It starts small. Someone moves and forgets to tell you. A new member joins and gets entered twice because the spreadsheet was open in two tabs. A family transfers to another congregation and their record just stays there, quietly making the count look bigger than it is. Over months, the list that is supposed to reflect your actual membership starts to feel like an estimate — close enough for most purposes, but not quite reliable for any of them.

The burden of fixing it falls on whoever is keeping the records: the Church Administrator chasing address changes after the service, the Club Secretary emailing members to confirm their details are still right, the School Secretary updating enrolment by hand every time a student arrives mid-year, the Lodge Secretary crossing names off a printed list. None of it is hard in isolation. All of it together, every week, is a significant weight — and it grows whenever another change slips through without being recorded.

A single record for each person, with a history behind it

Daviah keeps one record per person — member, student, congregant, lodge member — with a dated history of every change made to it. When an address is updated, the previous one is not overwritten and lost; it is part of the record. When a role changes, the old term is retained. This means the current record reflects what is true today, and the history reflects what was true before.

When you bring in records that already exist — from a spreadsheet you have been maintaining for years — columns are matched automatically and any problems or duplicates are shown before anything is saved. You do not have to clean the data by hand before importing it, and you do not discover the duplicates after they are already in the system.

Members who can update their own details

One of the most consistent things people running organisations describe is this: without a way for members to update their own information, the administrator bears the entire burden. Every phone number that changes, every new email address, every household move — all of it has to travel through one person before it reaches the record.

Members sign in to a private portal on the organisation's own site, where they can see their record and update their own details. The change goes straight into the system. The administrator does not have to relay it. The record is more likely to reflect what is actually current because the person who knows their own details can act on it directly.

The portal sits on the organisation's own website. On Website and Members, the organisation's own domain is connected by the Daviah team, so the address in the browser is the organisation's, not a platform subdomain.

Reports and exports to review what you have

Membership reports are counted live from the records — not from a snapshot taken last week. When you need to see who is currently on the roll, or export the full membership list to a spreadsheet, the numbers reflect the records as they stand right now.

Members, dues, payments and officers can all be exported to CSV. If an administrator leaves, or if a governing body asks for a return, the data is yours to take. Records remain readable and exports continue to work even if a subscription payment lapses.

For congregations: keeping the church roll current

For a Church Administrator or Pastor, the congregation list is the foundation of pastoral care — and when it drifts, the people most likely to be missed are the ones who have quietly stopped attending. Daviah does not detect when someone has left or flag members who may have lapsed: that judgment remains with the people who know the congregation. What it does is make it easier to keep records accurate for the members who are still active.

Congregation members sign in to the portal on your own church website to update their own contact details. When you need to reach a Ministry group or the whole Congregation, you are writing to a list drawn from the current records — not from a copy exported last month. The full guide for churches is linked below.

For clubs: a membership list the Secretary can rely on

For a Club Secretary or Membership Secretary, the problem is often not that records are missing — it is that they exist in several places and none of them agrees. Someone joined, their payment was recorded somewhere else, and their contact details are in a third place.

Daviah keeps one record per member, updated through the portal or by the administrator. Events carry RSVPs so you can see who is actually attending. Scheduled messages mean you can write to members at the right moment without having to remember to send them manually. Daviah does not track engagement levels or flag members who are becoming disengaged: you will still need to make that judgment from what you see. The full guide for clubs is linked below.

For lodge secretaries: one record for every member and candidate

A Lodge Secretary carries more record-keeping than most: tracking members and candidates, keeping officer terms year by year, and making sure the membership list reflects who is actually current. When records are maintained manually, new members can be missed in the entry and demitted members can linger on the roster simply because the update was not made.

Daviah's lodge screens use the lodge's own vocabulary — Members, Dues, Stated Meetings, Officers — and keep officer terms year by year so the Secretary and officers can always see who held each role in past years. Member records carry a dated history, and the audit trail records every change. Daviah does not automate roster updates when a member demits, and does not alert you when a candidate stalls in degree progression: those decisions and checks remain with the Secretary and the lodge's officers. The full guide for lodges is linked below.

For schools: a roll that reflects who is actually enrolled

For a School Secretary or School Administrator, the record-keeping load is layered: students arrive mid-year, roles change, staff move between departments, and end-of-year rollovers mean doing it all again. The clerical work is not difficult in itself — it is the volume and the frequency that makes it hard to keep on top of.

Daviah keeps one record per student or staff member, with a dated history of changes. Staff terms are kept year by year. Departments can be recorded as named groups, so you can write to a department directly without rebuilding the list. Spreadsheet import means you do not have to re-enter records that already exist elsewhere. Daviah does not yet cover immunisation or health records, confidential document management per student, or a formal year-end rollover workflow: those remain outside what the system handles. The full guide for schools is linked below.

Questions

Can members update their own contact details, or does the administrator have to do it for them?

Members sign in to a private portal on the organisation's own site to view their record and update their own details. Changes go straight into the record without the administrator relaying them.

What happens to existing records when we bring them in from a spreadsheet?

Columns are matched automatically and any problems or duplicates are shown before anything is saved. Nothing is committed to the records until you have reviewed what the import found.

Does Daviah flag members who have left or stopped engaging?

No. Daviah keeps records accurate and makes it easier for members to update their own details, but it does not detect when someone has left, flag lapsed members, or track engagement levels. That judgment stays with the people running the organisation.

Is every change to a record saved, or is only the current version kept?

Every change is written to an append-only audit trail, and each person's record carries a dated history of changes. The current record reflects what is true today; the history shows what was true before.

Can we export our membership records if we ever need to leave or share them with a governing body?

Members, dues, payments and officers can be exported to CSV at any time. Records stay readable and exports keep working even if a subscription payment lapses.

Which plan includes member records and the member portal?

Member records, the member portal, messaging, meetings and minutes are all part of the Website and Members plan, which costs $79.99 a month or $819.99 a year. Building the site and saving it is free with no card required.

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