Moving from PowerChurch to Empower
If your church uses PowerChurch Plus or PowerChurch Online, most of Empower will feel familiar. Your people, households, activities, and contributions are all here. A few screens have new names, a few have been combined, and some tools you used to reach through other programs are now built in.
This guide shows where things live in Empower and what to expect when you bring your data over.
Watch: Find your way around Empower
Where things live now
| In PowerChurch | In Empower |
|---|---|
| Family Mailing List and the Integrated Data Entry screen | Membership > Households |
| Maintain Personal Profiles | Membership > People |
| Activities and Skills | Membership > Activities |
| Posting contributions | Depositing contributions |
| Visitations and Ministry Services | Notes, with note categories |
| Setup options under each menu | Utilities > Options, all in one place |
| Email newsletters through Constant Contact | Newsletter emails built into Empower |
| Text messages through SimpleTexting | Text messaging built into Empower |
The biggest change: depositing instead of posting
In PowerChurch, you post your contributions. In Empower, you deposit them. You enter contributions the same way, review them, and then create a deposit for the contributions that are going to the bank together.
If your church uses PowerChurch Online for accounting, the deposit is sent over to your accounting automatically. If you need to fix a contribution after it's deposited, Empower sends a correcting entry and keeps a record of what changed and why.
Watch: Enter and deposit contributions and Fix a contribution after it's deposited
What works the way you know
- Activities and attendance: you can still add people to classes and groups and record attendance.
- Contribution entry and imports: you can enter and edit contributions, and Empower imports contributions from Vanco just like PowerChurch does.
- Security: you choose which areas each person can see, and whether they can add or delete in those areas.
- Mass update and audit trails: you can make bulk changes to households, email addresses, and phone numbers, and see who signed in and what changed.
- Reports: membership reports live under Membership > Reports, and contribution reports live under Contributions.
What's new in Empower
- Member portal: members can update their own information, see their contributions, and download statements. Staff approve changes before they reach your records.
- Check In: families can check in at a staffed station or a self-service kiosk, with name tags and matching parent tags.
- Built-in email, newsletters, and texting: you send them from Empower without exporting a list to another program.
- A weekly ministry email: staff can get a summary of new households, birthdays, anniversaries, important dates, and hospital visits.
- Lists that fill themselves: an activity's members can come from a saved search, so the list stays up to date.
What isn't in Empower yet
- Accounting: Empower doesn't have its own accounting yet. Churches that need accounting can use Empower together with PowerChurch Online accounting.
- Room scheduling: this isn't available in Empower, and there's no date for it yet.
- The other modules: equipment inventory, sermon filer, education library, and music library aren't part of Empower.
If your church depends on one of these, PowerChurch Plus or PowerChurch Online may still be the better fit. Both are still offered and still being updated.
Watch: Plus vs Online vs Empower
Bringing your data over
- You can bring your PowerChurch data into your trial. You can convert it yourself from a standard PowerChurch backup when you set up your trial, and our team is glad to help.
- Your PowerChurch data stays safe. Anything you change during the trial doesn't affect your PowerChurch data, even on PowerChurch Online. Keep using PowerChurch for your day-to-day work while you try Empower.
- A few things don't come over. Data from areas Empower doesn't have, like facilities and the libraries, isn't converted.
- Moving back isn't automatic. There's currently no way to convert Empower data back into PowerChurch, which is one more reason to keep PowerChurch up to date during your trial.
Try Empower with your own data
Start a free 60-day trial at empowerchms.com. If you'd like help bringing your data over or a walkthrough for your staff, call us or email support@powerchurch.com.