Church software that keeps everything in one place

You know the routine. A new family joins on Sunday. Before the week is out you have added them to the spreadsheet you keep for yourself, typed their address into whatever email tool the church uses, and reminded the Treasurer to add them to the giving list. Three entries, three places, and it is only Tuesday. Then someone moves and you do it all in reverse — or you forget one of the three, and six months later the Pastor is visiting an address where that family no longer lives.

The problem is not that you are disorganised. The problem is that disconnected tools make duplication inevitable. This guide walks through what Daviah puts in one office so that the work you do in one place shows up where it needs to. It also tells you plainly, at the end, where that promise has a limit — because not everything is solved.

One place to keep your Congregation's records

Daviah's office keeps your Congregation's records with a dated history of changes to each person's entry. When a family moves, you update one record and the change is logged. When someone asks who changed what and when, the audit trail has the answer.

If you are starting with a spreadsheet — and almost everyone is — you can bring it straight in. Columns are matched automatically, and the office shows you any problems or likely duplicates before anything is saved, so you are not cleaning up a mess after the fact.

Members can sign in to a private portal on your own site to update their own details, which means you are not the only person responsible for keeping the records current.

People records with a dated history of every change
Import from a CSV spreadsheet, with duplicate checking before anything is saved
Members update their own details through a private portal on your site
An audit trail records who changed what and when

Three entries, three places, and it is only Tuesday — that is the cost of tools that do not connect.

Ministries, giving and messages without retyping the list

Your Ministries — the worship team, the hospitality group, the youth programme — can each be recorded in the office. When you need to write to one of them, you write to the Ministry as a group: no copying names into a separate mailing tool, no keeping a second list somewhere else.

The same applies when you need to reach everyone with unpaid giving, or everyone coming to a particular service, or just the officers. You choose the group in the office and send from there.

Messages can be written now and scheduled to go out later, and the system ensures the same message is never sent twice.

Write to all Congregation, officers, a Ministry, an event's attendees or members with unpaid giving
Schedule a message to send at a later time
No message is ever sent to the same recipient twice by mistake

Giving raised, tracked and recorded in the same office

The Treasurer raises the year's giving for everyone in one step from the office. Each member sees what they owe in their portal and can pay by card from there. Cash and cheque payments can be recorded by hand, each with a receipt number that runs in sequence through the year.

Waiving, voiding or correcting a charge is the Treasurer's decision and is recorded with a reason in the audit trail. When you need to see where things stand, reports on dues and payments are counted live from the records, and everything can be exported to CSV.

Your website can carry a give button with suggested amounts, for anyone who wants to give outside the formal dues process, once a Stripe account is connected. Card payments go straight to the church's own Stripe account — Daviah takes no cut.

Raise the year's giving for everyone in a single step
Members pay by card from the portal once Stripe is connected
Record cash and cheque payments by hand with sequential receipt numbers
Export giving and payment records to CSV at any time

Services, meeting notes and attendance in one minute book

Services and regular meetings are recorded with a minute book that moves from draft to submitted to approved. Approved notes can be amended, but only with a recorded reason — so the history stays clean.

Attendance can be taken from the office, or a tablet at the door lets people sign themselves in by finding their name. Either way, the record ends up in the same place as everything else.

A weekly service schedule can be set up once, and each session is created from it automatically, so you are not rebuilding the same recurring entries by hand.

Meeting notes move through draft, submitted and approved stages
Amendments to approved notes are recorded with a reason
Attendance taken from the office or from a sign-in tablet at the door
A recurring weekly schedule creates each session automatically

A church website that draws from the same records

Events, news notices and photo albums on your website come from what is entered in the office. When you add an event or publish a notice, it appears on the site without a separate login or a copy-and-paste step.

The public site can show your current leadership — Pastor, Secretary, Treasurer and other officers — taken from the officer records so it updates when roles change, without anyone having to remember to edit the website.

Photo albums and documents can be set to public, members-only, officers-only or private, so the same system that holds private records also handles what the public sees.

Events and news on the website come from the office — no separate update needed
Leadership page updates automatically when officer records change
Albums and documents set to public, members-only or private from the same office

What this guide cannot promise

This guide has described what the office holds and what you can do from it. What it cannot honestly say is that every piece of information entered in one part of the office is instantly reflected everywhere else, or that having these tools in one product eliminates every double-entry situation you face today. The facts do not confirm that all the modules share a single live data store in that way.

What is true is that the congregation records, giving, ministries, meeting notes, messages and website all live under one login, managed from one office, and that the export and reporting tools pull from those records rather than from separate systems. Whether that is enough to replace your current tangle is something only you can judge after looking at what you have now.

Questions

Can I bring in the spreadsheet I already use?

Yes. You upload a CSV and the office matches the columns automatically, then shows you any problems or likely duplicates before anything is saved. Nothing is committed until you confirm it looks right.

Do my members have to call me every time their details change?

Not necessarily. Members can sign in to a private portal on your own site and update their own details there. Changes are recorded, so you can see what was updated and when.

How do I write to just one Ministry without keeping a separate list?

Ministries are recorded in the office. When you send a message you choose the Ministry as the recipient group, and the office sends to the people in it. You do not maintain a separate mailing list for each Ministry.

Does the website update itself when I add an event or change a leader's name?

Events, news and the leadership page on your public site draw from what is in the office. Add an event in the office and it appears on the site. Update an officer record and the leadership page reflects the change.

Does Daviah take a share of giving or card payments?

No. Card payments go straight to the church's own Stripe account. The church pays Stripe's processing fees directly, and Daviah takes nothing from the money.

What plans include the office tools — records, giving, meeting notes and messages?

The Website + Members plan, at $79.99 a month or $819.99 a year, includes the full office: members, dues, meetings, minutes, messages, the member portal and a custom domain. The free plan and the Website plan at $29.99 a month do not include office tools.

One office instead of a drawer full of spreadsheets and logins