ParishSOFT

Smart Organization for a Parish

From this bookkeeper's point of view, being able to track Family Giving within the Family Directory is a huge deal. I love that Online Giving is easily integrated as well. When I began a couple of years ago, there were notebooks and different programs for different purposes.
Now, everything we need is within ParishSOFT, one program to learn, one to open throughout the day, and it's actually becoming automatic and so much easier. Customer Service is very patient and helpful, and I've actually not needed to call in a couple of months. The resources that I print are all I need if I have a situation I'm not clear about.
All in all, I can easily keep track of parishioners, addresses, giving, and communication.

Functionality of Parish Soft Family Suite

Over all, it does give me a lot of what I need to complete a task or when inputting data.

Best diocesan and parish management software available in the market today

We have been customers since 2005 and still believe that this product was the right way to go. The development of additional features and functionality has been slower this past year than we as customers would like to see. There have been more "bug fixes" than added features. There are many opportunities for the company to grow and mature and we believe that they are committed to taking the steps to make that growth happen. As a customer, I wish that more resources were committed to making that growth happen at a faster rate. We continue to patiently wait....some wait more patiently than others ;-). We understand the challenges of finding well-committed developers and look forward to seeing the development cycle make significant speed and accuracy improvements as it seriously needs to. Customer Communication needs some serious improvement and should be more transparent without jeopardizing corporate intellectual property.

Cindy's review

It is a decent program, and does most of what we need it to do.

ParishSoft Review

I feel confident using this software, and after much trial and some error it is nice to know there are ways to back out errors and I don't have to freak out. Technical support is excellent!

Your request for a review!

NOT GREAT, FRUSTRATING AT TIMES! The majority of staff would agree this has not been the best experience for us, minimal training, the majority of us learned by trial and error and, thank God, help from the wonderful Support Staff!

Terrible product

Very Complete Software Program

I am very pleased with ParishSOFT. It gets the job done!

My experience with parish soft

I am very pleased. I do pretty much everything on it. Family lists, keepin up with registrations, religious ed, mailouts, deposits and end of year contributions statements.

Almost Better Than A Fried Shrimp Po-Boy

Once I realized all that I was capable of doing with the Religious Education component of the Suite, I was all in. But, for me, the most important aspect of the whole experience is the support I have been afforded every time that I needed to use it. The Support Staff is knowledgeable, friendly, eager to help, and relentless (they will not give up until they have assisted you).

Help when you need it.

I like the ability to post the donations by parishioners and be able to give them a record of their contributions at the end of the year.

Wish we had another option

The Archdiocese of Boston has selected Connect Now (the web based program from ParishSoft) as the database management system for all parishes within the Archdiocese. As one of those parishes, we have been very disappointed with this product. First and foremost, it is extremely slow! Tech support at ParishSoft and within the Archdiocese continually try to make this a customer issue (you need more bandwidth, cleaner systems, etc) but that is not the case, I suspect that their servers were simply not adequately prepared to manage the load of all the parishes required to transition to their product. Secondly, there are so many design limitations and just plain bugs, that we are continually frustrated by lack of functionality (pick a module, any module). I understand that the folks at ParishSoft are working to address many of these issues, but there should be much more rigorous testing of modules before they are released. What was not made clear but what seems obvious now is that all parishes making the transition to Connect Now in the Archdiocese are beta customers paying full price - who does that?! It appears that there is no solid corporate structure in place for Testing and Quality Assurance - at least not one that is evident. This is made rather plain by how calls to customer support are handled. I also learned recently that when a customer calls in to request a new feature or to inquire about the lack of one, that the feature will be implemented with the next release but that sometimes, and here's the odd thing, that feature will result in a limitation for another customer. Is there no overall corporate review process for addressing design limitations and adding new features? Seems a bit piecemeal to me.
We are reminded at trainings about how feature rich the product is but if the features most needed are not working properly, the rest doesn't matter. If you have a choice, explore other options carefully before becoming so invested resource-wise that you can't back out.

Information Requested

The parishioners information part is good. The offering part is not good - only because before we had a SUPER SIMPLE system with lots of checks and balances and this one added at least an hour with no real checks. I worry because unfortunately I am a human and I make mistakes.

Overall use of the program.

We have been fairly satisfied with the program overall, but it has been frustrating that our e-mail function is not allowing us to send out any e-mails.

Keeping up to date Information

The ease of inputting information, the organization of that information, and the ease to review the information makes this program a blessing to our record-keeping process.

Time saver

We have used ParishSOFT since 2010 or so. We have been able to use the software to help serve our congregation better. It is very extensive and can be used by anyone with computer skills.

ParishSoft

Overall, once you learn the program, as with any software, it is pretty easy to use. If you have questions or issues, there are tutorials and help just a phonecall away.

Great product!

Awful product

We were forced to use this software by our Diocese and it has been nothing but a problem for our staff. We currently run two programs, one for our daily work and parish soft to keep the Diocese happy. The update to connect now has not made it easier or less cumbersome to use. Old style technology and obviously they don't check with local parishes to see what we need to make our lives easier. Customer service is terrible. Email a problem and wait for days for someone to get back to you. I am convinced if they don't have an answer they just push your problem to the side. Look somewhere else.

No customer service

No onboarding support. No follow-through with recent changes.

ParishSOFT is easy to learn and use

I do enjoy using ParishSOFT as I realize my job would be LOTS harder without it. I can just type things in and print up reports without having to be all that computer savvy.

Parishsoft needs help

It's just fine. You can run a ton of different reports based on a any number of things, which is helpful. I can see the registered parishoners who will soon age into/out of our programs and reach out to families who are/aren't participating in things.

ParishSoft

ParishSoft Review

I have been working with ParishSoft for six years. Starting with Accounting and now with Family Suite. We have converted all products over to the ConnectNow online product. The staff with ParishSoft is fantastic. I am always helped in a timely and friendly manner.

Decent Software Overall!