ACS People Suite

The ACS People Suite is designed to empower users by tracking, analyzing, and reporting on simple and complex people-related information. It’s an effective and efficient set of tools that helps you make a personal outreach or track personal growth. The ACS People Suite provides you with seven modules that seamlessly interact to save you time. You’ll have quick and easy access to addresses, skills, involvement, family details, communications history, giving records, and more. Together, this information generates valuable insights into the interaction of your church and your people.

ACS Attendance

You’ll plan more effectively and minister more appropriately when you know who’s where and when. With ACS Attendance, you can organize classes to fit a basic education track or a multi-faceted discipleship program. Simplify the process of creating class rolls, absentee reports, marking sheets, grids, and enrollment forms. Get in the know, the easy way.

Benefit Highlights:

• Mark attendance for services, events, and programs fast, via keyboard or bar code scanners. ACS Attendance is streamlined to help you get data in quickly - searches and reports within ACS Attendance help you get information out quickly too, enabling you to analyze attendance summaries and trends.
• Links to the People module so names do not have to be reentered.
• Allows daily attendance marking capability. Mark more than one event daily if needed (e.g. multiple Sunday schools or worship services on one day; or, more than one day care or kindergarten program per day).
• Choose different types of attendance markings: Sunday School or any ýclassý type marking; Worship Service marking; Committee or Activity Group marking.
• Each person may have more than one record in each attendance group to accommodate those who teach or visit classes other than their normally assigned class. An option in Worship Attendance allows you to mark for Communion received.
• Attendance records maintained by individual and by class or event. Attendance graphs and summaries for all events and groups are available to view or to print. View trends across multiple years if desired.
• For Sunday Schools, classes or activities, you can mark attendance using name highlighting or bar code scanning. Fast entry allows you to mark the whole group present or absent, then mark exceptions.
• Color-keyed on-screen inquiry program for attendance history by individual helps you quickly view summary information (attended any event) or specific results (attended particular Sunday School class).
• Report absentees by date, range of dates, or date of last attendance. Quickly access date last attended by individual.
• Design allows unlimited divisions, departments, and classes in Sunday School, as well as unlimited events and activities.
• Attendance history files provide multi-year comparisons.
• Special features and reports make promotion of classes easy. Promotion is done either by individual or by class.
• And much more…

ACS Contributions

Track your giving accurately, completely, and securely. Fast and easy to use, ACS Contributions manages and maintains all of your contribution information. It keeps you and your members informed of their giving records and histories, and can even track progress toward fulfilling a pledge.

Benefit Highlights:

• Allocate funds to particular needs or accounts, giving you the ability to track where all of your gifts are going.
• Post gifts received from online donations and apply to a particular individual’s record. Also, set up scheduled bank drafts from a contributor’s account. Provide easy to understand contributor tax statements, and use statements guaranteed to work with ACS software that you can order from ACS at a better price.
• Contributions may be posted to up to 9999 funds, such as building fund, mission fund, etc.
• Pledges can also be recorded for each fund. Pledge periods can vary by individual and fund to meet your specific needs.
• Giving plans are fully supported. This enables donors to earmark a percentage of their donation for a particular fund or project on an ongoing basis. For example, the donor may write one check, but opt to have 10% of each weekly donation go to support a missionary, with 90% going to the General Budget Fund.
• All entries may be marked in conformity with IRS regulations regarding quid pro quo gifts (e.g. donating $50 for a $5 spaghetti dinner), non-cash gifts and non-deductible gifts. Charitable Tax Reports are easily printed for sending to donors at year-end to fulfill church reporting requirements.
• Records may be kept for funds that have multi-year pledges.
• Pledge amounts can be entered that are applied to past or future years.
• Stores multi-year pledge and multi-year giving history.
• Post contributions for any day of the week, even multiple gifts on a single day. A full audit trail for corrections is provided. Listings are provided to allow for correction of errors discovered after posting.
• The Contributions module can be interfaced with the ACS General Ledger, so entries are made automatically. You decide when to post to the General Ledger. Various funds in Contributions can be directed to specific accounts in General Ledger, simplifying entry.
• Reports and statements can be printed that both analyze the giving structure and total all contributions for specific time periods. History reports can be printed for the current or past years.
• Contribution records may be kept individually or combined for a husband and wife.
• The envelope reassignment program allows you to reassign envelope numbers and to print envelope labels prior to year-end. This allows the envelopes to be sent out while still working in the current year.
• Contribution Statements, Contribution Mailers, Year End Tax Report forms and Pledge Cards can be printed using Contributions Reports or Statements and ACS Forms.
• Quick look up can be printed.
• High security allows only staff with the proper clearance to view giving information.
• Works with the ACS Check Reader, which scans contributors’ checks and opens their respective giving records, for even more rapid entry.
• And much more…

ACS Organizations

Do you serve other organizations? If so, you’re likely trying to track multiple entities, with scores of statistical data on each, plus multiple staff and lay leaders in various positions. ACS Organizations pulls it all together, so you can generate comprehensive directories, produce comparative reports and graphs, and get mailings to the right people.

Benefit Highlights:

• Group organizations as needed, such as by district.
• Record organizational basics, such as church names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, date of incorporation, staff records and history and more, such as recording giving by organization.
• Group organizations to your specifications (such as by Synod, Presbytery, Church or by State, Association, Church). Fully customizable to your denomination’s needs.
• Configure statistical history section to store data you want to track. Over 200 fields available. Record information for each organization for as many years as desired. Quick-click graphing of statistical history. Illustrate membership trends over multiple years in a colorful bar graph. Detail combination data such as Baptisms by age group in helpful pie charts.
• Customize reports with statistical data organization or by year - can be created and saved for all staff to use. Makes Annual Reports quick and easy!
• Record staff associated with the organization for each year. Keep staff history for reference. Staff positions are defined by you for complete customization. There’s no limit to the number of staff positions you can create. Quick check flag indicates full or part time status.
• Link to ACS People for tracking full details on each individual staff member, including family information too.
• Create committees and important mailing groups by individual name, by church name, or by staff position using the ACS People Module capabilities in Activities and Searches and Mailing Labels programs.
• Links to ACS Contributions Module for recording donations made by churches or organizations.
• Links to Reservations, Visitation and Mail Modules as well. Full integration with standard ACS for Windows People programs means more up-to-date programs stay available for Regional Offices and more training opportunities are available for Regional Office participation.
• And much more…

ACS People

The cornerstone of the ACS People Suite. The records you create here are used throughout ACS, so you only have to update information once. This module houses the database and stores the information that represents the many lives your organization touches. Prepare mailings using the fully integrated mail merge with Microsoft Word. Create activity groups for your committees, music programs, and athletic programs to track participation. All the information is right at your fingertips.

Benefit Highlights:

• Produce graphs giving you a breakdown of the individuals in your organization based upon a variety of criteria, including, but not limited to, graphing by active status, individuals by city, by gender, and by family position.
• Support family deacon & shepherding programs. For example, many churches use Family Lists to assign a Deacon or Elder to shepherd each family.
• Define fields to use your own terminology. ACS Solutions provides a number of user-definable fields that can be customized to the needs of your organization.
• Allows virtually unlimited membership information on every individual. In addition to standard fields for addresses, phones, birthdays and so forth, there are dozens of user-defined fields, including date fields, so information is easily tailored to individual church needs.
• Individual records are grouped by family. Last names and addresses are entered just once for the whole family to speed entry. Different, last names or addresses can be easily changed for an individual, while still maintaining family relationships.Labels print properly for households with different last names.
• You have unlimited capacity for storing user-defined participation categories, such as skills, activities, committees, gifts, etc. Multi-level structure makes it easier and more reliable for you to retrieve the information you need for mailings, lists and so forth. Easily create or modify groups all at once, on-screen (e.g. makes setting up the choir a snap).
• Quickly access records by first name, last name, or a combination.
• Full picture capability stores individual and family pictures, which can be acquired from any TWAIN device or imported (including from digital pictorial directories). Pictures can be lightened, darkened resized, etc. within ACS to enhance display or printing.
• Screens are easily tailored for denominational preferences for terminology as well as the type of information recorded.
• Field set up is flexible, so denominational reporting needs can be met, while not limiting the local church on what additional information can be kept.
• Help screens are provided throughout the software, including an online index of help topics. Add your own notes to the on-line help screens.
• Across-the-system address changing makes address updating quick and easy.
• Getting current directions to one’s house is easy through ACS Internet mapping.
• There are numerous reporting options, including directories. Many customization options available on each report. Picture directories can also be printed from the People module.
• Produces newsletter lists and labels, birthday lists and labels, index cards, Rolodex cards, custom labels and more. Bulk mail capabilities are built in. ACS fully supports CASS address verification and records ZIP + 4, delivery point bar codes, carrier route and line of travel bar codes. Zip code sorting is supported, plus bar coding and endorsement line printing on labels.
• Aging automatically calculates on all date fields.
• Keep unlimited phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses for each individual or household. Phone numbers and email addresses may be marked as unlisted. Built in mail-merge program for Microsoft Word for Windows. Create personalized letters or reminders quickly and easily. Store frequently used letters for fast updating. Bulk Merge from searches, or create individual letters.
• Integrates with the PhoneTree Voice Messaging System.
• And much more…

ACS Reservations

Spend more time enjoying and less time chasing down details for your next event. ACS Reservations makes it easier to host and lead scheduled activities. Track registrations and manage all event information centrally for easy access and reporting.

Benefit Highlights:

• Set up one-time or recurring events easily.
• Store key details by event & by person.
• Handle multi-item fees, discounts & family caps.
• And much more… It helps you keep up with people, dates, locations, costs, and more…providing event planning for ministry activities such as:
• Camps
• Family Night Suppers
• Vacation Bible School
• Youth Trips
• Mission Trips
• Conferences

One of the great features is an easy to use set-up program for each activity. Also, there is a standing reservations option for recurring events, such as Wednesday night suppers. You can mark reservations as one time, retain or skip for each member.

You can determine the categories you want to record, and the entry options within the categories. For example, your category might be Volunteer and your entry options might be Driver, Cook, and Chaperon, for example.

ACS Reservations enables you to set up cost options for each event. You can then record payments and amount due for each participant of each event.

In addition, you can customize reports to suit your needs.

ACS Special Mailings

This unique module helps you track key contact information for anyone who isn’t a member or prospective member, but with whom you stay in touch. Use it to communicate with area pastors, other churches and nonprofits, and media contacts. When you want to invite community members to special musical or outreach events, Special Mailings can help.

Benefit Highlights:

• Create, organize & manage unlimited group lists, then save the lists to be used over and over saving you lots of time each mailing.
• Add, delete, move, or copy names to multiple lists, making the management of lists flexible for the future.
• Be specific with mail distribution by selecting whole lists, partial lists, or individuals.
• Maintain any number of mailing lists on the system with an unlimited number of persons or groups on each list.
• Add or delete records at any time. Print lists for all groups, selected groups, or individual groups.
• Enter either a person’s name or organization’s name (First United Church, for example). A name or organization may be included in as many groups as needed but only has to be entered one time.
• CASS certify addresses for postal bulk mail discounts. ACS Special Mailings supports delivery point bar coding, ZIP + 4, line of travel and carrier route coding.
• And much more…

ACS Visitation

Effective outreach is proactive, personal, and primed for ongoing responsiveness. In a busy congregation, the only way to do this is to be more organized and more efficient. ACS Visitation is a comprehensive and powerful contact management tool that helps you reach interested visitors and members in need quickly, directly, and proactively. Ideal for stewardship campaigns too.

Benefit Highlights:

• Assign callers or visitation teams for clear accountability.
• Implement multi-step programs all at once.
• Track responses for follow-up. The module works with the People module to create a full information file on each prospect, including when the record was entered and personal information.
• Visitation records are kept by Family or Individual and allow for tracking of ýInward Visitsý (visits to the church) and ýOutward Visitsý (visits/outreach not held at the church) from the church to member/prospect, giving the module a multi-use function.
• The user can design and print visitation cards to fit the needs of any group. Store card designs for fast access as needed and use different cards for visits to members and prospects. Examples of cards that may be considered would be: Evangelistic Outreach; Ministerial Visit; Hospital Visit. Print these cards at any time and in any combination.
• You can design a ýresponseý system so that the person visiting needs only to circle responses and not write lengthy details. This system streamlines the entry of information and makes the results easily searchable.
• The module allows you to design an ýactioný program, with a sequence of events such as letter, phone call, and visit. Then you can assign dates for different actions (send letter this week, visit next week) so no steps are missed. Individual callers may also be assigned to particular actions. Print out action steps for dissemination to outreach visitor teams, ýshepherdý program leaders, etc.

Prospects may be assigned to a Sunday School Group, have their contributions tracked and track their attendance in worship if you are using additional ACS modules. Searches can combine information from Visitation and other modules as well.

• Update actions by groups for swift system updating. For example, mark ýletter sentý for all visitors from a particular Sunday at one time.
• Supports denominational outreach programs such as Evangelism Explosion (EE) and FAITH.
• Supports and enhances stewardship programs, such as annual fund programs or special campaigns for buildings, endowments, etc.
• There is no limit on the number of visits you can record.
• All information is easily searched. The numerous print options, include reports, labels and cards. Links to Mail Merge and PhoneTree Plus.
• And much more…