running a financial report from the new version, we were able to tell whether all our data had been transferred to the correct fields. We could cross-reference our data and make the appropriate changes to keep everything in order,” Schlimgen adds.

“The support we received from PDS throughout the transition process has been wonderful. They have been there for us each and every step of the way,” comments Schlimgen.

Newfound Customization. Because St. Patrick’s serves such a huge community of parishioners and has a large operating budget, the church has the need for many reports that typically don’t come standard with any type of church management software. One of Schlimgen’s wishes was to have the ability to completely customize reports from within her management software. With Church Office, her wish came true.

“There are tons of existing reports within Church Office that seem to satisfy most churches, but I seem to always work for churches that want reports that are above and beyond the standard requests,” she states. “With the new version of PDS, I am able to go in and customize reports using the ‘Copy Feature.’ This feature allows me to copy, rename, and convert reports in order to meet our own parameters. I’m so happy to have the ability to customize reports within Church Office.”

Schlimgen also loves the ‘Quick Listing’ reports that allow her to define the parameters of a report and save them for future use and time savings.

“It is so easy to go into the family selections and pull up parishioners by the first letter of their last name, for example. You can insert whatever fields you need to and save your report so that next time you can pull the same report without having to customize it all over again. Everyday this reporting feature saves us time,” she adds.

Better Tracking. St. Patrick’s has also found that Church Office has helped them keep better track of contributions. In 1998, the church began a building fund that is still in operation. The Finance Committee wanted to track how many people had pledged and given, so Schlimgen set up four keywords in the Contributions section of the software: Pledge, Non-Pledge (giving with no pledge card), Pay When Able, and Memorials and Bricks (member’s family name on memorial brick). These keywords allow her to keep track of the number of people and dollar amounts in each category of giving. She is easily able to track the funds separately and collectively.

“Every time we enter data into the building fund, I run all five reports—one for each keyword and a summary report—to make sure that they all match,” she notes. “This way I can make sure that all the numbers match up and are accurate.”

Recently, Schlimgen found a disparity in the records because the report only had a total of 2,689 records and she knew that there were 2,690 people who had donated. Because the report caught this info, she was able to sort through her data and determine which contribution did not have a keyword denoted in its record.

“It’s great to be able to track in this way,” she states.

Another contributions feature that Schlimgen loves is the “Quick Postings” feature. “It’s great to have the ability to save your work in the middle and come back to a particular batch—the old version didn’t have this capability.”

Also, she enjoys having the ability to correct data easily. For instance, having the ability to correct information—such as the wrong date—throughout an entire batch can save her enormous amounts of time.

Overall, St. Patrick’s is glad that they made the switch to Church Office. Through time savings, added features, and the ability to keep track of contributions more efficiently, PDS has helped enable the church staff to spend time meeting the needs of their parishioners instead of being concerned with the effectiveness of their church software system.

About St. Patrick’s
Founded in 1980, St. Patrick’s is a Roman Catholic community that currently serves approximately 4,000 registered families. The church challenges itself to be a family of hospitality and life-giving worship and is committed to taking the gospel of Jesus Christ out into the world. In September 2002, the church began celebrating mass in its new sanctuary, which seats over 1,200 people and has parking for 900 cars. The church’s collective vision of the parish community includes celebrating sacraments to the best of their ability, practicing good hospitality, taking ownership through positive stewardship, and helping those in need through social justice actions.

Parish Data System Products & Services Used
Church Office, Ledger Management, Payroll Management, Facility Scheduler, Formation Office Management

Web Site
http://www.stpatrickscottsdale.org/