ACS – Bewertungsseite 2

Outdated

A proven product but a lot of training is required.

ACS User For Over 20 years--Using 10.0 Now

Our church is medium sized. We love the Flex Contribution Forms and it's layout. Customer service is spot-on. I agree with all other users who have reviewed. Ease of use, love the People and Financial Modules with its reports which we own. Don't know much about REALM but I think we would be interested. What would seal the deal is the reporting for my Boards and administrators.

Mostly high marks

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.

Grateful!

A very good product. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a flexible system.

ACS Review

Secretary/ Teacher

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

ACS is an okay program I feel it is very outdated and needs some major updated to be compatible...

Great software

We love ACS and will continue doing business with them.

ACS software

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

Effective for our operations

Overall, nice evolution of the software

By far the worst ChMS I've ever seen

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.

ACS does what it needs to

Great Customer Service & Support!

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.

We Moved On from ACS

ACS was great in its time but newer products like Planning Center or ACS's own Realm are much better for the modern church.

Great at somethings

Like I said in the title ...there are certian things ASC does great...The G.L. is one of those...but out side of that there seem to be several competitors that are now out pacing ASC...Infact we will be moving away from thier people suite in the spring...

Great for a small church

We wanted a way to integrate membership management and giving records. This afforded us that possibility.

Awesome Church Management Software

We have been using ACS software for over 14 years. It handles all of our church needs. I can recommend it to any church! It handles all of our financial and people needs.

Lots of options and power, but the interface is severely outdated and clunky

We have used some form of ACS since 2005. It handles finances, child check-in, event scheduling, volunteer scheduling, attendance, groups, contact information, and much more. It even has an online arm.

It is like working on Windows 15 years ago.

Old software in need of an overhaul

ACS, it has everything I need. It's great

I improve my way of organizing and analyzing my activities inside and outside of my social environment. Applications are necessary because they help us improve our relationships and have time for other activities

ACS Technologies that we use for the Church is super easy

Easy for those who are not keen with numbers

Reporting is not that easy, especially setting up for year end statements.

Membership interface capabilities. Good product and better than what we had, but I didn't get much training. When we have used customer service/support it has always been good. I am part time, so do not have lots of time to waste trying to figure things out and dealing with customer service.

Great Church Software Management

Not Intuitive, But Great Once It's Going

ACS is good stuff -- if it is set up correctly and consistently. I like it overall. But there is a steep learning curve.

ACS Software

New to using the software. Minimal training as the previous person had already left the job. Too expensive for the church to send new hires to ACS Training.

ACS - its multi-faceted!

ACS was the database for a church where I served as Office Manager. It tracked giving, profiles of our members, classes, attendance, the list was truly endless. I also utilized it to generate Year End Giving Statements for tax purposes.

ACS Technologies

Have been using ACS for 1 year now. Still learning how to best utilize the software. Especially enjoy the ability to track and communicate with the church family.

Great company, outstanding customer service, excellent products

PROS - The best thing would have to be the company and the incredible employees that make up this company. The customer service and desire on behalf of the employees to help you accomplish your goals is superb! The products reflect the needs of and input from the end users. Products have changed over the years as churches changed how they do church. The company is incredibly responsive to customers needs and requests. The support staff is patient and always polite - AND they resolve your issue or explain/teach/show you how to do what you want to do.

The introduction of their next generation software - REALM - is the answer we've been looking for. It integrates the best of every product they have into an updated platform that is intuitive. And ACS is literally attacking full force the development of this product to help their customers do ministry effectively.

CONS - It is not the most intuitive software, but that is due to the tremendous functionality that has been built into a product that many churches"don't want to change." Some customers want their software to stay the same, others want new functionality and updates - ACS has managed to be responsive to both ends of the spectrum.

Love this program

I use mainly the People side of ACS and it is so helpful with keeping all of my groups together. Love this software.

ACS is okay

Our church uses it to track congregants and their personal details.

Being able to easily recall information about people in order to reach out to them.

It is really an option to maintain a conection between members of different churchs

As member of a catholical community I would have actual information about my churh

60 Seconds to Find 10 People, 10 seconds to find 1

Not recommended. Extremely slow.

Outdated and Frustrating

Possibly I am only using one aspect of the software, but it seems like one must have to have a lot of training in the program to know how to use it well. The user interface is also very outdated.

Rating of ACS program for Episcopal Churches

I have used ACS for 16 years from DOS to Windows to Online based. Online was an awesome expansion! There was never down time (except for middle of the night maintenance) and it was always fast. Backups were never a worry. Customer Service was friendly, extremely helpful and patient. On site training was available at extra cost.

Pretty Decent

We have been using ACS for awhile now and recently switched to ACS on Demand. Our experience has been positive overall and I think that ACS offers a great product. My major complaint with ACS is that with a church our size, there is no easy way to input contributions. We have staff who have to manually input each person's contribution and it takes a lot of time. Otherwise, ACS is perfect for us.

Like All Things, It's Getting Better

I've been using ACS OnDemand products for a year now, and wasn't all that happy with what I've seen. Going to the conference helped, and learning more about the programs directly made some improvements. I don't like the user interface, and how separate all the components seem to be. It often feels like the various parts aren't 'talking' to each other and the user has to be a guru to make it all work.

It's very capable software, once you know what you're doing. I don't like that the training tutorials are a separate annual fee (some instructions are available at no cost, but they aren't terribly comprehensive). It doesn't make the learning easier.

Overall, it's solid, but not user friendly. I've heard some of their newer items are going to be much better, but they aren't developed to the point where it would be effective for my organization to move to them. Choose your products wisely.

Very good tool to manage churches even small

Good application for the administrative management of churches

ACS provides a simple yet very functional service system for updating our records. Love it!

Record keeping, updating addresses, phone numbers, etc. sending email newsletters, running statistics.

ACS for Education

I use ACS to track tuition and donations for our institution. For what we need it is perfect! I love that it will remember what you have been tying in, which is helpful for when entering in per class tuitions.

ACS Finance

Great software for a single site application!!!

Excellent financial management with considerable flexibility

ACS Rocks!!

We've used ACS OnDemand for nine years. Last year we converted to Realm, an ACS product. Their products and customer service are the best I've used in my almost 20 years on a church staff.

Super easy

Easy & nice to use for everyday!

People Module/Search

This is a powerful database. We cleaned up our data files before our import of the data into The City. The ability to have these two programs communicate with one another and to input the data only once is very necessary. Input of profile info by individual users is also helpful unless, of course, the user does not update information and then is disconnected and church may be unaware of this disconnect. We have been proactive to survey users to re-establish and maintain connection and up-to-date data.

Love this Tool!!

I do bookkeeping for 7 churches at present; have done as many as 8. All use ACS. None are mega churches, so I can't review for that size church. Some have Realm for their people software, some have OnDemand, one has ACS Desktop. The efficiency of this software makes it possible for me to handle the finances of these churches. I have had great experience with the tech support dept. They've been knowledgeable, courteous and professional. ACS is my software of choice.