Cloud hosted solution for church and nonprofit organization
3.95/5 (152 reviews)Pricing model: Free, Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Pricing starts from $179/month which includes first 500 records
There is also a setup fee of $1,299 that includes data migration from older databases
11 reviewers had the following to say about ShelbyNext Membership's pricing:
Training, I feel training is much needed. I did not feel we got the best training from the online. I feel that attending training sessions are very expensive. I would like to see smaller venues that are cheaper for Membershp
Pros
it's more user friendly than v5. I did not do comparisons.
Cons
sometimes it feels cumbersome and their aren't any Preselected options.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 5/10
They are not responsive to issues and frustration we are having. Their apps are not very user friendly. Pricing is confusing.
Pros
The somewhat ease of transferring from a previous version of Shelby.
Cons
The church app is really weak. The calendar app is clunky and it is hard to get to a specific date.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 2/10
Pros
It brought us up to date from a dated RDS system we were using.
Cons
There are more features in systems that cost far less.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 1/10
All of the cons listed are minor pet peeves, but added together it makes the software very difficult to get used to. Seems like they would be easy fixes if the developers were to ask the current users what shortcuts would make the user's life better. Wait time to get in the queue for customer support is very long...if you can even get added to the queue. I've waited over an hour a few times. So much time wasted using this product. Don't assume you need an expensive, church specific software to meet your needs, especially if your church is small and doesn't have a lot of outreach programs or a day care/nursery school. This church was definitely oversold on this product - it has many features that will never be used here. Pay close attention to how the monthly fee is calculated - monthly fee for a year for this church is equivalent to buying several user licenses for other popular software (one of which doesn't have to be replaced for 3 years). If you have to put your financials into Excel to get the format you want, then why spend more for ShelbyNext? Training to use this product is expensive on top of the purchase price.
Pros
I haven't found anything I like about it yet. Maybe the reports are good, I haven't gotten that far yet.
Cons
This software is NOTHING like popular accounting programs on the market. Simple feature like using the + to advance the date or check numbers won't work. In the middle of a bank rec and need to look at an entry? Can't click on it to see details. Have to leave the bank rec to go there? Click Apply or you lose it all. That too is weird - apply means save, update means save and close. Why change terminology? Have to add lines to any type of entry? It won't automatically add them. More than one page in a report? You can't scroll to page 2. I carefully craft a journal entry to MY liking but ShelbyNext posts the lines in account number order - that is NOT how I want to see the entry. No back arrow to look at the previous transaction entered. If you are entering a list of manual checks and need to add a vendor all of the previous info entered (date, check number etc) is lost. Every time you return to the bank rec you have to tell it to only show the data for the current month you're reconciling. Date always defaults to today's date. I am entering historical data, so I have to re-enter the date every transaction. No warning for duplicate vendors, check numbers, vendor invoice numbers. My church doesn't use dept numbers, but I have to enter one to get the transaction to save. Can't search for account name directly from transaction screen, takes a few clicks to do so. When the CoA is 6 pages long, searching by acct name would save time.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 0/10
After a year of implementing we went with another solution. The membership piece I am less than 50-50% on it and it could work if we had more staff, but the software required more attention that we could put towards it.
Pros
The church was able to add fields and sublists easily. You could also create unlimited groups.
Cons
You were able to order the fields and sublists, but compared to other software, similar price points, the GUI, graphical user interface, wasn't as clean to the volunteers that were entering info nor the members who would be "interfacing" with it. We had 30+ groups (baptized, confirmed, etc) but there was minimal reconciliation between the groups.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 4/10
Very good!!!
Pros
Ease of use. Very functional. I love that we have one software that helps with so many processes.
Cons
The cost of training and implementation. It is such a robust program that demands a great deal of know how.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Pros
Our church had been doing things the old way (reams of paper) for years and years. We switched over to Shelby in order to generate some online presence and make it easier for people to donate. It's been wonderful!
Cons
very expensive, so make sure you have enough generous parishioners before committing to it. It'll save you a lot of time though!
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Pros
How it intertwines with the other Shelby modules.
Cons
The cost is determined by membership. As a Baptist Church, our membership is determined differently than many other religions and we tend to have a higher number.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
The support has always been outstanding -- every individual I've worked with is friendly and super helpful. And the crowdsourced support (online) gets good answers to your questions too. The software is easy to use -- only a few things I needed to train the secretary to use it effectively. The most complex part is maintaining groups using automated rules (like the church directory, or recent attenders, recent givers, etc.)
Pros
SaaS (hosted in the cloud), smart phone App available, easy to train church staff, strong functionality and great support
Cons
When we went live (I haven't had a chance to check lately) there were a few limitations: 1) the integration with ShelbyNext Financials for Giving, 2) user-friendliness/ease of doing sunday school check-in or congregation attendance, 3) cost of connecting with and using on-line giving service.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
ShelbyNext Membership has been an asset to our church family: we get fewer calls in the church office asking for addresses and phone numbers; the information stays up-to-date as far as we know; pictures help church members put faces and names together; the attendance and email features allow leaders to call meetings and recognize people who are missing and may need a personal contact. Since we are able to make mass contacts and check-in children through ShelbyNext, we have eliminated the cost of additional software programs.
Pros
As a church staff member, I enjoy the fact that the Shelby Membership App puts information in church members' hands. We rarely receive phone calls asking for addresses and phone numbers which occurred frequently each day. Church members can track group attendance and set up meetings through the program as well. We enjoy the ability to make a church-wide or group-wide phone calls, texts, and emails.
Cons
The children's check-in system allows parents and guardians to add multiple records to the system, and it does not ask for mailing address information.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
Pros
Honestly I can't think of anything that I can say that I like about this software. I've worked in 3 different churches and used multiple programs and this is by far my least favorite of them all.
Cons
This software is not really user friendly. The upgrade from Shelby V5 to ShelbyNext did not go well. The mapping between the two versions needs work. None of the custom reports we created in V5 came over to ShelbyNext. It is very expensive compared to other programs and they lock you into multi-year contracts that you cannot get out of. This is meant more for very large churches. The Shelby Financials is very difficult and time consuming to use it actually caused a Bookkeeper to quit. The Shelby customer service is not very responsive. We almost always have to leave messages and wait for call backs and a good majority of the time when you call you get a recording saying they are in a meeting or away at training or closed for some reason.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 0/10
