User Guide

1. Sign in and get oriented

1. Open your church's GPChurch address or the signup link or QR code from staff. Use your church's member signup rather than the separate form for creating a new church.
2. Follow signup and email verification instructions, then sign in with your email and password. Ask staff for help with an existing or duplicate record.
3. Start with Announcements. Personal features are grouped under My Church and Me & My Family. Staff see additional tools based on access.

On a narrow screen, open the navigation menu to see the groups. If a feature is missing, your account may not have access or the church may not have configured it. Use Who to Contact & Data Access to find help.

2. Your profile and family

Open Me & My Family → My Profile, review contact information, and save permitted edits. Use the profile picture controls to add or replace your picture. Staff manage membership and access. Request membership opens a request form for nonmembers. Your request stays pending until a People Manager reviews it. You receive an email with their decision and written response. Only People Managers and higher can edit membership status.

My Family shows linked household members. You can view household profiles and attendance. Adults with a valid birth date on file can edit permitted family demographics; younger users or those without a valid birth date can fill missing family fields. Existing adult birth dates need staff correction. Giving remains individual.

Family Settings lets eligible users update the shared wedding anniversary. Adult family members can correct or clear it; younger members can fill a missing anniversary. Ask staff to correct family relationships. Where offered, use the add-member form to record a new family member, and review the result before adding the same person again.

Birthdays and Anniversaries: open these pages under My Church and choose a month or all months. In Personal Info, choose who can see your birthday; use Family Settings for anniversary visibility. Audiences include any signed-in church user, members, active attenders, People Managers and higher, Event Managers and higher, Accounting / Finance, or nobody. You can hide the year separately. Existing dates start hidden until visibility is chosen. People-management staff can still read full dates on the underlying records, but the celebration pages respect the selected audience even for staff.

3. Attendance and celebrations

1. Open My Attendance to review service history and check-in options.
2. Select the correct service and person. Self check-in is available on the scheduled service day from one hour before to three hours after the start.
3. Submit and confirm the result before retrying. Use permitted family check-in options for linked relatives.

Ask attendance staff to correct a missed or incorrect check-in. Members cannot backdate their own check-ins. Attendance Celebration shows personal milestones; staff's Achievements & Badges is a separate management screen.

A public kiosk may offer limited check-in. Use it for the intended person and service. Sign out of your account on shared devices.

Notifications: select the bell in the top bar to see unread announcements, comments on conversations you started, and replies to your own comments. The number beside the bell shows your unread total. Opening an item marks it as read and takes you to that announcement or reply. Use View all for the full list or Mark all as read to clear the current list. The bell refreshes every minute while the page is open.

4. Announcements and conversations

Read Announcements for official news and events. Open an announcement for details, attachments, and available response controls. Choose React for Heart, Thumbs up, Praying or Laugh; choose the same reaction again to remove it. Select a reaction count to see who reacted. Changing an announcement reaction keeps your typed comment and loaded comments in place.

Under Conversations, start a topic or reply to one. Enter a topic title, compose a message, and optionally add images or a GIF from your device. Upload controls show file limits. You can add up to six supported images per message and use the emoji picker.

Select a reaction to respond briefly; select it again to remove it or another to change it. You can edit or remove your own messages. Authorized staff may pin conversations or remove inappropriate messages. Conversations are visible to signed-in church users and are not private messages. This feature does not send conversation email notifications.

5. Volunteer sign-ups

1. Open My Church → Volunteer Sign-ups.
2. Review requirements, location, time, and remaining places. Flexible opportunities may ask you to arrange details with staff.
3. Submit your signup. Open opportunities confirm immediately; approval-required opportunities remain pending until an authorized reviewer approves.
4. Check My volunteer schedule for decisions and commitments.

Pending requests do not reserve a place. Conflicting confirmed timed shifts cannot be booked. Cancel a pending or confirmed signup before a timed shift starts, or a flexible commitment at any time. Contact staff about a declined request or a commitment problem. Check the schedule for updates; this workflow does not provide approval or reminder emails.

6. Online giving and statements

Giving without an account: choose Giving on your church's public website. Enter your first and last name, email for your receipt, and optional mobile number. Choose your one-time gift and continue to secure checkout. No email code or sign-in is required. Sign-in remains optional. When your email matches an existing church record, the gift is credited to that person. New donors receive an emailed receipt and an invitation to create an account. Create your account using the same email to keep your earlier giving history. The guest portal does not show earlier giving history. Your receipt includes a private link to view that gift without signing in; keep it private. Sign in to see your full history or set up recurring giving. Creating an account does not make you a church member.

1. Open Give Online. Confirm the church and choose an available fund, payment method, amount, and frequency.
2. If offered, choose bank transfer (ACH) or card/provider checkout. Review the optional contribution toward estimated fees and the total charge; the contribution starts unchecked.
3. Continue to the provider's secure checkout or payment form and complete authorization.
4. Review the resulting status. Bank payments may remain pending. A checkout return alone does not confirm a completed gift.

My Online Giving shows transactions and supported recurring schedules. Review a schedule before stopping future gifts, then check that the change is confirmed. Cancellation does not refund earlier payments. Avoid starting a replacement until the previous schedule is confirmed stopped.

My Giving shows your individual statement for the selected year. Family access does not include other people's giving. Contact accounting staff about missing gifts, incorrect amounts, duplicate charges, refunds, or provider errors. Never send full card or bank details through conversations or the staff contact form.

7. Contact staff and invite someone

Open Contact Church Staff, confirm the best phone number for this request, enter a message, and submit. Your account name and email accompany the message. Changing the phone number here does not change your profile. Review the confirmation or warning after submission.

Who to Contact & Data Access explains responsibilities and access. Invite Someone / Signup QR provides your church's signup link and QR code. Share the invitation rather than your credentials. Attendance & Offering Totals shows church summaries available to your account.

8. Understand account access

Your church administrator assigns your role. The service checks permissions, and the menu follows them. Staff keep their personal features. This table summarizes responsibilities; it does not authorize access outside your duties.

9. Staff workflows

People and families

Use People → Search People before adding someone to avoid duplicates. Review links under Manage Families. Investigate Review Signup Matches carefully before merging. Person Settings controls attendance status; administrators separately control logins. Marking someone inactive does not automatically disable login.

Block a user: open the person's profile and select Person Settings. People Managers and higher can confirm Block User for accounts below their own role. This ends account access while keeping the person and history. Ask an administrator to manage peers or higher roles or to enable a blocked login. Administrators can also choose Delete Login, which removes the password while keeping the profile, or Delete Person, which permanently removes the profile and attendance. Person deletion is unavailable when giving records or online payment attempts need to be retained. You cannot delete your own account.

Manage Families and Family Settings share one household workspace. Each person has one card for roles, editing access, marital status and spouse settings. Select Edit personal info to update their profile, then use Back to household. Both household save buttons save the entire settings form. People Managers can search by any family member, link an existing unlinked profile, unlink one person or unlink the whole household. Unlinking keeps profiles, logins, attendance and giving history. Choose a replacement Head of House when removing the current head. To split a family, unlink the moving people, create their new household and link the others to it.

Attendance

Use Record & Review Attendance or Check-in Kiosk. Choose the correct service and date before recording attendance or visitor counts. Staff can select past occurrences where supported. Confirm visitor counts' save status. Use Attendance Follow-up and Achievements & Badges for participation review.

Giving

Accounting staff use Record Individual Giving for person-specific entries and Offerings for church offerings and budgets. Review dates, amounts, and payment descriptions. Check Giving Reports and Online Giving History as permitted. Board Members see Who Gives instead of others' amounts. Deleting a financial record permanently removes the selected record, so verify carefully.

Communications and volunteers

Event Management and higher can open an announcement, confirm the deletion checkbox, and select Delete Announcement. Deletion removes the announcement, attachments, comments, reactions, and public website publication permanently.

Authorized staff manage announcements and use Email Blasts. Review recipients and content before sending. Administrators review Email History & Analytics; provider acceptance does not guarantee inbox delivery. Under Manage Needs & Shifts, create opportunities, schedules, and capacities. Only Board Members and Administrators use Review Signup Requests to approve or decline requests.

Account ledgers

Open Accounting → Account Ledgers. Accounting staff and administrators can view the church's ledgers, transaction history and CSV exports. Administrators choose Editing access to allow all Accounting staff or only selected people to edit each ledger. Administrators always retain editing access.

Create a ledger and add its accounts, such as Checking and Savings. Each account has an opening balance and optional opening date. Use Ledger settings or Account settings to update names and notes. Ledgers keep independent categories; each category can apply to credits, expenses or both, and can have notes explaining its use.

Select an account and choose Add entry. Enter the date, type, positive amount, description and optional category, reference and notes. Save & add another retains the date, type and category for faster entry. Click a category cell in the ledger table to choose a category directly; it saves when you select an option. If other uncategorized entries have the same description, a dialog offers to apply that category to the matching entries in this account across all dates, or choose Only this entry. The same offer appears after saving through the Edit form. Existing categories remain intact, and expense/credit restrictions still apply. Credits add to the balance and expenses subtract. Backdated entries and corrections recalculate subsequent balances. Voiding an entry requires a reason, removes it from the balance and retains its history.

The ledger opens to the past 30 days. Change From and To or Clear to show all dates. Starting balance, Credits, Expenses and Ending balance cover the selected timeframe. The Category totals pie chart shows each category's amount and percentage for those dates, including Uncategorized. Switch between Expenses and Credits; these totals include all pages and remain independent of search, type and category table filters. Search, type and category filters narrow the table without changing these timeframe totals. Select any column heading to sort ascending or descending across all matching entries, then use Previous/Next page to browse 100 rows at a time. A row's balance includes the whole account history, even when filters hide other rows. Scroll horizontally to view all spreadsheet columns; Edit and History actions remain beside each row.

Choose Import spreadsheet. For a private Google Sheet, copy its header and transaction cells and paste them into the importer, or download it as CSV and upload the file. Imports accept up to 3,000 rows / 2 MB per account. Map Date and Description, then either separate Expense/Credit columns or a Signed amount column (+ credit, - expense). Optional columns include Category, Reference, Notes and Balance. Choose the date format and review the preview before committing.

Previously imported rows are skipped by default. Invalid rows must be corrected unless you explicitly select skipping them. Unknown category names are created with the import. Balances are recalculated; for an account with no entries, you can map Balance and explicitly use the source running balances to establish the opening balance. Balances are checked in spreadsheet row order, with date order also accepted when it reconciles. Fix invalid rows first; source balances must reconcile before import. Ledger balances are then recalculated in date order. An opening-balance row with no transaction amount belongs in Account settings. Read-only users can export CSV and view history but cannot add, edit, void or import entries. Changes record who made them and when.

Child safety: check-in and checkout

Staff create events under People → Child Safety Events, then open Check-in & checkout. Choose the event at the top. Administrators register the station browser at church and configure its printer and labels. Operators need People Management access or higher.

The left column contains child search, registration, family suggestions and today's drop-offs. Search a child's name to show their details and saved adults on the right. Select siblings individually or search for children from another family. Use Register a new child or Register a new adult for visitors. Visitor profiles and explicit child/adult relationships are remembered for next time, without creating logins or membership.

Choose the responsible adult for the selected children. Household suggestions require staff verification; a family relationship does not automatically approve pickup. Existing profile or previous visit pictures can be reused, or capture new identifying pictures. Confirm identity and authority, then select Check in. Each group saves together without reloading the workspace. Register children arriving with another adult as a separate group in the same event.

Use the right-hand label panel to print a matching child/adult sticker pair for every child. Give the adult stickers to the responsible drop-off adult. Replacing labels invalidates older stickers. At pickup, scan the sticker or reusable card, select the approved collector and verify identity before confirming release. Scanning alone never releases a child. For new visits, the drop-off adult remains responsible for pickup.

Green means In our care; blue means Picked up. Children remain on today's list after pickup. Select a child to see the responsible adult and timestamped visit history, including label preparation and print requests. Times use the church timezone. Children still in care from an earlier event occurrence stay visible until pickup. Printing requests do not confirm that stickers physically printed.

If pictures cannot be taken, open Photo override in the registration panel, enable it, enter the staff member name and select the reason (including Testing). Saved pictures are still used where available. Missing pictures receive a named, timestamped override, and stickers identify the photo override. For scanner failure, select the child on the left and choose Pickup without barcode. Enter the staff member name and reason, choose the authorized adult and verify identity before confirming pickup. Overrides record the signed-in staff account as well as the entered name, and do not waive event, station or pickup permissions.

Custody records and pictures stay private. This workflow is separate from attendance check-in. Test the actual webcam, DYMO printer, labels and scanner before using the station with children.

10. Administrator setup

1. Open Church Administration → Church Setup to save your church name, short name, address, phone, email addresses, time zone, colors and optional logo. Leave the logo upload blank to keep it; remove it only when a custom logo is present.
2. Configure Service Times before inviting check-ins.
3. Connect and test Church Email Settings. Coordinate automated email scheduling with the operator.
4. Connect the church's payment account under Online Giving Settings. Review funds, methods, and fee estimates, and test before announcing giving.
5. Assign only the staff access needed under User Logins. Verify emails and login status. Maintain another administrator before removing the last active administrator.
6. Review Public Check-in Kiosk Settings before using a shared device. Share the member signup link or QR code when ready.

Church administrators manage their congregation's account. The GPChurch operator separately manages platform hosting and new church provisioning.

Public church website

Open My Church → Church Website to visit your church's connected public site. Administrators use Public Website → Website Settings & Preview to edit branding, content, photos, and selected service times. Save a draft to keep changes private, preview them, and select Save & publish when ready. Preview links expire after 30 minutes. Enable Use Church Setup details and branding on this website to share your saved church name, short name, contact information, colors and logo. Later Church Setup changes appear automatically on a linked website. New tenant starter sites use this option by default; existing published sites keep their own details until you enable it. For separate website branding, uncheck that option, upload a logo, select it under Photos → Upper-left website icon / logo and publish. Choose Default church icon to restore the default.

Under Public Announcements, authorized event staff approve a separate website title, summary, dates, time, and location. Existing member announcements remain private until approved. Select attached photos under Photos shown on the website to include them, and optionally add public photo descriptions. Unselected attachments, comments, reactions, and authors stay private. Removing an attachment revokes its public photo. Member edits do not change the approved website version until it is republished. Use Remove from website to unpublish.

Administrators connect domains under Website Domains. Add the hostname, create its verification TXT record in DNS, and verify ownership. GPChurch receives an automatic notification when you add a domain and when its ownership is verified. Wait for the DNS instructions and confirmation that the domain is ready. Publish the website, then activate the verified hostname. The domain mapping selects the church; the member app remains at its own address.

GPChurch service billing

Users with Accounting access and church administrators open Accounting → GPChurch Billing to manage service payments. Platform assigns the billing owner who receives billing notifications.

Add payment method opens Stripe to collect card or bank details securely. Adding a method does not subscribe to services or authorize service charges. Use Manage payment methods to update the default method and billing details. GPChurch displays only the brand, last four digits and relevant expiry information.

Review Upcoming bills, current services and invoice history. Estimates are labeled; finalized invoices may include credits or adjustments. Choose an available service, review its recurring price and confirm automatic renewal before subscribing. Eligible services honor the remaining trial period. Stripe may require additional payment authentication.

Cancel renewal to end a service at the end of its paid or trial period; you can resume renewal before then. Cancellation retains church records and does not automatically refund earlier payments. Your owner and the GPChurch development team receive trial, payment-method, upcoming-charge and payment-result emails. Accounting users and administrators can still reach Billing after a trial or payment grace period expires.

11. Common questions

Read the Privacy Policy for data access and record requests and the Terms of Service for responsibilities.