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You are here: Home > Customer Testimonials

What Our Customers Are Saying...

» NEW! Why Select ParishSOFT? (videos available)
Learn from customers who changed to the ParishSOFT solution to reduce their workload, save money for their church and connect more effectively to their parish families.

» ParishSOFT Software » Religious Education » Volunteer Management » Support and Training

» Electronic Giving » Web Solutions » Overall

 

Why Select ParishSOFT?

"A picture is worth a thousand words: We take information that is synchronized from our parishes and use it to map the addresses of member families. We hand the pastor a map of where his parishioners are located and where they're coming from. We incorporate the information with growth patterns in the area, median income levels or other data sets. When you do that at a diocesan level, you can show the pastor parishioners that are living within a parish boundary and choosing to go elsewhere."

View Bill Glover's full interview

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"I was so impressed with how the ParishSOFT teletraining class went, I knew it was the way we were going to go. I liked working with staff, especially John Biskner. I told him I wanted all teletraining, no in-house. Trying to get people to move out of their parishes didn't make sense. So teletraining was a key feature in the selection process.

Our unified school systems got together and organized ParishSOFT teletraining in the school computer labs. We had 20 people in one school lab. This created a users group, whether they knew it or not. I spread the word. My feeling about all of this was to keep constant communication with the parishes."

View Deacon Bob Anderson's full interview

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"What I noticed about ParishSOFT that worked really well for parishes was collaboration-the ability for departments that had never talked to each other now to collaborate. ParishSOFT allowed us actually to work together as a team, do the function once, create the information and keep it updated so that everybody was informed. The diocesan piece allowed the parishes to collaborate, not just within the parish, but within the diocese."

View Christine Dandaraw's full interview

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"We narrowed it down to ParishSOFT because the things I saw in ParishSOFT were exciting. Not only the people that worked there and their vision of where they wanted to go, but the software itself which was written in a format that was very easy for us to access and use. It made sense to the people in the parishes.

ParishSOFT had a vision of having a software package that was friendly enough for the users to use, but smart enough for the diocese to use. It allowed us to bring information from the parish to the diocese so we would be able to help the parishes in what they wanted to do. "

View Dale Jonasson's full interview

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"The thing my committee was so exited about with ParishSOFT was the synchronization with the diocese. And ParishSOFT also had a really good feel for the Catholic market. We didn't have to talk to them about what sacraments were-they understood Catholic parish management.

Before ParishSOFT, our diocese never had good, accurate information about the youth. Over a thousand youth would come to a diocesan-wide rally, and we wanted to track them so when they went to college we could notify the Newman center. That's a time when they fall away from the church, and we were looking to plug that hole. It was huge for us to be able to access that information electronically and immediately. "

View Dawn Wolf's full interview

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"Before we combined four parishes into one, we never even had a computer. All the record-keeping was done with ledgers and books, so ParishSOFT was a real blessing. Fortunately we never had a disaster that caused us to lose records. Now we back up regularly and synch with the diocese. We did lose the ParishSOFT database once and didn't have backup, but luckily ParishSOFT was able to send us a disk in two days.

With ParishSOFT we are able to do the mailing much more smoothly. Tracking all of the offertory and producing year-end statements have been much easier with ParishSOFT than doing it by hand. Implementing the school with ParishSOFT, tracking of tuition is perfect. "

View Denver Mossing's full interview

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"When I heard from ParishSOFT I wasn't really looking for a program, but I got excited because we were dealing with issues we couldn't resolve. ParishSOFT made a tangible difference in our business practices. When we converted the data, which is large, we never had the fields we now have. I'm sold on Parish IQ because one of the things I can't expect the girls to do in their spare time is take a class on Access. Parish IQ makes it a lot easier for my staff and I to do the reports the pastor asks for."

View Karen McEwen's full interview

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"Not only for myself, but for the people I train, the software is easy to learn and use. Because I have an IT background, I tend to learn it quicker than those who don't. But the software is so user friendly, they become comfortable with it quicker than I expect. Sometimes I think, "This isn't going to be a good one, I'm going to pull teeth and nails," but then they call back and say, "Hey, this is great! I've learned this and I've done that." The software gets great feedback from the parishes."

View L'Tanya Crosby's full interview

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"I think ParishSOFT is more thought out than the competitors. We feel like it's tailor-made for the Catholic church, and the staff is very enthusiastic, very approachable. They tend not to say "no" to us-even when we want something customized they'll try to figure out a way to work it out. That has been invaluable for us. We feel like we're kind of partners, not just a client. It's been a really good relationship."

View Michael Lee's full interview

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"Our parishioners like the new technology-like last year when they got great financial reports with nice big pie charts they've never had before. They can register for religious education to without having to put all their information in again because it's already there. Transferring from one parish to another is simple-we just pull their information from their previous parish. They can't believe that's all there is."

View Ron Appel's full interview

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ParishSOFT Software

"Thank you to you and your team for continually developing your product. I am always impressed with the improvements you always seem to be making. As I'm sure you know, ParishSOFT is THE best product of its kind on the market and it is indispensable to parishes like mine with ever-shrinking staffs and ever-growing ministries. "

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"This is going to help our parish on so many levels. People have no idea how much time we spend trying to change addresses or find records. Many parishes have records all over the place. The new system will put the records in one place and that will better serve everyone. This software will enable us to communicate better while at the same time gather everything from our parish calendar to sacramental records. We'll have information at our fingertips that we don't have now."

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"It's very quick and easy to organize our parishioners. It makes my life A LOT easier!"

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"ParishSOFT is a powerful system that automates and standardizes information. It will be a great resource to our pastors and parishes. The new system will not only organize us but also help us to do a better job identifying our resources and planning for the future. The Church needs to be more accountable and creative in its management of time, talent and treasure so that we can meet the needs of individuals and parishes. This project is a great step forward in good communication "

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"This new system will give me instant access to every parish member and their families. It gives me a broad look at sacramental participation, a giving history, details on other areas of participation in the parish - even a photo. The fact that we're going to gather all this together on to one screen will empower us."

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"I know we are going to have one little epiphany after another as they show us the possibilities in store!"

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"I have a member of my parish staff who is a genius at this! In 20 seconds, she can tell me what Mass attendance was at any one of our eight weekend Masses."

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"When I go out to visit the homebound, I am not just bringing the Blessed Sacrament, I am bringing the care and concern of the Church to to each person I visit. With this program, I can keep a running history of each person I see. In the family record, I can list the names and ages of the grandchildren, if that is important to the person I visit. I can make a note of their health problems or hospital visits and keep track of everything that is happening. "

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"ParishSoft is a complete management system for us at St. Mary of the Angels. We converted from Cornerstone in the last quarter of 2007. ParishSoft is easy to use and works! The ability to export data to Excel and MSWord has allowed us to customize reports for our parish. Pledges and Sacramental data are much easier to track for reporting needs. Back up of the database through ParishSoft's file transfer program is an integral part of our system management procedures. In addition, the free ParishSoft website has given us a way to advertise our parish events and bulletins to our community. Finally, the support staff from marketing to technical support has always taken the time to satisfy our needs. Technical support has helped me create queries so that our pastor can have the information he needs on a timely basis. Thank you, ParishSoft!"

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"ParishSOFT is by far the most user-friendly software program I've used. Others were neither window-based nor as user-friendly for the average parish staff. We're now able to work more quickly and easier in census and collection issues. I'm also grateful for the excellent customer support. No matter what the issue it gets addressed quickly, professionally, and completely. The best thing we did was to convert to ParishSOFT."

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"Compared with other products, especially the non-Catholic software, ParishSOFT makes more intuitive sense, and it flows with the way a Catholic parish operates."

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"We at Saint Mary Parish have been using ParishSOFT for approximately 5 years now and we love it! It has helped immensely with our Religious Ed program, i.e. CCD class scheduling, sacraments and liturgical events, ect. I especially enjoy the fact that all the sacramental certificates are now done via ParishSOFT as opposed to having to type them on a typewriter! The Offering & Tuition module is excellent! Entering all the weekly contribution envelopes, pledges and year-end reports are easy to do. The Time & Talent module helps us to manage our ministry groups and liturgical schedules easily. I would highly recommend ParishSOFT to anyone and am happy to have so many options at my disposal to manage our parish office effectively and efficiently."

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"I would like to share with you how happy I was this year generating our contribution reports through the ParishSOFT software. We were able to fold them so that they could be sent in window envelopes which saved us a great amount of time. My team was quite happy with this process as well. ParishSOFT has definitely been a life saver in more ways that you can imagine!"

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"I have been doing accounting for multiple churches for over 12 years and have experience with multiple software programs. We were introduced to ParishSOFT products at a Stewardship conference and although the change was difficult to make due to the money and time we had invested in our previous program, we have not been disappointed with our decision! ParishSOFT is very easy to use, helping us to run our parish and provide services to our parishioners more effectively. All of our staff can use it! Our Deacons use it for sacramental celebrations and our Pastor uses it to prepare for meetings with parishioners. The information is easy to enter and there are many useful reports at our fingertips, providing us with immediate results! The Tele-Training program helped us to get a great, cost effective start on the products in the comfort of our own office. The free website that ParishSOFT offers is incredible and provides a great opportunity for our parishioners! We continue to look for ways to add additional products from ParishSOFT!"

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"ParishSOFT is extremely user friendly. We don't have to figure out difficult formulas to develop reports, and we can quickly print the reports we need. The software is so easy to use compared to PCS. They created unnecessary data entry, and we can enter much faster with ParishSOFT. We really like the ease of pulling up cities automatically from the zipcodes. The User Guides are very easy to follow and ParishSOFT provides great technical support. We would definitely recommend ParishSOFT to any PCS user!"

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"I am very pleased with the ParishSoft program in that it is taking less time for scheduling, entering offerings, and now keeping up with the religious ed data for the parish, and the catechist. I actually did the whole year of scheduling in less than a day!"

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"I love using the ParishSOFT programs! I have been working for the Church for 28 years, and this is the best program I have used. We use the Synchronization Manager to sync all of our data to our diocese. When I register new parishioners, I just import all of their information from their former parish into our parish database - it saves me a tremendous amount of time. I was apprehensive about changing software, however ParishSOFT is very easy to use and has made me more efficient in my work. The technical support team is great!"

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"We have been using OmniData's PCS Software since 1997. We switched to ParishSOFT this past year and found it to be intuitive and user-friendly. Even our most occasional users are finding themselves able to get the information they need. So far, we love it! ParishSOFT has more trained people to answer our inquiries. Your training manuals and the 'live' trainer on the phone are a wonderful combination for effective and low-cost learning. Although both systems are Access-based, ParishSOFT seems friendlier and you don't need to know as much about Access to get the job done with your software. I'm telling people that the conversion went wonderfully and the transition went so smoothly that the pastor asked 3 weeks after we were up and running on ParishSoft when we planned to make the change!"

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"I manage three different parishes in the Diocese of Providence. I have used ParishSOFT, Parish Data System's DOS and Windows versions, and Cornerstone. ParishSOFT has been the easiest to use. The ParishSOFT Family Suite has some great time saving features. My favorite is the ability to quickly look up our parishioners alphabetically by last name with all of the relevant information such as first name, phone number, address and email. The Teletraining provided by ParishSOFT was very helpful in getting the software implemented at St. Ann's. Support has been great and once they even logged onto my computer remotely to help me quickly resolve my issue. My experience with the setup of ParishSOFT has been much more successful than the others. Entering family data into ParishSOFT is just so much simpler than the others, which has allowed me to use the program for our annual statements and parishioner renewal campaigns."

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"ParishSOFT has been a big improvement over Cornerstone. There are many more functions and modules. Cornerstone support was pretty good, but ParishSOFT support is more responsive. I get my questions answered when I call, and I don't have to wait days for a call back. They have helped me to create the exact queries I need from the database. We have much more flexibility with the ParishSOFT reports. We have also saved a lot of time with the Ministry Scheduling—the ease of use and the time it takes to enter schedule exceptions is much less time consuming. I like the ability to see at a glance if a parishioner has requested their phone and address be kept private. We were also very happy with the data conversion. The process was as easy as pie. Initially, we were skeptical of the teletraining format, however, we found this was the most efficient use of our time, since we could work from our office on our own computers. We now plan to take more advanced training the same way."

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"We switched last year and we couldn't be happier! ParishSOFT is just better because it is easier to use and learn like doing adds and deletes, while giving us many more capabilities. Support is much more responsive. It is easier to create reports because there are fewer steps.. Everything is a carry over from one program to the next like when we entered our Capital Campaign information and the contributions showed up on the yearend statements to the families. We can also enter our contributions much faster. Finally, we were pleasantly surprised with the accuracy and turnaround of the data conversion."

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"ParishSOFT has gone over and above our original expectations for software like this. Reports are more informative, explicit, and accurate. They are also easier to read. The teletraining is very helpful and we could do in the convenience of our own church office."

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"We found the ParishSOFT Software Suite to be the most comprehensive package available. ParishSOFT assists our large parish staff in time savings throughout their day, in giving them tools to better communicate with our volunteers, and have more time for their core goal, the pastoral care of our parish community."

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"Nothing out there compares to ParishSOFT. They are so much further ahead than anyone else. Some other parish programs have some of the pieces but not everything in one program like ParishSOFT."

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"I cannot say enough positive things about the customer relationship that ParishSOFT fosters, and this, with the excellence of its products, makes this company stand out from the crowd."

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"I believe your company and your software are moving forward in the right direction and the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls is excited to be a part of what I believe to be a 'information revolution' sweeping our world."

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"Father Mike, the parish staff and I are very thankful for your incredible software we get to enjoy each day. It makes our jobs so much easier and more productive than ever before. Thank you to all of our friends at ParishSOFT!!!"

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"I do love these programs... wow! What a time saver they are... and definitely more accurate!"

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"(ParishSOFT software is) easy to use... I like the Access format... user friendly."

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"Holy Angels has been using the ParishSOFT Family Directory, Religious Education and Offering & Tuition modules since 2004. By adding ParishSOFT at St. Michael's, we anticipate a much easier merge of the two parishes into St. Gabriel the Archangel some time in late 2009."

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"(ParishSOFT software) encompasses every aspect of the parish in one program. Makes it easier to work with different departments."

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"I find ParishSOFT software easy to use, capable of creating many reports, versatile, and user friendly..."

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"I like using the data entry screens and also like the search mode."

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Religious Education

"I've been having a lot of fun with the Religious Education module from ParishSOFT. It's so easy to use, especially for someone who is not great with computers. The manuals are clear and the tele-training gave me the nuts and bolts of the system really quickly. ParishSOFT made my job so much easier and so much more organized that I could focus on the ministry aspects of my job. When the Diocese offered to pay for the Family Directory and Offering modules I jumped at the chance to get them."

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"I can't say enough good things about the ParishSOFT software! It is easy to use and makes me more efficient in my ministry at the parish! Thank you, ParishSOFT!"

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"The one-push e-mailing is fantastic! I can e-mail parents or [high school] kids to tell them what's coming up. Cloning classes was fantastic and grade promoting was just click...click. This is way too easy!"

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"I have been using ParishSoft's Religious Education Module for the six years I've been the Religious Education Secretary at St. Joseph's in Dexter.

This software keeps track of the 700+ students and six sessions in our program, and allows me to generate reports and labels for any grade, session, or group of students or teachers.

I use the Class Lists extensively for the teachers and the office; the wall hangers are used outside the classroom; and the attendance charts generated from this module are used both by the teachers and the office. Because we have a six-session program covering Pre-School through eighth grade, plus a high school youth program, the class lists change quite often. The Religious Ed module allows me to make changes to these lists either through the module itself, or in the Family Directory data base, and print new lists or labels immediately.

The single one feature I would like to recommend is the report wizard. This tool creates custom reports for me using the student data already entered. You don't realize how handy this is until you need to use it-and I use it more and more often the longer I work here."

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Volunteer Management

"Before ParishSOFT, I had to pull the disk for altar servers, put it in the computer, open and update the file, and then repeat all of this for eucharistic ministers and readers. Then I had to manually create a legible schedule in Word to distribute to the ministers. Now I open the Time & Talent Module and schedule ministers for all the masses with a few mouse clicks."

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"I have used several other church management programs, and ParishSOFT is by far the best and easiest one to use. Even our 76 year old pastor did not take any of the training courses and he is still able to navigate the modules he needs with very little help from me. But I do recommend the teletraining classes, they are excellent especially the sections on shortcuts and tips. It used to take me an entire week to put together a 3-month liturgical schedule and send it out before we got ParishSOFT, now it just takes minutes. Again, I can't say enough for how much I love this program, ParishSOFT technical support and the training. I recently sent a note to our diocese asking them to please consider switching all parishes to your software."

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Support and Training

"I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the assistance of your staff member, Frank Whiting.  Today we experienced a database problem and our IT consultant reached out to Parishsoft.  Fortunately, for us Frank answered his call. It is not a good day when end of year tax statements will not print!  Blessings for us!  Frank was professional, courteous, empathetic, and most important, just plain old “Knew His Stuff”!  The problem was cleared up quickly and correctly – on the first try.   He went beyond the call of duty and it was most appreciated. 

Frank provided a priceless service and further enforced my pleasure with Parishsoft."

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"I really enjoyed ParishSOFT's end of year online videos! We were facing year end with new software and I called into support for assistance in getting started. The phone recording offered various options to get assistance; one of them being the online videos. I watched them and could do the job without speaking with someone in support! We found them to be very thorough, well-paced and easy to understand! Thank you!"

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"Just a quick note to say thanks for the great training sessions yesterday & today. I'm so excited about ParishSOFT. Can't hardly wait to get the conversion done and start using it 'for real'! It's a vast improvement over what we've been using. My job is about to go from frustration overload to sublime bliss! Please let everyone @ ParishSOFT know that we're in love with the software and appreciate you all very much!"

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"Our implementation has gone very well. The parishes love the application... ParishSOFT's willingness and incredible ability to work with our diocese is unaralleled...their commitment to training and improvement of the application should easily make them THE vendor of choice for any parish or diocese searching for an information solution."

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"A few weeks ago, we did a large mailing for the parish, and your support team was VERY helpful, efficient, and pleasant! Thank you, and keep up the good work!"

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"I am very impressed with the classes and the extra mile that everyone is going and it makes me very comfortable and glad to be working with people who are kind and extremely capable. I have every confidence in your company and solutions."

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Electronic Giving

"We just started to use automatic withdrawal for our Sunday Contributions and Debt Reduction payments [ACH Module]. It has worked out really well so far. I can't believe how easy it was to set up. And of course Tech Support was always there to help me through each step."

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"St. Ignatius has over 1,900 active families; 300 of them use electronic giving for their church contributions. ParishSOFT ACH has stabilized our revenue. One Sunday in February, 75% of our parishioners were unable to get to Mass due to blizzard conditions. Parish collections for the month were not affected, thanks to ACH...Electronic giving saves time since all transactions are automatically posted to the donor's contribution record. The ParishSOFT ACH module is efficient, provides a consistent revenue stream, and helps to make parish administration easier."

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Web Solutions

"When I first used your software to launch my parish's website, I was truly impressed by how easy it was to use. I needed very little technical support, but that was given quickly and professionally. I have since trained the parish staff to update the site themselves and they have done a magnificent job, attesting to the ease of use."

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"Thank you for all the work you did on our site - it's working fine now and you have been extremely helpful. Great customer support! What a great product you have here for novice computer users, and the fact that it [Web Solutions] is free is really incredible."

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"The ParishSOFT Calendars have been a great help to our parish. It has really enabled us to streamline the requests for new facilities and provide a wonderful tool for knowing what's going on."

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"Thank you to all of you that make Parishes Online what it is! My pastor recently asked me to focus on the task of our parish web site. The web site is something I was asked to do a long-g-g time ago but had been avoiding and actually dreading. I didn't need another thing to do! But, thanks to such an easy interface, in the matter of one evening I copied everything (and then some) from our former site and have a very comprehensive and nice looking web site for our parish. After this initial experience I have no doubt it will be easy to maintain. Once everyone gets in the habit of posting items to the online calendar we will have all of the information about our parish available at the click of a mouse and accessible to all who come looking! Know of my continued prayers for all of you. Thank you, once again, for helping make parish information management so easy (and mostly fun to do)."

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Overall

"As you know, we are called to be stewards of the wealth of information in our care (census, donations, religious education, family histories, time and talent management, etc.) Upon review, and with the recommendation of my advisors, we have selected ParishSOFT Church Management and Web Solutions software and their support to assist us in this task at the Catholic Center."

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"Our criteria for choosing new software included price, support, training, company stability, customer satisfaction, software capability, and the ability to convert current data. To accomplish these goals, we carefully explored over 30 different product lines. We believe that we have found an application, ParishSOFT, which will meet and perhaps exceed your needs."

In using the ParishSOFT application, their willingness and ability to work with parishes and the Archdiocese, and their commitment to training and enhancements of the application are unparalleled which makes them the recommended software application for the Archdiocese of Boston."

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