User Documentation
This section covers day-to-day usage of ChurchCRM for end users. For system administration tasks, see the Administration section.
Quick Start Guide
New to ChurchCRM? Here's how to get started:
- Add your first family → Families
- Add family members → Persons
- Organize into groups → Groups
- Set up classifications → Classifications
- Start tracking donations → Finances
Tip: Follow Your First Week with ChurchCRM for a day-by-day setup guide. Use the Search feature (press
?) to quickly find any person, family, or group.
Make More Room on Wide Pages
On a desktop screen, use the Collapse sidebar button (the menu icon in the top header) to fold the left menu into a narrow rail of icons. Lists, the map, and reports then use the extra width. The rail opens to the full menu while you point at it or move to it with the keyboard. Click Expand sidebar to keep the full menu open again.
ChurchCRM saves your choice with your user account, so the sidebar stays as you left it on every page, and on any device you sign in from, until you change it.
On tablets and phones the button is not shown. Open the menu with the hamburger button as usual.
People Management
Managing your congregation's member data:
- Families - Creating and managing family records
- Persons - Individual member profiles and information
- Self Registrations - Review and approve people who signed up on the public form
- Classifications - Categorizing members (members, visitors, etc.)
- Notes - Adding notes to people and families
- Custom Fields - Extending records with custom fields
- Properties - Assigning labels and properties to records
Groups & Events
Organizing your church activities:
- Groups - Creating and managing groups
- Events - Scheduling and tracking events
- Sunday School - Managing Sunday School classes
- Volunteers - Volunteer Opportunities (legacy)
- Volunteer Management (v2) - Ministries, teams, positions, schedules, staffing and reminder email
Member Portal
What a church member sees when they sign in:
- Member Portal - Profile, family, giving, directory, calendar, volunteering and team pages for members
- Signing in to the Member Portal - The email code and link, staying signed in, passkeys and your devices
Tools
Utilities for working with data:
- Search - Finding people, families, and records
- Cart - Batch operations on selected records
- Email - Sending emails to members
- Text Messages - Phone lists and the device messaging app
- Reports & Queries - Generating reports
- Geographic Utilities - Maps and location features
- Data Import - Importing data from CSV files
Finances
Tracking donations and fundraising:
- Finances - Pledges, donations, and deposits
- Fundraiser - Managing fundraising campaigns
Administration
For users with administrative access:
- Administration - Admin menu overview
- Users - Managing user accounts and permissions
Can't find what you need? Ask in Discord, or open an issue on the ChurchCRM repository.