You can accomplish so much more when you connect ACS to the cloud.
Access ACS is a Web-based companion to ACS’s church management software. It enables your staff to publish key information online so people can visit your church’s website and sign up for events online, give donations, find volunteer opportunities, join groups, and more.
Access ACS is a useful tool for everyone involved in your church: staff, leaders, members, or visitors. With Access ACS, you can:
- Allow anyone to register for events and pay for them online.
- Look up or update scheduled visitation while outside the office.
- Screen and schedule volunteers for church events.
- Connect people with your various ministry opportunities.
- View specific church calendars and submit requests for rooms and equipment.
- Review all data changes before approving and syncing with ACS People.
Access ACS tracks and interacts with key ACS information online.
Access ACS can integrate with other ACS modules such as ACS People, ACS Contributions, ACS Facility Scheduler, and ACS Attendance. You can be incorporate it into your website or our Extend Platform.
People
Access ACS opens the door for anyone in your organization with assigned permissions and security to access personalized lists of activities, small group members, online maps, e-mails, birthdays, anniversary dates, and much more.
- Set up an unlimited number of user profiles to use as permissions for various types of users (such as Elders, Finance Committee, Ministry Leaders, and Members)
- Update personal records and photos, view group and church directories, and share with others
- Setup and mange groups
- View each person’s visitation history and responses (requires ACS Connections)
- Integrate data with ACS People to create a complete information file on each prospect, including when the record was created (requires ACS Connections)
Giving
Online giving within Access ACS allows members to manage and track their contributions. Online giving can help increase giving levels in the church and encourages members to grow and mature in their spiritual stewardship.
- Accept online contributions and view the details of their prior contributions
- Contributors can give one time or recurring gifts and see gift history and giving schedules
- Allows gifts by members and non-members
- View contribution statements and multi-year giving history online
- Easily give to multiple funds
- Can accept ACH and credit card gifts
- Print plain paper contribution statement directly from Access ACS
- Integrates with ACS Contributions for easy reconciliation of gifts
Groups
Give your leaders and members the dynamic communication tools they need. Access ACS lets you connect members, attendees, and seekers to the group events that interest them.
- Members and prospects can go online and search for the groups that interest them, find out more about them, and even request to join
- View rosters of people in groups, send out group communications, and quickly update member records
- Track members through connections, small groups, and special groups
- Mark group attendance
- Group members can access contact information, communicate with each other, and view calendars
- Leaders can update personal records and photos, as well as view group and church directories
- Pull lists of group members for prayer chains or emergency contact
Events
Online event registration within Access ACS simplifies the entire registration process by allowing members, prospective members, and even guests to discover, register, and pay for events online.
- Register family members, friends, or groups of individuals for an event in one registration process
- Promote an event and link individuals directly to the event registration process
- Edit church and personal event calendars online
- Accept full and partial event payments online
- Print receipts directly from the event status page
Volunteers
Coordinating your volunteers with the positions that match their skill sets and speak to their passions is crucial to building a thriving volunteer ministry in your church. Online volunteer coordinating within Access ACS allows staff and volunteers to manage the entire volunteering process in a Web-based format.
- Leaders and staff can post and manage volunteer positions online
- Members can find suitable opportunities by searching for available positions based on skills, passion, experience, qualifications, or other attributes
- Allow users to sign up for volunteer positions online
Privacy and Security
Your information is kept secure with private, password-protected online access.
- All users must sign in with a user name and password before they can view any data.
- The administrator creates the staff user accounts and sets up their passwords (Staff can then change their own passwords).
- When member users first register for Access ACS, they must enter their first name, last name, suffix (if they have one) and email address as entered in ACS People. The member is then sent an email with the user name and temporary password.
- You may set up an unlimited number of user profiles to be used as permissions for various types of users (such as Elders, Finance Committee, Ministry Leaders, and Members).
Pricing
Access ACS is an additional service for clients enrolled in the Preferred Client Program, but it is automatically included with all ACS OnDemand subscriptions at no additional monthly cost.
The monthly subscription price is determined by the number of records uploaded from ACS People to the Access ACS database. Billing for Access ACS appears on your monthly support invoice and begins after you have uploaded records. There’s a one-time $300 setup fee for new subscriptions to Access ACS. Support is included with your subscription.
| Number of Records* | Monthly Subscription Price | Bundled with OnDemand |
|---|---|---|
| 1-599 | $32.00/month | Free |
| 600-1,599 | $48.50/month | Free |
| 1,600-2,999 | $83.00/month | Free |
| 3000-5999 | $119/month | Free |
| 6,000-14,999 | $135/month | Free |
| 15,000-29,999 | $173/month | Free |
| 30,000+ | Call for Pricing | Free |
Support is included with all plans.
* One record in Access ACS is the equivalent to one individual in your ACS People database.
Example:
A 20,000 member church could export 100% of their member records and give online access to all its staff, lay leaders, and members for only $173.00/month. This would include online communications and management of Small Groups, Volunteer Ministries, Directories, Classes and Activities, Connections and Assignments, Group Emails, Attendance, Statistics and Metrics, Reports, Calendars, Event Registration, and Contributions.
Online Payments/Online Giving Processing Fees
After you have signed up for Access ACS, you can add these online transaction services. You can choose to accept online payments for events and/or for donations. However, a merchant account* is required to receive payments.
*For additional details about merchant accounts and how this works plus additional fees from ACS Technologies, please contact us.
FAQ's
Online Access from Anywhere
While Access ACS connects your members and leaders to online groups, events, giving and volunteering; ACS OnDemand empowers your staff with anytime, anywhere full access to all your ACS desktop software via the Internet. Empower your office with the ability to work anywhere, anytime with ACS OnDemand or empower your members and leaders to connect and interact by using Access ACS.
Compatibility
Yes, your members and leaders can use Access ACS from a Mac. However, since some administrative features do not work on a Mac, the Access ACS administrator should use a PC.
No, Access ACS uses a SQL database
Yes, it will work with a wireless device for those users who have permission to search for records. However, it is not responsive and may be harder to read or navigate on smaller devices.
Getting Started
You can sign up for Access ACS through the Help Center. Simply follow the on-screen instructions.
Generally, upload time takes only minutes. A typical DSL line takes 3-4 minutes to upload 1000 records with all the data in the records. We recommend you upload at least once per day if you’re making changes in your ACS database at the church office. You can upload using a modem line, but this process is slower and not recommended for large churches.
No. A link on your website lets your members sign up for an account without your help. The system is set up so that any member signing up is automatically assigned a Member Login user profile.
The system generates a link for your Web site on the Web Links screen under Admin -- Options. You can copy and paste the link to your Web site.
Managing Records
Yes. Perform a search in ACS to find the records you want to upload. Then, upload again using the search results. The new upload removes and replaces old records.
You can perform a search in ACS to choose the records you want to upload. Before you upload, select the check box indicating you want to use the latest search results.
Members can only view their own contributions. You determine who can view the data by assigning permissions inside the user profiles.
No, when you first sign up, you enter the name and e-mail address. However, an e-mail with the password is sent to the e-mail address of the member who signed up. So, even if you enter another member's name and address, that other member receives the e-mail with his password! For more information about Access ACS security features, see our security document.
Rights & Permissions
When you upload your data to the Access ACS server, you are essentially copying your data to another database. This database is the one members and leaders work with, not your ACS database. When you’re ready to approve changes that your members and leaders have made, you simply click a button to accept those changes into your ACS database.
Yes, you can create as many user profiles as you need, and you can customize each profile to fit your organization’s needs.
No, you can assign administrators in Access ACS separately from the ACS administrator.
Event Registration and Online Giving
Yes, currently you must purchase Access ACS to use Event Registration. Online event registration with no money transactions involved is free with basic Access ACS. You must also have Access ACS for Online Giving, but accepting money transactions in any form incurs additional fees.
You will need to setup a compatible merchant account for our Online Giving Products. We work with Vanco Payment Solutions for ACS Pay Plus.
Yes, you can accept electronic checks. With ACS Pay Plus, you can filter to accept only debit credit cards as well.
ACS Technologies does have fees for payments associated with Access ACS in addition to the merchant account. Please contact your sales representative to find out more.
Yes, you can just use the Event Registration without accepting payments. This functionality has no additional cost.
Yes, you can do this. This is included as part of your overall payments solution at the same price.
