Parish Data System (PDS) Releases Version 5.1 with DioView, DioView Server, and QuickBooks Interface

Contact: Lauren Hunter, 916-838-2184, lauren@laurenhunter.net

FLORENCE, South Carolina, May 16 /Christian Newswire/ -- Parish Data System (PDS), the best-selling Catholic Church software provider, announces version 5.1 with financial solutions that combine reporting tools for parishes with an application for the diocese to receive and consolidate reports for simplified review, filtering, and analysis. The release of the PDS Financial Solution™ includes two new products, DioView™, and DioView Server™, along with project management, solution consulting, and training. Other enhancements to the financial suite of products include Ledger™, Ledger/Payroll™, QuickBooks™ Interface and Forms and Supplies. Facility Scheduler has also been improved to better meet the needs of an active parish, campus, or diocese.

PDS Ledger™

PDS Ledger™ provides a complete accounting solution designed to manage chart of account (COA) transactions and financial reporting for parishes. The latest upgrades enable contribution totals to be extracted from Church Office™, School Office™ or Formation Office™ without logging into those programs. Other enhanced features include the ability to zoom in on listing screens for a larger view and easier reference, and colorized Actuals and Budget windows to be more easily recognizable.

“We anxiously anticipate the release of Ledger with every upgrade. The program maintains the user-friendly format while enhancing the program to a higher level of efficiency and productivity,” comments Marge Borders, administrative assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes in Louisville, Kentucky.

PDS Ledger/Payroll™

PDS Ledger/Payroll provides all the features of PDS Ledger but with a complete payroll function. These features aid parishes and schools to better track employee expenses and reports as well as calculating federal, state and local taxes. To complement existing payroll procedures, version 5.1 provides users the ability to accrue vacation and sick time and features access to a new 944 form designed to assist with simplifying the payroll reporting process.

PDS Financial Solution™

The PDS Financial Solution provides the ability to receive accurate data faster so that managers can focus on analysis efforts instead of gathering data. With DioView, users have the capability to consolidate, review and filter their COA information and export that data to an Excel format for further integral analysis of a specific account. DioView provides a diocese with the ability to identify and address financial issues proactively. With the Financial Solution, parish COA information in PDS Ledger, Ledger/Payroll, QuickBooks Pro or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions is mapped and uploaded to the diocesan master COA in DioView. The labor and time savings result in faster year-end closing. As a result of the increased efficiency, data can be gathered more frequently, consolidated, or kept separate. The application is available as an OnDemand offering, which provides secure access from any Internet-capable device.

DioView Server is the staging mechanism to which parishes submit financial data from PDS Ledger, Ledger/Payroll, QuickBooks Pro or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for dioceses to collect. DioView Server connects with DioView at the diocese to upload parish COA information to the diocesan master COA. DioView Server is a hosted Internet offering from PDS and allows churches and the diocese a secure address for the exchange of files.

QuickBooks Interface

The QuickBooks Interface is a program from PDS that installs on and works with existing QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions applications to produce a file suitable for uploading COA information to DioView via DioView Server. The user works with the QuickBooks application as usual and then selects the menu option to transfer data to the diocese during month-end close or other regular reporting periods.

Forms and Supplies

The PDS Forms and Supplies service provides items such as checks and check scanners that are guaranteed to be compatible with PDS software. This feature is particularly useful for parishes or dioceses that process a large number of checks and can improve processes by providing peripherals designed to address such issues.

Director of Office Information Services for the Archdiocese of Louisville, Lori Massey, explained, “We worked with PDS to develop our ideas about how to improve our pledge process. PDS was able to provide us with bar-code scanners and worked with us to test the process of scanning in our pledge cards as part of the input process.”

Facility Scheduler

To better manage your facilities and have up-to-date records of all meetings and events that take place at your parish or diocese—from room use to event use—Facility Scheduler is a tool that can turn monumental tasks into basic ones. Enhancements include:

• Extracting member information from Church Office, School Office or Formation Office to set a facility, organization or event package.
• Liturgical calendar dates automatically added to the Special Days list.
• New ability to track mass intentions and improved scheduling for masses.
• New reminder for the day of the event.
• Improved help for creating and printing reports.
• Better control of keyword changes through password access.

“The Facility Scheduler has made a considerable impact on my position as secretary in that it saves so much time compared to manual entry of event scheduling. I do not possess a great deal of computer knowledge, but this program was very easy to learn and is very user-friendly,” comments Polly Gillespie of St. Stephen Martyr parish in Louisville, KY.

Diocesan Services

To deliver the successful implementation of its Financial Solution, PDS has developed a set of services to assist with this transition. PDS representatives work with the diocese to develop an individualized plan that meets their objectives including the needs and considerations for specific parishes. The services include:

• Hosting Services to provide Internet access to applications at the parish, school or diocese.
• Implementation Services that include project management, training and consulting to obtain parish and diocese goals. These services are offered by PDS trained and certified implementation specialists.
• Backup and Recovery Services utilizes Livestor™ to perform secure scheduled backups according to customized criteria. Data is then stored to a PDS location away from your office.

About Parish Data System

Since 1978, Parish Data System (www.parishdata.com) has been the leading developer of Catholic management software solutions by meeting the needs of more than 8,000 parishes, schools and dioceses worldwide. In 2004, PDS joined forces with another church management software leader, ACS Technologies, combining strengths and staff to offer the industry's best support and training along with the broadest line of church management software solutions. PDS software is used by many of the parishes in dioceses throughout the United States, making it the top choice for Catholic management software and services. PDS continues to develop new technology solutions that aim to enable accurate data management, increase communications, and empower growth within Catholic organizations.