Welcome and thank you for reading the Shepherd’s Staff Year-End Document!
CTS has created this document as a checklist to help you keep up with any possible tasks or reports you may need to complete before, during, or after the end of the calendar year.
This is not a list of everything you need to complete all at once to proceed to the next year in Shepherd's Staff. With the new rewrite, all modules operate based on dates you assign to records, not the entry date itself. For this reason, you can actually start preparing and completing some year-end tasks a few months prior, if you'd like.
Throughout this document, you'll find steps for different tasks, including links to other articles in our help center that will explain how to perform the task or run the report in more detail.
For your convenience, we have converted this web page into a printable PDF Year End Document at the bottom of this page. There may be some odd page breaks, where a heading lands at the end of a page.
If you prefer to browse year-end articles by module, feel free to visit our Year-End Resources.
We hope this document will help make sure your church gets the new year started right!
October-December Tasks
Some tasks can be done in Membership and Contributions as early as October or November if you'd like to lighten your workload during the busy Advent season and can be done in any order.
Membership
Update Membership Information
Throughout the year, your membership will experience different events in their life that you'll want to keep track of. If you haven't updated your Membership records yet, this is a good time to review your congregation's information and enter any changes to your database.
Some updates may include, but are not limited to:
Adding new person or household records
To add a new person or household,
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- On the lower edge of the window, click the Add button.
- If this is a brand new household, select "Create new household" and add in any household information you may have. If this is a person being added to a household that's already been created, select "Use existing household" and use the drop-down menu to select the household you want to add to.
- With your household selected, enter the person's first and last name, sex, position within their household, whether or not they are a member, and, optionally, a cell phone number. If the person is marked as a member, you'll also need to enter a received by reason, date received, and membership code.
- If you have additional information for this person to add, check the box "Go to edit window after save". Click the Save button to finish creating your record.
- If their person record appears, you can add additional information and click the Save button to save your changes.
Adding or editing address or contact information
To add or edit a household's address or phone number,
- Go into Membership and click Households to open the Households view.
- Use the search bar to find the household you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Edit button to open that household record.
- Under the Addresses tab, add or edit the address or address phone numbers as you need.
Click Household away 1 or Household away 2 to add additional addresses for the entire household (for example, snowbirds). Add a beginning and ending date for the time period when this address should be used. Mailing labels generated during this date range have the option to print the away address instead of the home address. Check the box if this time period repeats annually. - Click Save to save your changes.
To add or edit an away address or phone number for a single individual (but not the entire household),
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- Use the search bar to find the person you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Edit button to open that person's record.
- Under the Addresses tab, add or edit the address or phone numbers as you need. The Home address will be for the entire household, not just the individual. For this reason, you will need to click the pencil icon to allow for editing.
- Click Person away 1 or Person away 2 to add additional addresses for only that person (for example, children going to college or a spouse going to a nursing home). Add a beginning and ending date for the time period when this address should be used for this person. Mailing labels generated for this individual during this date range have the option to print the away address instead of the home address. Check the box if this time period repeats annually.
- If you are looking to edit a cell or work phone number for a person, navigate to the Contact tab instead.
- Click Save to save your changes.
Adding or editing personal or marital information
To add or edit personal or marital information for a person,
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- Use the search bar to find the person you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Edit button to open that person's record.
- Under the Personal Information tab, add or edit information as you need, including, but not limited to, their name, household position, marital status, wedding date, spouse's name, prior surname, death date, widowed date, and divorce date.
If someone's marital information changes, you may need to go into their household record and edit information located under Mailing Information for label names.
Adding or editing membership information
To add or edit membership information for a person,
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- Use the search bar to find the person you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Edit button to open that person's record.
- Under the Church tab, add or edit information as you need, including, but not limited to, their membership status, participation, membership code, Received by information, Removed by information, baptism information, and confirmation information. If a person is no longer a member, do not mark them as a non-member. Instead, add a removal reason and date to retain their former member status.
Moving person records into different households
If you need to move someone into a new or existing household,
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- Use the search bar to find the person you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Move button to open a pop-up window.
- In this window, use the drop-down menu under Intended household to choose an existing household or the plus sign next to the drop-down to add a new household to the database.
- Use the Household position drop-down to determine where this person belongs for their intended household.
- Click the Save button to complete that move.
Contributions
Enter Pledges
To avoid potential issues, it's a good idea to make sure you enter pledges before entering offerings for the new year.
To enter in next year's pledges,
- Go into Contributions and click Pledges to open the Pledges view.
- On the lower edge of the window, click the Add button.
- Used the drop-down menus to select the contributor name(s) and fund.
- Select or type the beginning and ending dates for the pledge.
- The next three fields depend on how you'd like to calculate your pledge.
- If you have the amount and frequency, enter that information and the Total Pledge field will calculate itself.
- If you have the total pledge and the frequency, enter that information and the Amount will calculate itself.
- If you only have the total amount pledged, you can add that to the Total Pledge field and choose "Full Amount" for frequency.
- If you need to add more pledges for this person, check the "Add multiple?" box.
- When you are finished, click the Save or Finish button.
If you have multiple pledges for the same fund, date range, amount, and frequency, you can click the Mass add button and select all contributors with that pledge.
Renumber Envelopes
After some contributors come and go, you may want to reassign some envelope numbers to better consolidate your numbering system. You can do this manually or use the available renumbering utility to rearrange your list of current contributors.
- Make a backup of your database.
- If you are currently on the most recent version of Shepherd’s Staff, please make sure you check for feature updates before using the renumbering utility. Techs have found a bug where skipped envelope numbers do not get reassigned and instead retains itself to the older record. If you renumber your envelope numbers without the latest feature pack for 8.9, you will need to assign or reassign skipped envelopes manually.
- Go into Contributions and go to the Contributors section.
- Look through your contributor list to find those who are no longer giving or are removed, and double-click the contributor you want to make changes to to open their contributor record.
- If you want a person to retain their current envelope number, check to “Skip this envelope when renumbering”.
- If you want to assign a person a six-digit envelope number to remove them from your main list of envelopes and free up their current envelope number for someone else, check “Does not use physical envelope”.
- If this person will no longer be giving to your church, check both to both free up their number and to avoid the possibility of them receiving a new number.
- Once all appropriate contributors are marked as being skipped for those who want to retain their number, or "Does not use physical Envelopes" for those who will not be receiving an envelope next year, you're ready to actually renumber the envelopes for the remaining contributors. To do this, click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access renumbering utilities.
- Under the Envelope tools section, choose Renumber Next Year envelopes and click the Start button.
- Assigning "does not use physical envelope" contributors envelopes with a high number is done to take them out of your currently used envelope numbers, while still leaving them in the system so that their offerings are not deleted.
In the new window that appears, only contributors not marked to be skipped will appear in the left column. From here, you can choose how you'd like to renumber your envelopes.
Renumber your envelopes manually
To renumber envelopes individually,
- Type in a new number into the Upcoming envelope number.
- Press the Enter key or click the Next button to move to the next envelope.
- Repeat the process all the way down your list of envelopes. If you ever need to go back to a previous contributor, you can select them from the list to the left or click the Previous button to navigate backward. A checkmark will appear next to any record with a change with the current number and the next number in parentheses.
- Once all your changes have been made, click the Save button to save your entries.
Renumber using the Autonumber utility
To use the auto number utility,
- Click the Auto-number button located near the bottom of the window.
- From here, you can select how you'd like your envelopes to be renumbered.
- The first option is to use the current envelope numbers for the upcoming envelope numbers. This will keep the numbers for current givers the same while freeing up those marked as being skipped.
- The second option is to keep the current envelope order but assign all numbers starting with the number you type into the Start with number field on the right of the pop-up window.
- The final option will reorder all contributor names alphabetically and assign all numbers starting with the number you type into the Start with number field on the right of the pop-up window.
- Click Continue to apply your choice and click Yes to confirm it.
- Check over your envelope changes for the list located on the left of the window. A checkmark will appear next to any record with a change with the current number and the next number in parentheses.
- Once all of your changes have been made, click the Save button to save your entries.
- Next year's envelope numbers will not replace the current envelope number until one additional utility is run after the year has ended.
Printing Envelope Box Labels
Once you have renumbered all of your envelopes, you can print off next year’s envelopes before switching them over.
To print next year’s envelope labels,
- Go into Contributions and go to the Other Reports tab.
- From the reports list to the left, choose Envelope box labels.
In the center section, use the Who drop-down menu or envelope range field to choose what envelopes you'd like to generate labels for. - Use the Style drop-down menu to select the label sheet style you prefer.
- With the Sort by drop-down menu, choose how you’d like your labels to be sorted.
- Choose which envelope number to use, either the upcoming or current envelope.
- In the Include section, use the checkboxes to include those normally excluded from label reports as well as other options. If you choose to add custom text on the last line of the label, type in your message in the field below the section.
- Adjust the font and scale if you need and click Print to see a print preview.
January Tasks
Contributions
Enter and post all Contribution offering batches for the year
First and foremost, you'll want to make sure all of your offerings batches for the year have been entered and posted to ensure your giving reports are all accurate.
Contribution Statements
Most likely the most important report to run in Contributions would be your contribution statements.
To print or email contribution statements,
- Go into Contributions and go to the Other Reports tab. The default selection on the reports list to the left will be Contribution Statements.
- In the center section, use the Who drop-down menu or envelope range field to choose what envelopes you'd like to generate statements for.
- Select or type the beginning and ending dates for your statements.
- If there are contributors with pledges, you can use the Term for "pledge" drop-down to choose a different term, if you'd like. If this is the case, choose Custom and type in the term you prefer.
- If showing pledges on your statements, you can choose the difference between what's been pledged and what's been given by using the Show difference as drop-down menu.
- Use the checkboxes to select the funds you want to include on your statements.
- Use the Giving filter drop-down to further trim those you are generating for, based on giving or pledged status.
- Use the Sort by drop-down to choose how you'd like your statements to be ordered.
- If you'd like, you can also add an IRS or thank you message to your statements, usually mentioning that donors did not receive any goods or services in return for any of their contributions. Use the drop-down menu to select any created messages to add to the statement.
- To edit an existing message, select the message from the drop-down and click the Pencil icon to open the message window. Make any changes you need and click Save.
- To add a new message, click the plus icon to the right of the drop-down menu to open the message window. Type in your message and click Save.
- To delete an existing message, select the message from the drop-down and click the Trashcan icon. Click Yes to confirm the deletion.
- In the Show section, use the checkboxes to choose what information you'd like to show on statements.
- In the Options section, use the checkboxes to select additional options or information to include.
- Directly under the Show section, you can also move margins, edit fonts, or adjust the scale as you need. Click the curved arrow to the right of the Scale drop-down menu to reset the font settings to their default settings.
- With your settings selected, you can use the action buttons located at the bottom right of the window to choose what to do with your statements.
- The Email button will open a view of your selected envelopes that have opted in to receive emailed statements. You will need to set up your local email settings to allow Shepherd's Staff to access your default email client.
- The Labels button will open a window for Mailing Labels, from which you can choose your label settings and print them out directly from this view.
- The Subgroup button will create a static subgroup of givers that fulfill the filter settings you've set up in this report.
- The Print button will open a print preview that allows you to see all statements and their information, send all statements to your printer, or allow you to export your statements to various file formats.
- The Save button will save your current settings to My Reports for your Contributions module. No other logins will see your custom reports.
Print all needed Reports
Giving by Month/Year
If your office is looking for giving totals or comparisons between months or years, this may be a report that may perk your interest.
To generate a giving comparison report,
- Go into Contributions and go to the Other Reports tab.
- From the reports list to the left, choose Giving by month/year/fund.
- In the center section, use the Who drop-down menu to choose what envelopes you'd like to include in the offering totals.
- Select or type the beginning and ending dates for your report.
- Use the checkboxes to select the funds you want to include on your report.
- Use the Format drop-down to determine what you want to compare.
- At the bottom of the window, you can edit fonts or adjust the scale as you need.
- With your settings selected, you can use the action buttons located at the bottom right of the window to choose what to do with your statements.
- The Print button will open a print preview that allows you to see all statements and their information, send all statements to your printer, or allow you to export your statements to various file formats.
- The Save button will save your current settings to My Reports for your Contributions module. No other logins will see your custom reports.
Giver Analysis
For comparisons between givers, the Analysis tab in Contributions can give various insights on:
Summaries
As opposed to the above views and their more detailed information, the Summaries tab shows various views on different trends found between funds, years, and contributors. This tab works as a replacement for canned reports from the previous version of the Contributions module, including Fund Summary.
Some examples include:
Start using Next Year's envelopes
Next year's envelope numbers will not replace the current envelope number until this utility is run.
This is a permanent process so it is highly encouraged that you have created a backup of your current database, entered all contributions for your previous year, printed contribution statements, and a list of your current envelope numbers before you run this utility.
To start using the next year's envelope numbers,
- Click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access renumbering utilities.
- Under the Envelope tools section, choose Start using the Next Year envelopes and click the Start button.
- Click Yes to confirm that you want to continue.
Attendance
Enter and post all attendance batches for the year
Like offering batches, you'll want to make sure all of your attendance batches for the year have been entered and posted to make sure your reports are accurate.
Print all needed Reports
Most likely, there won't be many reports from the Attendance module that you'll need to export or print. Some denominational reports in Membership will include information on average attendance depending on events chosen.
Some reports that may be relevant to some churches could be views or reports about individual attendance, attendance by event, or attendance summaries.
The Attendance tab of the Attendance module houses detailed records for individuals that allow for filtering using drop-down menus and search filters.
For more information on these views, please visit their respective articles linked below:
The Events tab offers information details on specific events by date or by year.
For more information on these views, please visit their respective articles linked below:
The Other Reports tab contains information based more on summarizing the details found in other tabs.
For more information on these views or reports, please visit their respective articles linked below:
Membership
Print all needed Reports
In the Membership module, you'll want to export or print any membership details relevant to your denomination.
CTS has reached out and corresponded with multiple denominations on exactly what they require in reporting from their churches. As such, specific denominational reports are available to help summarize that requested information to best encompass your church's activity.
To access these reports,
- Go into Membership and go to the Other Reports tab.
- In the report list to the left, select Statistics: Denomination-specific.
In the center section, use the drop-down menu to select the denomination that best describes your church.
For more information on these reports, please visit their respective articles linked below:
- Congregation Annual Report (LCMS)
- Congregation Statistics Report (WELS)
- Congregation Annual Report (ELCA)
- Presbyterian Statistical Report—PCA
- Presbyterian Statistical Report—PC/USA
- Southern Baptist Annual Report
- United Methodist Tables I, II & III Report
- Annual Church Ministries Report (ACMR)
- Youth List (LCMS)
Information not covered by these denominational reports can be found in the Church Statistics report. All data that was previously found in the former version’s Parochial Report, can be found in more detail here.
To access these reports,
- Go into Membership and go to the Other Reports tab.
- In the report list to the left, select Church Statistics.
- In the center section, use the Type drop-down menu to what data you'd like to report statistics on.
For more information on this report, please visit its respective articles linked below:
Finance
Check for updates
If you are currently using version 9.0, please make sure you check for feature updates before using the Year-end utility in the Finance module. There is a discrepancy where beginning balances were not calculating correctly that has since been corrected in feature pack 20231211.
For this reason, it is imperative for users to update to at least this release before closing their financial year in the rewritten Finance module to avoid incorrect beginning balances for the next year.
Ensure all transactions in Finance have been entered/voided/etc
Before running reports or closing out the fiscal year, you’ll want to make sure all checks, deposits, and journal entries for the year have been entered into your database. Leaving off any transactions will cause your end-of-year reports to be off.
It’s also perfectly alright to add transactions for the new year as well; if the date of the transaction is outside of a fiscal year, it will not affect that year’s balance.
Reconcile bank accounts as much as you can
Another administrative task you’ll want to verify is that all months of your ending fiscal year have been reconciled against your bank statement. It is not required to clear all transactions for the year, only that your reconciliations are as complete as possible.
Print all needed reports
Reporting your financial records accurately is important for starting the new year off right.
Though not extensive, the main reports you will want to make sure are printed and accurate include:
- Statement of Income and Expense (now divided between Income Statement and Treasurer's Report)
- Balance Sheet
- General Ledger Report
- Dedicated Account Reports (if applicable)
Close Finance Year
The Finance module is the only place in Shepherd’s Staff that requires a utility to be run in order to proceed to the next year.
Since this utility closes out the fiscal year, you will want to make sure all previous tasks have been completed and that all of your reports and account figures are correct. IF they are not, make any necessary changes and reprint your reports.
Once those figures and actions have been verified, you’ll then want to create a backup. Since all utilities in Shepherd’s Staff make permanent changes to your database, It is highly recommended that a backup of your database is created before any utility is run. After records are closed or purged, restoring a backup is most likely the only way to retrieve that lost data. For that reason, you can never have too many backups.
After the backup is completed and saved to a safe location,
- Click on the "Tools/Settings" tab in the Finance module, and then click on the radio button for "Close finance year 'XXXX'" where 'XXXX" is your current finance year, and then click "Start".
- A window will appear warning you to make a backup of your database. If you have already made a backup, click "Yes". If you have not made a back up yet, make a backup of your database, and then return to this window and click "Yes".
- A window will appear letting you know that you've advanced your finance year. Clicking OK will close the Finance module, and when you reopen the Finance module, you'll be in your new Finance year.
Optimize and Backup your Database
In addition to running a backup before running utilities, Shepherd’s Staff offers an optimization utility for one additional database check to make sure no data is corrupted for the beginning year.
The software may ask you to optimize every once in a while when you close. This is a good time to run that doublecheck. Or you can close the software and run an optimization when you reopen it again.
Whenever you are on the login screen for Shepherd’s Staff, click Utilities in the upper right of the window and select “Optimize this database” periodically.
As long as no one else is using Shepherd’s Staff at the time, you can optimize whenever with no problem and the process usually takes only a few seconds.
Check Information and Run Clean up utilities (optional)
Though it is not required by the system, you may feel the need to clean up or purge older records to either decrease the database size or allow for easier workflows.
It’s important to note that these utilities allow for permanent and irreversible deletion of records so not only will you want to make sure only the appropriate people have access to these utilities, but also to be careful with what data you want to purge.
For the sake of historical data, CTS recommends keeping at least five to ten years’ worth of data, of which most of our utilities abide by.
Membership
If you need to delete a person record with no attendance or contribution records attached,
- Go into Membership. The default view will be for Individuals.
- Use the search bar to find the person you want to update. On the lower edge of the window, click the Delete button to delete that record permanently. If there are any attendance or offering records attached to this record, you will not be able to delete the record. Instead, you will need to mark this person as removed under the Church tab within their person record and purge all of their information.
To purge records of people with a removed status (along with all of their membership, attendance, and offering records),
- Make a backup of your database if you haven't already
- Go into Membership and click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access purging utilities.
- Under the Tools section, choose Data Cleanup and click the Start button.
- Click Yes on the Backup reminder to continue.
- In the pop-up window, use the Removed by drop-down menu to select which removed by reasons you want to purge for.
- Choose the beginning and ending removal dates you want to purge.
- Click Next to continue.
If you'd like, click to Export or Print the record list of those you are purging. - Click Continue and click Yes to purge the listed records.
Attendance
If you have purged a person’s record using the Membership clean-up utility, their attendance records will be removed as well.
To purge attendance records,
- Make a backup of your database if you haven't already
- Go into Attendance and click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access purging utilities.
- Under the Tools section, choose Clean up your attendance data and click the Start button.
- In the pop-up window, check the box to “Delete all attendance detail records before XX/XX/XXXX?” This utility will only remove records older than 10 years.
- Click Continue to purge those records.
Contributions
If you have purged a person’s record using the Membership clean-up utility, their offering records will be removed as well.
To purge offering records,
- Make a backup of your database if you haven't already
- Go into Contributions and click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access purging utilities.
- Under the Tools section, choose Clean up your contributions data and click the Start button.
In the pop-up window, check the box to “Delete all pledges and offerings more than 10 years old”. - Click Continue and choose Yes to purge those records.
Finance
To purge financial records,
- Make a backup of your database if you haven't already
- Go into Finance and click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access purging utilities.
- Under the Tools section, choose Clean up your finance data and click the Start button.
In the pop-up window, check the boxes on what you'd like to permanently delete. - Click Continue and choose Yes to purge those records.
Scheduler
To purge scheduler records,
- Make a backup of your database if you haven't already
- Go into Scheduler and click the Tools / Settings tab. You will need to have Supervisor access in order to access purging utilities.
- Under the Tools section, choose Cleanup and click the Start button.
In the pop-up window, use the Event type drop-down menu to select which events you want to purge. - Choose the beginning and ending dates you want to purge.
- Click Next to continue.
If you'd like, click to Export the record list of those you are purging. - Click Continue and click Yes to purge the listed records.
FAQs
Do I really need to make a backup before completing the year-end process?
Yes. The best way to protect against any accidental data loss is to make a backup. A backup is your only method of recovery in case something goes awry. Consider backing up to a USB flash drive or storing your backups off-site.
I have renumbered envelopes in the Contributions module but the new envelope numbers did not take effect. Why did my envelope numbers not update properly?
Renumbering envelopes uses two separate utilities. The first one is the assign new numbers automatically which can be done before the end of the year. The second utility must be run before those new numbers go into effect.
Can I post offering batches for the New year if I have not finished everything for the prior year?
Yes, you can! You’ll just want to keep in mind if the new envelope numbers haven’t gone into effect yet, you want to make sure you are attributing offerings to the correct person. You may want to use contributor names during this time to avoid any possible mix-up.
Is it necessary to delete removed persons from my database, removing their records from Membership, Attendance and Contributions?
Whether or not to delete data during Year End in Membership is ultimately a question left up to each church. In some cases, it is convenient for a church to delete data related to all the people who have left the church. For other churches, it is just as important to keep records of those who are no longer active members of the church. Shepherd's Staff is flexible enough to work either way.
For historical purposes, it’s recommended to keep at least five years of data for Membership, Attendance, and Contributions.
My church has opted to not delete removed persons from our data. Now, when reports are run, the remove people keep showing up on my reports. How do I keep them off those reports?
It depends a little bit on the report being generated. On some reports, like the church directory or mailing labels report, there is a checkbox under Settings for the report labeled No Removed Persons. Marking that will keep all removed persons off the report. Some reports do not have this checkbox, but you can use a subgroup to keep removed people from appearing. Typically, this involves adding the criteria to a dynamic subgroup of Removed by is blank. which ensures that no one matching on the subgroup is marked as removed. If you need assistance creating or editing a dynamic subgroup to exclude removed persons, please contact Shepherd's Staff support. We'd be happy to help!
I am trying to print some of my monthly financial reports for the new year and they are not showing the correct balances. What is causing the balances to show incorrectly?
If the year-end process for the prior year has not been completed in the Finance module, users will not see any totals for the new year on the balance sheet report, dedicated accounts report, or the statement of income and expense report.
The treasurer has not closed the Finance module for the previous year. Can I still enter checks, deposits, and journal entries for the new year?
Yes, you can. Enter these transactions for the new year will not affect your balances for the previous year. The transactions will also show accurately on any reports for the new year once the year-end process is completed.
Year-End Checklist
October-December Tasks
- Membership
- Update Membership information
- Contributions
- Enter Pledges for next year
- Renumber next year's envelopes
- Print next year's envelope labels
January Tasks
- Contributions
- Enter and post all Contribution offering batches for the year
- Print all needed reports
- Make a backup
- Start using Next Year's envelopes
- Attendance
- Enter and post all Attendance records/batches
- Print all needed reports
- Membership
- Print all needed reports
- Finance
- Ensure all transactions in Finance have been entered/voided/etc.
- Reconcile bank accounts
- Print all needed reports
- Make a backup
- Run Year-End Utility
- Optimize and Backup your Database
- Check Information and Run Clean-Up utilities (if desired)