An opinion based on decades of dealing with programs and users (please forgive the virtual yelling):
It’s your data. Your should be able to extract it into a spreadsheet at any time.
Too often, purveyors of software make you a prisoner of their environment, because your data is locked inside their database. As a trivial example, I’ve seen this in a lot of to-do apps. You might have a hundred items in there, and you may wish to extract them for offline analysis. “No,” say many vendors.
As of last post, congregants could update their demographic information–name, address, phone, email, birthday, et al.–and could pull statements for any time interval.
Added to that capability, members can enter financial activity directly into the system.
Now available–individuals can access their information directly. This first rollout of the user portal has two capabilities:
Apparently many synagogues use QuickBooks for their general ledger, with their chosen synagogue software acting as a subledger feeding into QuickBooks periodically. While many synagogue leaders understand the benefits of cloud-based synagogue management software, they often cling to desktop-based accounting software. This is non-optimal.
Last week’s post mentioned free web hosting available for affiliates of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism. Fortunately, there is a parallel offering for affiliates of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ).
The reader should be aware that the USCJ (United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism) offers free web hosting for its affiliates. In addition, they make available about half a dozen free WordPress themes.
Whether acquiring software initially to solve an unmet need, or considering replacement for an existing, but inadequate solution, here are several ideas to consider and evaluate:
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
