“We've Got Ten Years of Records in There”

When a congregation has been on the same member platform for a long time, this is usually the first thing someone says when moving comes up. It's a fair thing to say.

Ten years of names and addresses. Every family, every new baby, every member who moved away and every one who passed on.

Contribution records the men rely on at the end of every year. Attendance going back to before half the current members placed membership.

Nobody wants to be the one who lost that. So the congregation stays put, sometimes long after the platform stopped fitting.

We'd rather take that concern seriously than talk anybody out of it. Below is what moves, what doesn't, and how much work it really is, so y'all can decide knowing what's involved. That might mean deciding to stay, and that's a perfectly good outcome.

What usually moves without much trouble

The core of the directory almost always comes across cleanly: names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, birthdays. Most platforms can export these, and most can import them.

Households usually move too, but they're worth checking. Who's married to whom, which children belong to which family. Platforms store that differently, and it's easy to end up with a husband and wife listed as two separate households.

Class rosters and group lists generally come along with them.

What moves, but takes real care

Contribution history. This is the one people worry about most, and it can come across, though rarely on its own. Funds and categories have to be matched up between the two systems, and someone has to check the totals against what the old platform reported.

If those numbers don't agree to the dollar, y'all will hear about it in January.

That's also why timing matters. Moving at the turn of the calendar year keeps every contribution for that year in one system, so year-end statements come from one place.

Attendance history. It usually exports, but the format varies a lot from one platform to the next. Some congregations bring all of it over. Others keep a saved copy of the old records and start fresh.

Either is reasonable. It mostly depends on whether anybody actually looks at attendance from 2017.

What usually doesn't move

Logins. Members will set up a new account on the new platform. Old passwords don't carry over, and that's on purpose.

Recurring online giving. The payment processor holds card and bank details, not the church platform, so in most cases members who give online will need to set it up again. This is the piece that needs the most care in how it's announced.

Message history, prayer request history, and photos. Some of it can be saved off. Very little of it imports somewhere new.

None of that is a reason not to move. Members will notice all of it, though.

Where the real work is

Most people assume the hard part is the technical transfer. It usually isn't. The hard part is the cleanup.

Ten years of records means families who moved and were never taken off, members listed twice under slightly different spellings, and saints who have gone on and are still on the roll. Someone who knows the congregation has to go through it.

Software can flag duplicates. It can't tell you the Hendersons on Maple Street moved to Texas in 2021.

That cleanup is worth doing even if y'all never move. A lot of congregations end up saying it was the most useful part of the whole process.

Questions to ask before anyone touches it

1. Can we get a full export from our current platform, and in what format? Ask the provider directly. A congregation's records belong to the congregation.
2. When would we move? If contribution records are involved, the first of the year is usually the cleanest point.
3. Who will do the cleanup? Name the person. It goes much faster when it's one person's job.
4. What can we keep as an archive instead of importing? A saved copy of old attendance may be all anybody needs.
5. What will members have to redo, and how will we tell them? Mostly new logins and recurring giving.
6. What is the move supposed to fix? If the answer is that members don't use what y'all have, a new platform may not change that. If the platform can't do something the congregation needs, that's a different conversation.

Staying put is a real answer

Some congregations walk through all of this and decide the timing and the work aren't worth it right now. That's a sound decision, and a much better one than staying because nobody knew what moving would involve.

Others find it takes a few weeks of careful work and one good announcement on a Sunday, and they end up with a cleaner directory than they've had in years.