When a couple gets married, there are a few housekeeping items that need to take place in Shepherd’s Staff. The essential updates to make are to edit one or both people’s Household records and to potentially change one person’s name.
Determining Which Household Record to Change
When it comes time to change the couple’s Household records, start by answering the following two questions:
- Does each person already have a Person record in the database?
- Does either person already have a Household record in the database?
If Person records exist, just edit the current records rather than creating duplicates.
If both people have a Household record, you’ll need to decide which record to keep. If one person is moving into the other’s home, keep the Household record that contains their now-joint address and delete the other Household record. If both people are moving into a new home, create a new Household record and delete their previous ones.
How to Change Household and Person Records
Here is how to make the changes you’ll need in the Household and Person records:
- In the Membership module, navigate to Records > Households > Grid in the top navigation. At the bottom of the window, click “Add” to create a new Household for the couple. Fill out the fields and click “OK”. (If you will be using one person’s existing Household record, you can skip this step.)
- Next, navigate to Records > People > Grid in the top navigation. Find each member of the couple. Highlight each person’s name in the grid, then click “Move” at the bottom of the window. Use the drop-down menu to select the correct household, and click “OK”. If necessary, do the same thing for the other person.
- If necessary, make any other changes to each individual’s Person record. You may need to add the marriage date, change one person’s last name, or add the other member of the couple to the “Personal/Family” tab.
Changes to Contributions
If one or both people have contributions in the database, you will need to make changes in the Contributions module. You can learn about the necessary steps here.
If you have any questions, please give our support line a call at (800) 346-6120 or email us at support@cts.cph.org. Our team is available Monday–Friday, 7:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Central Time.
