ACS

A Great Product Overall with World-Class Customer Service

Kommentare: ACS is a church software product with several different suites to choose from. I found the People Suite, then Realm, extremely helpful in keeping member records, and the Financial Suite gives the church the reports and information needed for making budget decisions.

Vorteile:

ACS Realm is a simpler version of ACS People Suite, and much more intuitive. The implementation was smooth and the transition fully backed by their wonderful customer service. I also love getting a live, knowledgeable person on the phone within a few seconds of calling. Payroll is also very easy in ACS Financial Suite.

Nachteile:

The Financial Suite is not intuitive, but mistakes have gotten easier to fix due to upgrades. The church is still waiting to switch to ACS Realm Financials, as payroll cannot be done there, despite well over a year of promises that it is happening soon. It would be helpful for Realm input of donations to flow to the Financial Suite. Also, ACS People Suite gave options for certain reports that cannot be run in ACS Realm.

Bulletproof, contains all the core functionality, but dated

Kommentare: Crucial information that aids in caring for our church family.

Vorteile:

I love that this software has been refined and is extremely reliable and fast. Efficient data entry and keyboard functionality. Powerful reporting. Covers the basics of what a ChMS should offer with ease, speed and power.

Nachteile:

This software is dated. It's "cloud" based, but lacks lots of modern communication tools such as text communication, easy email distribution and remote web-based functions like small group attendance, and volunteer management. In all honesty, ACS is so big and has so many add-on features, it can probably do all of these things, but it's hard to know all of the functionality because it's not easily explained anywhere (and I've been a user for 12 years). Also, it's reporting process is not difficult for someone with some background in reports, but it's far too complex for an average pastor or lay-leader to use - which requires a database person to run reports. Also, no customizable dashboards, etc. So, it will probably do most everything you want, but you'll need a ChMS expert to figure it all out and run the reports...

What happened to the wonderful ACS of past?

Kommentare: Back with the awesomely designed old ACS On Demand I was a huge fan of everything about this company - great support - robust trouble-free (rarely had a file corruption issue) modules with tremendous flexibility. The new Realm products - For the price they are charging - we would be as well served with Quickbooks.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all about paying for quality but this Realm product falls short on too many important features.

Vorteile:

ACS had fantastic software until they created Realm Giving and Realm Accounting and decided to care more about form than function, and "dumbed" down the flexibility of the accounting module. Their outstanding reputation is based on the old versions I believe. I am currently looking to overhaul our entire system at tremendous expense because the new accounting interface does not work the way I need it - we are locked out of any contra-accounting interface due to the product management team's decision to "appeal to non-accounting people" - If you are serious about your job then that should say it all.

Nachteile:

There are absolutely no drill-downs in the new system - no calculation features and it is over-engineered so that nearly every entry field has a drop down box - really, really, really slows you down if you have a large JE to process - and if you just fill in the box and don't go through all the steps, half the time it loses that entry. I also can no longer run event and other income smoothly and directly to a contra-expense. The product management people have decided that they understand accounting better than professional users.

ACS for First Church

Kommentare: Pledgers who are not attending.

Vorteile:

Reports, tracking a stewardship campaign over several years, customer service is tops.

Nachteile:

Uses a software that doesn't convert excel spreadsheets into a functional spreadsheet. The columns do not keep the formulas. Therefore you have to make the formulas in a new column. Multiply steps for reports. Should have more reports that are already set up in the software.

ACS

Kommentare: Whereas I can work seamlessly with ACS a lot of my coworkers have difficulties and I'm constantly showing them how to do things they don't do on a regular basis. It has solved the issues of church body data management. Everyone has been trained on how to enter the information into the database. It's just difficult for those, who don't work in the details very often, to get information out of it.

Vorteile:

I love that once you understand the logic behind the software it's very user friendly.

Nachteile:

If you don't take a training class on the logic behind the software it's difficult to understand the more detailed inner workings of the software.

There are better options

Kommentare: To be fair, it's been a few years since I have spoken to ACS customer support and they were friendly and tried to be very helpful at the time, but it wasn't a good experience. We had issues with updating older versions of the software and trying to make it work within our own bylaws and Canadian law, which wasn't on ACS as a software manufacturer, but it didn't help the overall experience. There seemed to be a disconnect between how we were (poorly) implementing the software and struggling with teaching staff and the way in which the ACS team communicated to us and told us to get excited about functionality that never worked in our context because of difficulty of implementation. Thankfully, there are better software options out there today - including Realm, which we transferred to from ACS and have had better luck.

Vorteile:

If you spent a lot of time setting things up and were using it daily, ACS seems to have the capability to have good functionality. I've been in two different organizations where that wasn't the case, and heard similar things from other users, which meant ACS was something that I used only when I really couldn't get someone else to do the thing I needed, or I really needed to find a piece of information. It seems to be a great place to store all kinds of information.

Nachteile:

The user interface was difficult, making learning it (and teaching it to church staff who are often technically slower) very difficult. Because people never learned it, it was used poorly and data was sometimes out of date, making the whole database only really functional for the financial side of things and we never managed to get the use out of it that we often hoped and tried for. Overall it was a frustrating piece of software when we had to engage with it and people would create their own systems and spreadsheets as work arounds.

Legacy ACS Suite is Not Your Beat Option

Kommentare: Excellent customer service. Realm product is am improvement. Financials package is still an industry leader.

Vorteile:

Robust, lots of functions, built with churches in mind

Nachteile:

Clunky, slow, old interface, can't adapt to ongoing demands of changing churches

Budget friendly

Kommentare: Overall, the service performs what you need it to do at a lower budget cost, but it could offer more in terms of functionality and appearance.

Vorteile:

It is very easy to set up multiple users and customize what they can access at any given time. I also liked how you can have multiple windows open at a time even if they were from different access "suites."

Nachteile:

The service as a whole is difficult to use. I have found the process to find multiple reports very time-consuming even when you know what you are looking for. The service is not as straight forward to use as I had hoped. You also are not able to customize how the reports look which I would have appreciated when sending reports to clients.

ACS is overall okay.

Vorteile:

I like how it stores a lot of information and that the customer service is always very prompt.

Nachteile:

I do not like the ​interface, it is outdated and can be confusing.

Not the best software compared to others that are comparable.

Kommentare: I was able to do snail mailings from this software but only if it was a mass communication and not a more narrow piece.

Vorteile:

I like the fact that it is easy to use at first glance. It is easy to log on and view information and to use the database entry pieces

Nachteile:

I do not like the fact that you cannot sort out your database to a great degree. For example, you can add fields, but it is not easy to do and to then sort according to your added fields is not easy.

A review of ACS

Vorteile:

The ability to use the membership management when entering data and the ease of creating databases as needed in the accounting system.

Nachteile:

Currently there are no issues with this software

ACS CAN DO BETTER

Kommentare: We no longer have problems managing the donations received and the registration of our members in a database.

Vorteile:

The first remark is the customer service which is very reactive and quickly solves your problem. ACS is a very useful church management software, because we won't have the problem to manage the database of our members or the registration of the children, and even all the donations received. I like the way it stores information. Of course, it is not quick to master ACS, but once you have mastered it you have everything you want to know about reports, campaign follow-ups, etc. In conclusion, ACS is a very good software to store any kind of information.

Nachteile:

Despite the fast customer service, we notice that during the months of February and March the wait is rather long. The ACS software often bugs or slows down when donor files increase. The lack of functional expense reporting is lacking given the current state of the art technology. ACS is also limited on the choice of administrators on who should access this or that. The ACS software needs to be upgraded, as the speed is poor when running large reports. The look needs to be redesigned not too aesthetically pleasing, but also the API access which is almost non-existent.

Aching for ACS

Kommentare: The customer service at ACS is outstanding and would recommend this company and their products to anyone.

Vorteile:

This software was the solution we needed. When ACS Realm is fully launched, we will find that our questions will be answered with the product provided.

Nachteile:

Sometimes the software can be clunky and not able to fully customize the solution we need but then the question is asked, "What do I really need to do?"

ACS is THE BEST!!

Kommentare: ACS cares about us. Cares about churches. Our business relationship with them helps us to do what we, the church, were intended to do in the first place, which is build the Kingdom of God.

Vorteile:

We have been ACS clients since the beginning!! Currently we are using Realm for membership tracking, but still use ACS Financials for our book-keeping needs. It does everything we need, and our books are not as simple as one might think.

Nachteile:

The only con I can think of is that I wish ACS Financials could integrate with Realm. We have ACS Financials down pat, and I wish we could port it over!!

ACS - small group management

Kommentare: We are a non-denom multi-site church in the DC suburbs (predominantly African-American) with apx 4000 in weekly attendance and 10,000 watching services online. We chose ACS software over the competition because it was robust enough to meet our needs. And like most churches...our needs are varied and nuanced.

Vorteile:

1. The customer support!!!! If I can't figure out how to do something, there are so many ways to get help: Phone calls to a live person that walks me through things step-by-step, webinars, other ACS users in different online communities, etc. 2. The flexibility of the product and how it's grown...and continues to grow...to meet our needs.

Nachteile:

The volunteer management piece isn't as directly integrated as we would like.

Best church software I've seen!

Kommentare: The software is superb and the customer service goes above and beyond to answer all my questions. ACS offers everything I need to run the church office tasks. From member information, contributions, directory, to financial reports, payroll, taxes, etc.

Vorteile:

Ease of use; frequent upgrades; makes my job more efficient

Nachteile:

I really do like everything about it but if I had to name one thing, it would be the reports part of the program. The reports can be a little difficult to search & display the results you want.

Helpful, but not user-friendly

Kommentare: As a new employee coming into the administrative secretary position a few months ago, I was confident that it would take me no more than a couple of months to get familiar with ACS and to be flying through the steps necessary to keep an accurate accounting record. I have a higher than average knowledge and skill base with technology and software. I have been discouraged with how long it is taking me to grasp the full scope of the ACS software and how best to manage our accounting needs.

Vorteile:

ACS Technologies accounting software for churches has many capabilities that are necessary in the accurate accounting of all the funds coming into and going out from the church. We are able to print detailed reports for our Finance Team to review each month, follow a clear auditing trail, and have up-to-date information on the funds remaining for each ministry team.

Nachteile:

ACS is not at all user-friendly and requires a great deal of specialized training in order to be up and running within a reasonable amount of time. It is not intuitive and while the customer service phone line is very helpful and readily available, it is extremely difficult for someone to come in as a new employee and take over the reigns in regards to accounting. There are training sessions available, but they are typically only offered in South Carolina where the ACS corporate offices are located. That makes it difficult for a smaller church to afford to send one or two employees for training in a timely manner. There are manuals available for print, but again, weeding through the many pages of the manual is not an easy task for a person who is unfamiliar with the software. The tools needed for church accounting are there, however, they are difficult to master in practice.

A proven product but a lot of training is required.

Vorteile:

ACS does everything and more than what we need. Customer support is excellent. Cloud based for remote access is very helpful to work from home or office.

Nachteile:

ACS is not intuitive at all. It has been around for decades and often feels like it is old software with a lot of patches to make it work with new ideas. Customer support is great, but you shouldn't need it frequently. We spent a full week training our staff on ACS and the modules we have added. It seems like we frequently get "kicked off" and have to log back in to keep using the software.

Mostly high marks

Kommentare: We use ACS OnDemand (PeopleSuite, Attendance, Connections modules) and are preparing to roll out AccessACS to our membership as part of a website re-do. The pros:
* Using PeopleSuite and Attendance moved us from multiple spreadsheets (and hundreds of errors/discrepancies) to track member info and attendance.
* The Connections module is being used for our evangelism/visitation teams. They were slow to adopt, but their leader has championed its use and they're getting there.
* It allowed us to introduce spiritual gifts tied to volunteer opportunities to our membership, and our deacons and volunteer organizers can use it to track involvement and identify volunteers when opportunities arise.
* The directory phone/tablet app is very handy for our ministers and leadership (it has not been rolled out to the membership yet, but will be introduced this summer.) The Cons:
* Attendance. We are a small/mid size church (just over 1,000 member/visitor files) so we handle attendance manually. The AccessACS module is too clunky for volunteers to enter attendance, which has placed the workload back on our very small office staff.
* There are significant limitations to the reporting on member involvement. Customized reports (and access to a report builder) are pricey.
* Creating a MS Word letter template is far more complicated than it should be.
* Texting capability ranges from bad (integration between PeopleSuite and AccessACS) to non-existent (integration with PhoneTree). Bottom line: We purchased ACS years ago as a stand-alone, one-user model. We're now entering Year 2 of using the OnDemand, multi-user model. It has allowed us to become far more efficient than we were, but it's not where we want to be long-term.

Secretary/ Teacher

Kommentare: Having to wait on hold for extensive periods of time was very inconvenient.

Vorteile:

The database was very useful and made my job much easier.

Nachteile:

It was not easy to correct mistakes. Waiting for help was a lengthy process.

Great software

Kommentare: We love ACS and will continue doing business with them.

Vorteile:

Love the support team and their vast knowledge of the product. It is easy to use.

Nachteile:

Needs more reporting/queerying options for accounting.

ACS was a huge learning curve for me, but its robust database made it worth it.

Vorteile:

ACS is powerful. It holds a whole lot of data and can do everything from help manage group and events to managing payroll. Once you learn how to navigate the software, you are able to dig into a lot of different search criteria and information to find just about any piece of info you would want on a church member. I personally do not work with the financial side, but I hear nothing but great things about how secure and robust the financial info is as well.

Nachteile:

ACS has a huge learning curve and the user interface is antiquated and pretty hard to navigate. The ACS team knows this however and rather than rock the boat for those who know ACS inside and out, they developed REALM which we have since moved to.

By far the worst ChMS I've ever seen

Kommentare: ACS used to be the leader in this industry, but that was in the 1990s. Unfortunately, their software is still stuck in the 90s. It's incredibly difficult to figure out; not at all intuitive. The UX is terrible: it's like working on a Windows 95 machine in your old high school's computer lab. Big issue for me: The software is ONLY for Windows. Do not be fooled by their deceptive product "OnDemand" which claims to let you use ACS on your Mac or iPad. It's total BS! What it does is log you in remotely to a Windows computer somewhere. And unless they've recently updated the software (unlikely), you can't even use it on iPad without an external keyboard. Further, their pricing structure is ridiculous. You pay for every little thing separately. I met with a rep a couple of years ago who was pitching OnDemand to me, and I asked why we had to pay extra to use the software on our Macs. He said it's because it's a different "module." Total crap! That's like going to a restaurant, paying $85 for a steak and potato, and then being told that butter, salt, pepper, napkins, and silverware all cost extra. Stay away from ACS. It's not worth the trouble.

Great Customer Service & Support!

Kommentare: ACS OnDemand church database is not incredibly pretty or user-friendly, but it is very capable software for mid- to large-sized churches to choose.

Vorteile:

The biggest pro is ACS' support team. They will capably answer almost any question about how to use the database when you get stuck, and will remain friendly, patient and helpful throughout the call. A+

Nachteile:

The thing I dislike most is the "look and feel" of the user experience. It just isn't pretty.

difficult

Vorteile:

It does interface with our financial system and they have good accounting people to solve accounting problems

Nachteile:

Set-up for reports is too complicated and graphs are difficult to arrange and filters are confusing.