“I wish we had never left KidCheck.” That is how Brian Jones felt after trying the check-in application associated with the church management system (ChMS) Grace Baptist Church uses.

Jones is the Assistant Pastor and Children’s Director at Grace Baptist Church, located in Wilmington, North Carolina. As with many churches, priorities for their children’s ministry department include child safety, efficient processes and systems, communication with families, and responsibly spending limited funds.

A Regretted Change

After many years of using and loving KidCheck for their check-in, in an effort to perhaps save some money, Jones decided to move to the check-in component available as part of their ChMS. They soon realized children’s check-in was not a key focus for the management system and using it created more challenges than provided benefits.

Per Jones, “After just a few weeks, we realized this was a huge mistake. Every week, we found ourselves missing the features and options of KidCheck more and more.” Additionally he shared, “We also felt we were putting the safety of our kids at risk to save a few dollars.”

When asked, what does KidCheck have the ChMS check-in doesn’t, Jones answered, “So many things!”

KidCheck Wins on Child Safety

Regarding child security, Jones noted, “The main thing that drew us back to KidCheck was the safety of our children. We felt the system we switched to did not do enough to keep our children safe.” KidCheck is built with a focus on safety and incorporates multiple elements and features throughout the entire system including front end parent facing, around volunteers and workers, and back end for church administrators.

Jones pointed out some specific examples around child safety items missing with the ChMS that he appreciates from KidCheck. For example, the picture on the worker tags to help identify who workers are. Per Jones, “This is a crucial aspect of our kids’ safety. It quickly identifies those who are workers and really helps put visitors at ease.”

Additionally, to ensure safety associated with volunteers and staff, with KidCheck only the people an administrator allows to be a worker can check in as such. With the ChMS, Jones found, “Any adult who had created an account, which was every adult who wanted to connect with our church, could print themselves a worker tag. This led to people checking in as certified workers who had never passed a background check.” That presented a huge safety risk, not to mention increased liability for the church.

Jones also “loves how easy it is to be aware of allergies in KidCheck” with the black bar on the child name tag. Jones explained, “The other solution listed allergies, but it was in very small print and you had to look for it. KidCheck makes it so much easier for the teachers to notice and check the tag for allergies.”

In addition to allergies, KidCheck has other icons designating important information that can be seen at-a-glance on the label. There is an icon showing if an unauthorized guardian is on the child’s account, which lets staff know extra caution may be necessary at check-out to ensure the child is only released to someone authorized to pick up. Another is a photo permission icon, so staff immediately knows just by looking at the name tag if a parent has requested no photos of their child be taken or used. There is also the word “guest” to designate first time visitors. Plus there’s the fun birthday cake icon about which Jones stated, “This helps me so much when I am dismissing kids to make them feel special by wishing them a happy birthday, and they LOVE seeing the cake on their name tag.”

KidCheck Delivers More Features and Better Ease-of-Use

In terms of features and ease of use, Jones found the alternative to KidCheck lacking here as well. There were multiple issues that complicated processes, took up precious time that could have been spent serving families, and created a lot of frustration and extra work. With how busy children’s ministry is software needs to be easy-to-use and make life simpler.

For example, the fact that any adult could check in as a worker threw off Grace Baptist’s numbers because many people did it accidentally or others didn’t change it. As a result, Jones shared, “I had to go through all the names every week to check to make sure the numbers were correct.”

Another key reason they returned to KidCheck is the Admin Console App, which according to Jones “is a wonderful feature!” Jones elaborated, “In the other system it was very cumbersome and time consuming if I wanted to check if a child was checked in or if I needed to see who was there. I had to log onto their website and navigate through until I got to the correct page.” KidCheck’s Admin Console app is available on any computer or smart device and allows administrators to quickly, easily, and directly get that information and do so much more.

With the ChMS check-in, even basic Sunday morning set-up was challenging and having multiple check-in service options was not an option. With KidCheck, Grace Baptist can set up different templates for Sunday School and Worship Service, have the ability for people to check into these different templates, and keep separate attendance for each. With the ChMS, Jones was frustrated because “there was only one check-in time allowed for Sunday morning and it was tied to our church calendar so we were unable to set up two check-in times for people to check into both at the same time.” To make matters worse, Jones explained, “Also, since the check-in was tied into the whole church system, whenever anything was added to the calendar, the person adding it had to click on the registration page and turn off the check-in option for kids. ” That alone was less than ideal, but it also resulted in “too many times we had people selecting the wrong event to check into because the check-in was not turned off.”

Even communication was cumbersome. Communicating quickly and easily with families from right within the check-in system is imperative. For example, Jones missed how KidCheck allows emails to be sent to parents who have checked their kids in over a range of dates. Per Jones, “I use this feature all the time.” He elaborates, “With the other system, I think there might have been, kind of, a way to do this, but it involved so many steps I could never quite figure it out.”

Happy to Be Back

After experiencing the issues associated with the check-in component of a ChMS, since the check-in module is often an afterthought, Jones and Grace Baptist are thrilled to be using KidCheck again. Regarding the decision to return Jones shared, “After talking it over with several parents, we decided to switch back to KidCheck. KidCheck made it very easy to come back as all our information was still there.” He summed it up again, “I wish we had never left KidCheck!”