You don’t need to move anything to get started.
ChurchPlan doesn’t force a risky data migration — it lets your church modernize safely, at your own pace. Keep what you have, add the app your members will love, and bring your records over whenever you’re ready.
What switching actually looks like.
One office, one congregation, one weekend. It plays silently — the captions carry the whole story.
No sound, no narration, nothing to turn on. Captioned throughout.
Run ChurchPlan alongside what you have — retire the old system when it’s earned.
Many churches run ChurchPlan alongside their existing system at first. ChurchPlan becomes the mobile front door — where members enter, engage and give — while the old system quietly stays in the background until it’s no longer needed.
Launch — zero risk
No data migrationNothing shuts downMembers download the app and create their own profiles — consent-based, with their own credentials. Announcements, events, the calendar and education go live on day one, while every existing workflow keeps running untouched.
Engagement grows
Instant tax receiptsFamilies adopt naturallyMobile giving rises on its own — every app donation issues an instant, fully compliant tax receipt. Youth and families adopt naturally, and donations keep shifting to the app because it’s faster, easier and more transparent.
Simplify — when you choose
No forced timelinesYou stay in controlThe old system slowly becomes redundant. Your church decides what to keep, what to retire, and when. ChurchPlan grows with your church — it never forces it.
“You don’t renovate a house by starting in the basement — you start with the front door.”
ChurchPlan is the front door: where people enter, engage, and feel modern. Back-office systems can wait.
The half of your parish it never reached.
Switching is not only about doing the same things faster. Most church software only ever touched the office and whoever happened to be in the database — not the congregation. This is the same parish, counted household by household.
Illustrative. Coverage varies by parish — but the pattern does not: a system staff log into reaches the people who deal with staff. An app the congregation opens reaches the congregation.
What about transition?
Modern platforms don’t pre-create accounts from old address books — they start with user choice and consent. ChurchPlan is built the same way: clean, consent-based data, not recycled records.
Two receipting systems? Perfectly legal.
Tax rules — CRA, IRS, HMRC, ATO and NZ IRD alike — govern what must appear on each receipt, not how many systems a charity may use to issue them. The only rule that matters: each gift is receipted once. ChurchPlan handles that automatically — every app donation gets an instant, compliant receipt from ChurchPlan, while your existing system keeps receipting everything else, exactly as it does today. Run both in parallel, and fully transition only when you’re ready.
Each donation is receipted by exactly one system — the one that processed it — with its own serial numbers and records, which is what regulators require.
Bringing your records over is optional, free — and easy.
Whether it’s day one or month six, importing takes four steps — and it costs nothing. There is no migration fee, no setup fee and no charge per record, on any plan including free-forever Essentials. Until then, nothing about this is required to run Sundays on ChurchPlan.
Export what you have
CSV / spreadsheetsLegacy ChMS exportsWhatever you're leaving — a legacy suite, a giving platform, or the treasurer's spreadsheet — a simple export is all ChurchPlan needs. If you can download it, we can import it.
Import members, families & giving history
Imported Data labelFamilies kept intactRecords arrive organized into households, with giving history attached. Every imported record is labeled "Imported Data" — so you always know which records the office carried over and which members have claimed.
Invite the congregation
Profiles become accountsNo duplicatesMembers download ChurchPlan and claim the profile you imported for them — the record and its history become theirs, with no duplicate entries drifting apart. From that day on, they keep their own details current.
Go live on Sunday
GivingEventsLive liturgyFirst collection through the app, first event with QR passes, first liturgy streamed to the homebound. Your old system stays as long as it’s useful — most parishes retire it only once the app has clearly taken over.
Nothing worth keeping gets left behind.
Donation payouts — one step, handled later
Your charity registration number is only needed when you enable donation payouts. It is collected securely during Stripe onboarding after your account is created — required by law and by Apple, Google, and Stripe — and appears on every official donation receipt.
No added ChurchPlan fees — standard card processing by Stripe applies, kept low through volume-negotiated rates.
No contracts to break coming in. None holding you here.
Your church owns its data. Export your members, records and giving history any time — the same open door you came in through.
Modernize on your own terms.
ChurchPlan isn’t a risky system replacement — it’s a modern engagement layer your church can adopt safely, gradually, and on its own terms. Free on Essentials, with a migration guide a phone call away.