Shelby Church Software

Pros

End user (parent) is easy to use. Parents are able to check in simply entering the last four digits of their phone number.

Cons

Very difficult to set up to fit our large programs. Managing classes is not as easy as we would like. It doesn’t allow as much customizing as we would like.

Pros

Our church had been doing things the old way (reams of paper) for years and years. We switched over to Shelby in order to generate some online presence and make it easier for people to donate. It's been wonderful!

Cons

very expensive, so make sure you have enough generous parishioners before committing to it. It'll save you a lot of time though!

They run the business like a family and are very helpful and very friendly.

Pros

There are many features to this software including multiple ways to track members and prospective members. The accounting portion is robust with an understanding of tax law for churches. Since there are so many features, it is important to get the support needed to pull off the many different searches and actions. Fortunately they provide really helpful, friendly support people. In fact, all the support seems to be in close contact with the programmers, which makes it easier to get answers whenever there is an issue or possible bug.

Cons

When there is an update, there are sometimes issues. They usually correct them right away, but it can be a pain. The software is easy to use once you know how to do it, and training is required to get the most out of it.

I've been using Arena for about 8 years. They have just released a huge overhaul of an update that really gives the product a modern look and feel without sacrificing any of the functionality it already had. It's not for everyone, but for mid to large size churches it's worth a look.

Pros

You shouldn't have to change the way you do ministry to fit the functionality of your church management system. Arena provides a ton of flexibility and allows nearly unlimited customization. If you have a particular process for something, chances are there's a way Arena can help streamline it or even automate it. You can put the most important information in front of the right people, when they need to see it, to make their ministry even more effective.

Cons

These customizations can take time and effort to implement, sometimes special experience is needed. Also, the price is pretty steep.

Pros

Customer service has been responsive and well trained in their problem solving. Information can be captured but will require a bit of creativity.

Cons

The learning curve is steep. This is not an I Phone and easily usable out of the box. You will need training and after care services.

Likes Best

I can view basic member data base information from my mobile devices.

Likes Least

From our experiences with Shelby V.5 to our conversion to Arena, we have had nothing but headaches. We are ministers not tech wizards and computer code writers. This puts us at a great disadvantage with this system. Several key features that we had become dependant on in V.5, although promised, we're not available to us in Arena. Shelby systems indirectly acknowledges these inadequacies in the creation of a new "user friendly" program Shelby Next.

Recommendations

Know your abilities and limitations. Do your homework and talk to users other than the ones they reccomend.

Likes Best

Have been a customer of Shelby Service products for over 20 years. Service and responsiveness is the cornerstone of what Shelby offers when it comes to operational use and implementations. No calling to get Ticket number and waiting for a response, no frustration in the CSR not understanding what you are asking and having someone else call you back after another waiting period. Willing to hand hold admin people on the phone and using webconnect to solve the issue or train the worker. Offering a web based Prodsuct (Arena) that allows us to virtually do what we need to do in and present it in a way that our church expects to see it and identify it.

Likes Least

Sometimes the bug fixes take longer to get fixed than they should.

Recommendations

Service and responsiveness is key. You and the staff using it will not understand all the things they will need. Being able to get timely answers is very important. Can you modify and customize its use? They all say yes but often you are very very limited as to what and how you can do things.