The Parish Guide to ChurchSuite
A plain-language guide for parishes getting started with ChurchSuite — from importing your contacts through to displaying events and sign-up forms automatically on your website.
Chapter 01
What is ChurchSuite and who is it for?
The parish management system built for churches
ChurchSuite is a cloud-based church management system used by thousands of Catholic, Anglican, and Free Church parishes across the UK. It brings together the core administrative tasks of parish life — contact records, events, rotas, giving, small groups, and communications — into a single, accessible platform that any member of staff or a designated volunteer can use from a browser or the ChurchSuite app.
It is not a website builder. It is not an email marketing platform. It is not an accounting package. ChurchSuite is the administrative backbone that sits behind your parish life — the place where you record who your parishioners are, what they are involved in, when things are happening, and how you communicate with them.
Who uses it in a parish?
ChurchSuite is designed for non-technical users. In a typical parish, you might have:
- A parish administrator managing contacts, events, and communications
- A parish priest using the app to view the week’s events and access contact details
- A rota co-ordinator managing ministers of the word, welcomers, or choir schedules
- A treasurer or gift aid officer recording donations and generating Gift Aid reports
- A small group leader managing attendance for a discipleship group or children’s liturgy
Each person can be given access to only the modules and data they need, so there is no risk of a volunteer accidentally editing records they should not see.
ChurchSuite and your website
One of ChurchSuite’s most powerful features is its public embed system. Events, sign-up forms, and giving widgets created inside ChurchSuite can be published directly onto your parish website — so information is managed once and appears everywhere automatically. This guide covers that integration in detail in chapters 08 and 09.
Chapter 02
Getting your account set up
Starting your trial
ChurchSuite offers a free trial. Visit churchsuite.com and register your parish details. You will be asked for your church name, denomination, and approximate congregation size. Once your account is created, you will receive login credentials for your ChurchSuite dashboard — a URL unique to your parish in the format yourparish.churchsuite.com.
Navigating the dashboard
When you first log in, you will see the main ChurchSuite dashboard. Along the left-hand side is the module navigation. The core modules most parishes use are:
| Module | What it does |
|---|---|
| Address Book | Stores all your contact records — individuals and households |
| Calendar | Creates and manages events, bookings, and sign-ups |
| Rotas | Schedules volunteers and sends automated rota notifications |
| Small Groups | Manages groups, attendance, and group communications |
| Giving | Records donations, processes online giving, and generates Gift Aid reports |
| My ChurchSuite | The self-service portal your parishioners can log into |
Setting your parish details
Before doing anything else, go to Settings → Account Settings and complete your parish profile: name, address, website URL, and contact email. This information appears on emails sent from ChurchSuite and on embedded public-facing elements, so it should be accurate from day one.
Adding your first users
Go to Settings → Users to add staff members and key volunteers. Each user is given a role that controls which modules they can access and whether they have read-only or full edit permissions. Keep administrator access limited to one or two trusted people, and create lower-permission roles for volunteers who only need to manage a specific area such as rotas or small groups.
Chapter 03
Importing your contacts
Why getting your contact data right matters
The Address Book is the foundation of everything in ChurchSuite. Events, rotas, giving records, and communications all link back to individual contact records. Investing time in a clean, well-structured import at the start will save hours of correction later.
Preparing your data for import
ChurchSuite accepts contact imports via CSV file. Before you export your existing data — whether from a spreadsheet, a previous system, or a paper register — standardise the following:
- Use one row per person, not one row per household
- Separate first name and last name into distinct columns
- Use a consistent date format for dates of birth (DD/MM/YYYY works well)
- Standardise phone number formats — remove spaces and country code prefixes for consistency
- Flag any records you are unsure are current — it is better to import fewer clean records than many inaccurate ones
Running the import
In the Address Book, go to Import → Import Contacts. Upload your CSV and use ChurchSuite’s column mapping tool to match each column in your file to the corresponding field in ChurchSuite. Pay particular attention to mapping the email address field correctly — this drives all future communications.
ChurchSuite will flag any rows with errors before completing the import, giving you the opportunity to fix them. It will also detect potential duplicates and ask you how to handle them.
Linking people into households
After importing, ChurchSuite can group individuals into households — particularly useful for families where you want to send one communication to the household rather than duplicates to each member. Go to Address Book → Households and use the merge tool to link individuals who share an address.
Tags and custom fields
ChurchSuite allows you to tag contacts with custom labels — for example, “Gift Aid donor”, “Children’s Liturgy family”, “Confirmation candidate”, “Housebound”. Tags can be applied in bulk after import and used to filter contacts for targeted communications later. Custom fields can store additional data not covered by ChurchSuite’s default fields, such as a parishioner’s home parish if they are a student or seasonal resident.
Chapter 04
The Address Book: managing people day to day
Searching and filtering contacts
The Address Book search bar supports name, email, phone number, and tag searches. For more complex filtering — for example, all contacts tagged “Confirmation candidate” who have an email address — use the Advanced Search function. Saved searches can be reused, making it easy to re-run a filter you use regularly.
Contact profiles
Each contact has a profile page showing their personal details, household links, tags, group memberships, giving history, rota assignments, and communication history. This gives whoever is managing the database a complete picture of a parishioner’s involvement in parish life — useful when a new administrator joins or when the parish priest wants context before a pastoral visit.
Keeping data current
Address book data decays quickly in a parish — people move house, change phone numbers, get married, have children. Build a habit of updating records promptly when you are informed of changes. ChurchSuite’s My ChurchSuite portal allows parishioners to update their own contact details directly, reducing the administrative burden on office staff.
GDPR and data handling
ChurchSuite stores personal data on UK-based servers and includes built-in tools to support GDPR compliance: consent recording, the ability to export a parishioner’s data on request, and the ability to delete a record entirely. Your parish should have a data protection policy that covers how ChurchSuite data is used, who has access, and how long records are retained. ChurchSuite’s own documentation includes a data processing agreement template suitable for parish use.
Chapter -05
Events: creating and managing your calendar
What the Calendar module does
The Calendar module is where you create and manage all parish events — from weekly Mass to a once-a-year parish day out. Each event can have a location, description, organiser, capacity limit, sign-up form, and ticketing. Events can be recurring (for example, a fortnightly home group), one-off, or multi-session (for example, a six-week RCIA course).
Creating an event
Go to Calendar → Add Event. Fill in the event name, date, time, and location. In the Description field, write a short summary suitable for public display — this text will appear on your website if you use the embed (covered in chapter 09). Set a capacity if numbers are limited, and enable sign-ups if you want people to register.
Recurring events
For events that repeat — a monthly adoration evening, weekly children’s liturgy — use the Repeat option when creating the event. You can set the recurrence pattern (daily, weekly, monthly) and an end date. Each occurrence appears separately in the calendar and can be individually edited if one week’s details differ from the pattern.
Sign-ups and ticketing
When sign-ups are enabled for an event, ChurchSuite generates a sign-up form that can be embedded on your website or shared as a direct link. Registrations are tracked in ChurchSuite against each person’s contact record, so you can see at a glance who has signed up, send reminders to those who have not, and export the attendance list.
Tickets can be free or paid. For paid tickets, ChurchSuite integrates with Stripe to process payments at the point of sign-up.
Managing bookings
Under each event in the calendar, you will find a Sign-ups tab showing all registrations. From here you can manually add or remove attendees, export the list as a spreadsheet, send a message to all registered attendees, and check in attendees on the day using the ChurchSuite app.
Chapter 06
Rotas: scheduling your volunteers
What the Rotas module does
The Rotas module automates the scheduling of parish volunteers — ministers of the word, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, welcomers, music groups, sacristans, children’s liturgy leaders, and any other regular ministry. Once set up, ChurchSuite can email volunteers their upcoming slots automatically, handle swap requests, and flag when a slot is unfilled.
Setting up a rota
Go to Rotas → Add Rota. Give the rota a name (for example, “Sunday 9am — Ministers of the Word”), set the frequency, and add the roles involved (for example, “First Reading”, “Second Reading”, “Bidding Prayers”). Then add your pool of volunteers to each role — you can search the Address Book to find and add people.
Auto-scheduling
Once your rota is configured with volunteers and roles, ChurchSuite can auto-schedule a period of dates — typically one to three months at a time. The auto-scheduler distributes slots evenly, respects any unavailability windows set by volunteers, and avoids scheduling the same person for two roles on the same date. You can review the auto-generated rota before publishing it.
Notifying volunteers
When a rota is published, ChurchSuite can automatically email each volunteer their upcoming slots. Reminder emails can be sent in the days before a commitment. Volunteers can log into My ChurchSuite to view their rota, mark themselves as unavailable for specific dates, or request a swap — reducing the volume of messages your rota co-ordinator has to handle manually.
Embedding the rota on your website
Rotas can be embedded on your parish website using the same embed system as events (see chapter 09). A publicly visible rota — for example, the list of readers for the coming Sunday — allows parishioners to check their slot without needing to log into ChurchSuite. Access can be restricted so that each volunteer only sees their own upcoming commitments.
Chapter 07
Giving and donations
Recording donations in ChurchSuite
The Giving module allows you to record all parish income against individual contact records. This is particularly important for Gift Aid: HMRC requires a clear audit trail linking each donation to a named individual who has made a valid Gift Aid declaration. ChurchSuite maintains this trail automatically as you enter donations.
Setting up Gift Aid
Go to Giving → Gift Aid Settings and enter your parish’s HMRC Charities Reference Number. When a parishioner makes a Gift Aid declaration — whether on paper, by email, or through the ChurchSuite online giving form — record this in their contact profile under the Giving tab. ChurchSuite will then include their donations in Gift Aid claims and generate the R68 spreadsheet in the format HMRC requires.
Online giving
ChurchSuite’s online giving widget can be embedded on your parish website (see chapter 09), allowing parishioners to make one-off or regular donations by card. Payments are processed via Stripe and appear automatically in the Giving module against the donor’s contact record. The widget can be configured to show specific funds — for example, a building appeal alongside the regular collection — and it captures Gift Aid declarations at the point of payment.
Generating reports
The Giving module includes built-in reports for total income by period, income by fund, donor summaries, and Gift Aid claim preparation. These can be exported as spreadsheets for your treasurer or independent examiner. For parishes that use a separate accounting package, ChurchSuite’s giving data can be exported in formats compatible with most common tools.
Chapter 08
Connecting ChurchSuite to your website
Why this integration matters
Without a connection between ChurchSuite and your website, you are managing information in two places — and the two will inevitably fall out of sync. An event created in ChurchSuite needs to be manually copied to the website. A sign-up form change needs to be updated in both systems. A cancelled event might be removed from ChurchSuite but forgotten on the website.
When ChurchSuite is properly connected to your website, you manage everything once — in ChurchSuite — and it appears on your website automatically. Your web administrator never needs to touch an events page again.
How ChurchSuite connects to external websites
ChurchSuite provides a public-facing API and a set of embeddable JavaScript widgets. These allow any website — regardless of what CMS it is built on — to pull live data from your ChurchSuite account and display it on a web page. The data is always current: when you update an event in ChurchSuite, the change appears on your website within seconds, with no action required from your web team.
API keys and access tokens
To connect your website to ChurchSuite, you will need an API key. Go to Settings → Integrations → API in your ChurchSuite dashboard. Click Add Application, give it a name (for example, “Parish Website”), and select the data modules it should have access to — typically Calendar and, if required, Giving and Rotas. ChurchSuite will generate a key. Copy this and pass it to your web developer or, if you are using Expanse CMS, enter it in the Expanse integration settings.
| Data you want on your website | ChurchSuite module to enable in the API key |
|---|---|
| Upcoming events list | Calendar (read) |
| Event sign-up forms | Calendar (read + write) |
| Online giving widget | Giving (read + write) |
| Rota display | Rotas (read) |
| Small group sign-ups | Small Groups (read + write) |
Expanse CMS and ChurchSuite
If your website is built on Expanse CMS, the ChurchSuite integration is handled at the platform level. In your Expanse admin panel, navigate to Settings → Integrations → ChurchSuite and enter your API key. Expanse will verify the connection and begin pulling your event data automatically. No custom code is required. The integration is maintained and updated by the Expanse platform team — if ChurchSuite updates its API, your integration continues to work without any action on your part.
Other platforms
If your website is built on WordPress, ChurchSuite provides an official WordPress plugin that handles the embed connection. For other platforms, your web developer can integrate using ChurchSuite’s JSON API directly. ChurchSuite’s developer documentation is available at developer.churchsuite.com.
Chapter 09
Displaying events and sign-up forms on your website
The ChurchSuite embed system
Once your website is connected to ChurchSuite via the API, you can place live data from ChurchSuite on any page of your website using embeds. An embed is a short piece of code — typically a single line — that you drop into a page, and ChurchSuite handles the rest. The data displayed is always live: it reflects whatever is currently in your ChurchSuite account.
Embedding an events list
The most commonly used embed is the events list — a display of your upcoming ChurchSuite calendar events. In Expanse CMS, this is added by inserting a ChurchSuite Events block on any page. In WordPress using the ChurchSuite plugin, use the [churchsuite_events] shortcode. The embed supports filtering by category, so you can show only public events, or only events tagged with a specific label (for example, “Youth” or “Sacramental Preparation”).
The appearance of the events list is controlled by your website’s stylesheet, not by ChurchSuite. This means it will match your site’s design automatically — you are not embedding a ChurchSuite-branded widget, but your own site’s event styling powered by ChurchSuite data.
Embedding a sign-up form
When you create an event in ChurchSuite with sign-ups enabled, ChurchSuite generates a sign-up form. This form can be embedded directly on your website — either on a dedicated event page or inline within an event listing. Registrations submitted through the embedded form appear immediately in ChurchSuite against the event, with the registrant matched to their existing contact record if one exists.
Embedding the online giving widget
The ChurchSuite giving widget can be embedded on any page of your website — typically a dedicated Donations or Support Us page. The widget handles the full payment journey, including Gift Aid declaration, card processing via Stripe, and email confirmation to the donor. Transactions appear in your ChurchSuite Giving module automatically.
Customising what is displayed
All embeds support parameters that control what data is shown. Common parameters include:
| Parameter | What it controls | Example |
|---|---|---|
num | Number of events to display | Show the next 5 events |
category | Filter by event category | Show only “Youth” events |
featured | Show only events marked as featured in ChurchSuite | Homepage highlights |
date_start | Only show events from a given date | Advent season listing |
signup | Show only events with sign-ups enabled | Bookable events page |
In Expanse CMS, these parameters are set through the block settings panel — no code editing required. In WordPress, they are passed as shortcode attributes.
Chapter 10
Keeping ChurchSuite healthy: admin, training, and best practice
The most common problems — and how to avoid them
Most ChurchSuite problems stem from the same root cause: inconsistent data entry. When different people add contacts, events, or donations in different formats, the database becomes difficult to search, reports become unreliable, and the website begins to show incorrect or missing information. The solution is a simple set of agreed standards that everyone with admin access follows.
| Common problem | Prevention |
|---|---|
| Duplicate contact records | Always search before adding a new contact; run the duplicate report quarterly |
| Events not appearing on the website | Check the event is marked as Public in ChurchSuite; check the event category matches the embed filter |
| Sign-up form not working | Check that sign-ups are enabled and the capacity has not been reached; check the API key has write access to Calendar |
| Out-of-date contact details | Encourage parishioners to use My ChurchSuite to self-update; review bounced emails monthly |
| Gift Aid claim errors | Ensure every donation is linked to a named contact with a valid declaration before claiming |
Training new users
ChurchSuite’s own Help Centre (support.churchsuite.com) is comprehensive and well-maintained. For each new user, share the specific help articles relevant to their role rather than overwhelming them with the full documentation. A short, parish-specific cheat sheet — covering the three or four tasks that user will perform most often — is more effective than a full training session for most volunteers.
Regular housekeeping tasks
Set a reminder for the following tasks on a regular basis to keep your ChurchSuite account in good order:
- Monthly: Review bounced email addresses and update contact records; check for events past their end date that are still showing as public
- Quarterly: Run the duplicate contacts report and merge any duplicates found; review user access and remove accounts for anyone who has left a role
- Annually: Audit contact tags for accuracy; review which contacts have not engaged with any communications in the past 12 months and consider whether their records are still current; renew Gift Aid declarations where required
Getting support
ChurchSuite’s support team is available by email and live chat during UK business hours. Response times are generally fast, and the team is experienced with the specific patterns of parish administration. For technical issues with how ChurchSuite data is appearing on your website, contact your web developer or — if your site is on Expanse CMS — the Expanse support team, who manage the integration layer and can diagnose display issues directly.