Quick tips

A handful of habits that save time and keep your records tidy. Each tip links to the full steps.

Getting around

1. Get help for the page you're on. Choose Documentation in the left menu, from any page. It opens the help for the page you're looking at, in a new tab, so your work stays where it is. See Find your way around.

Setting up

2. Bring your people over from a spreadsheet. Use the template in Utilities, then Import members. ECM shows you what it found, including any problems and possible duplicates, before anything is saved, and you can undo an import for 24 hours. See Import members.
3. Fill in birthdays and anniversaries. The year is optional. People who are active show on your dashboard for 30 days before their day, so you remember them. See People and keeping in touch.
4. Set your time zone. Choose it under Settings, then Time zone, so "today" is right when you record gifts and counts. See Time zone.

Recording

5. Keep anonymous gifts together. Add a person with the first name Anonymous and the last name User, and record anonymous gifts against them, cash included. They will show up in your reports like anyone else. When you print giving letters, choose Choose people on End of year and leave them out. See Record a gift and End of year giving letters.
6. Use "Save and add another" for multiple gifts. The date, contribution type, service and payment type stay as they were, so you only change the person and the amount. See Record a gift.
7. Count every service, even a quiet one. Averages only use the services you counted, so a missed week doesn't pull them down. You can have one count for each service on each day. See Count a service.
8. Group two services into one. If you hold two Sunday morning services, give both the same Dashboard group in Service types. The dashboard then shows them as one Sunday, and some reports can group by it too: the contributions, attendance and summary reports, and the deposit slip. See Service types.

Year end

9. Write your giving letter ahead of time. Do it under Settings, then Giving letter, well before the year ends, so it's ready to go when it's time to print your year-end letters. Look over the year's gifts before you print. See Giving letter.

Keeping tidy and safe

10. Mark people inactive instead of deleting them, unless you are certain you want to remove them. Inactive people stay in your records, and their gifts stay in your reports. A deleted person can be restored for 30 days and then they are gone forever. However, anyone with gifts is never removed, and can always be restored. See Edit or delete a member.
11. Look for duplicates now and then. Find duplicates shows people and gifts that look as if they were entered twice, so you can tidy them up.
12. Turn on two-step sign-in, or add a passkey. Keep your recovery codes somewhere safe, such as a password manager. See Password and security.