Empower questions from PowerChurch customers
These are the questions PowerChurch customers ask us most about Empower. If you don't see yours here, email support@powerchurch.com and we'll be glad to help.
Will PowerChurch Plus or PowerChurch Online go away?
No. We have no plans to phase out PowerChurch Plus or PowerChurch Online. Both are still offered, and new versions of PowerChurch are still being made. Empower is for churches that want a browser-based program.
What does PowerChurch have that Empower doesn't?
- Accounting: Empower doesn't have its own accounting yet. Churches can use Empower together with PowerChurch Online accounting.
- Room scheduling: this isn't available in Empower, and there's no date for it yet.
- The other modules: equipment inventory, sermon filer, education library, and music library aren't part of Empower.
Most membership features work much like they do in PowerChurch.
Can we keep our accounting in PowerChurch Online?
Yes. Your fund accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll all stay in PowerChurch Online. You use Empower for membership, contributions, and communication, and your contribution deposits flow from Empower into PowerChurch Online accounting.
Is Empower getting its own accounting?
Yes, we're building accounting into Empower. There's no release date yet. Until then, churches that use Empower can keep their accounting in PowerChurch Online.
We use accounts receivable for preschool billing. Can we still use Empower?
Yes. Keep using accounts receivable in PowerChurch Online for your billing, just as you do now, and use Empower for your people, contributions, and communication.
Does our accounting update when we change the account a fund posts to?
Yes. In Empower, each fund links to an income account in PowerChurch Online. If you change that account, Empower marks the affected deposits as out of date and posts a correcting entry to PowerChurch Online accounting.
Watch: Link a fund to a PowerChurch Online account
Can Empower track people through a series of classes?
Not as a built-in step-by-step workflow yet. Seeing who finished class one and class two but not class three is a common request, and it's on our development list. If you need this now, email support@powerchurch.com and we'll help you find a way to set it up with what Empower has today.
Can we put our church logo on contribution statements?
Not right now. You can add your church logo to the Empower sign-in screen.
How do Empower updates work?
Empower is updated regularly, and updates reach your church automatically. Because it runs in your web browser, there's nothing for you to download or install.
Can we try Empower with our own data?
Yes. Start a free 60-day trial at empowerchms.com. No credit card is needed. You can bring in your data from a standard PowerChurch backup when you set up your trial, and our team is glad to help. Anything you change during the trial doesn't affect your PowerChurch data.
Can we move back to PowerChurch after trying Empower?
Your PowerChurch data stays as it was, so you can keep using PowerChurch the whole time. There's currently no way to convert Empower data back into PowerChurch, so we recommend keeping PowerChurch up to date during your trial.
For a full tour of where things live, see Moving from PowerChurch to Empower.