multi-site churches?

[kimvdh]

my church is going multi site 1 budget 1 staff 2 locations ... just wondering if anyone has any tips for the membership module... we will want to be able to search/report for members, guests ect per location
so is my best bet to double up the mailing catagory and personal status options i.e. member east member south; guest east guest south

if you are multi site what are you doing? what do you wish you did from the beginning....

thanks for any feedback

[NeilZ]

my church is going multi site 1 budget 1 staff 2 locations ... just wondering if anyone has any tips for the membership module... we will want to be able to search/report for members, guests ect per location
so is my best bet to double up the mailing catagory and personal status options i.e. member east member south; guest east guest south

if you are multi site what are you doing? what do you wish you did from the beginning....

thanks for any feedback

FWIW ... the easiest is to have two separate instances of the program installed, 1 for the main campus which will also have Accounting setup, and one for the satellite, with only membership setup. This way you don't have to mess with different mailing categories and personal profiles.

That can get very messy. You may want to look to the future in doing this. Eventually that second campus may become big enough to warrant its own budget.

[kimvdh]

thanks Neilz!

how do I add another separate program ? ( I use pc online)

[NeilZ]

thanks Neilz!

how do I add another separate program ? ( I use pc online)

I suspect in your case you'd have to get another instance of PC Online. I'd call Powerchurch direct to see what they advise.

[kimvdh]

Understand what you mean about benefit of purchasing a 2nd separate PC program for the satelight location and only using the membership module for now so in future we are set up if end up on our own; but since both are operating under 1 budget all the expenses and contributions would be entered in our main PC program all the people who attend the new campus will have to be in both PC programs as I would need them in membership module in order to enter their contributions

I'd be paying an extra $600+ a year and every time we get a new member they have to be entered into 2 programs wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to just create extra mailing categories ??

But ya I"ll call PC ...what would be perfect if you could just add on an 2nd membership module to the PC I have!

[NeilZ]

Understand what you mean about benefit of purchasing a 2nd separate PC program for the satelight location and only using the membership module for now so in future we are set up if end up on our own; but since both are operating under 1 budget all the expenses and contributions would be entered in our main PC program all the people who attend the new campus will have to be in both PC programs as I would need them in membership module in order to enter their contributions

I'd be paying an extra $600+ a year and every time we get a new member they have to be entered into 2 programs wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to just create extra mailing categories ??

But ya I"ll call PC ...what would be perfect if you could just add on an 2nd membership module to the PC I have!

Why would you need to add them to both systems?? Because of Contributions ?? Not necessarily.

What you would do on the second site is to post contributions to a FILE, and then import that file into the MAIN site's accounting module. No need to duplicate anything.

[kimvdh]

ohhhhh I didn't know you could do that!

[NeilZ]

ohhhhh I didn't know you could do that!

Yep ... what you need on the second (satellite's) program copy, is a copy of the accounting files so that when you setup Contribution Funds, you will have the correct Fund Account accounts that you want the Contributions to post to on the main copy.

All you need to do is under Utilities -> Backup & Restore, when you select backup, on the Backup which group of files page click on the radio button for Accounting FIles. The system will create a backup file, but you'll see as part of the file {b]ACC[/b] to differentiate from other backups. Restore that to the satellite copy, then setup your Contribution Funds.

When you then post Contributions to a file, the system actually creates the transactions for Funds Accounting then writes it to the file. You would then import that file using the Accounting -> Funds Accounting -> Setup -> Import Accounting Transactions. All the treasurer/bookkeeper needs to do is post transactions as normal.