Offering entry is just one of many administrative tasks that a church requires to run smoothly—and often, churches rely on volunteers to input offering data into a church management software or spreadsheet. And while this task might seem easy, there are certainly some ways you can make it easier on your faithful volunteers, ushers, and elders—to avoid entry errors and also prevent volunteer burnout. 

So how can you make offering entry easier for your volunteers or team? What are the best practices for offering entry to reduce errors and time spent? 

Here are some practical tips to make offering entry easier for your ushers, elders, and offering volunteers. 

Best Practices for Offering Entry 

Record Offerings in Batches 

Recording your offerings in batches based on the event you’re recording is one easy way to optimize the offering-entry process. Not only does this help you streamline your church’s giving practices, but it also can help you avoid unnecessary entry errors. 

Once the offerings have been counted and verified, they can be added to a master tracker, either in a centralized spreadsheet or in church management software like Church360° Members.

Secure Volunteer Access 

Keeping your members’ financial information secure is paramount, so your giving software needs to protect their sensitive data. You can give your volunteers access to the offering batches, but keep the centralized spreadsheet secure and private with your treasurer or head administrator. 

This process ensures that your volunteers have access only to the information they need to complete their task and that private data is protected and still available to those who might need it. 

Utilize Pivot Tables 

In your reporting, utilize pivot tables from your centralized tracker so you can create focused reports by giver, type, or date. This allows you to share relevant information in an easy-to-interpret matter, so you can see trends at a glance, rather than combing through thousands of data cells. 

Note that as you add more data, you will have to refresh your pivot table. This is the downside to Excel—it’s more manual and doesn’t allow for self-generating reports. 

Implement eGiving 

eGiving, of course, makes offering entry easier by removing the need for the task altogether! While you should still reconcile your accounts and ensure accuracy week to week, eGiving greatly reduces the margin of error, since it eliminates the manual entry portion of the task. 

Partners like Vanco and Concordia Technology Solutions allow you to integrate your eGiving into your church management software, so your members’ information is connected and secure. With eGiving, not only can your members give online but you can also effortlessly export data to understand trends in giving, share summarized reports with your leadership team, and keep your members’ data secure. 

Of course, even if you implement eGiving, you’ll likely still have members who give in person—and that’s okay! There will always be a need for some manual offering entry; eGiving just reduces the expansiveness of the task. 

Easily enter offerings by person or envelope number, split transactions, and email or print giving statements right from inside Church360º Members, our web-based church management software!