RE: Who to be angry at!

[Dean Tregenza]

Title: Message

Tom,   I agree...   I use an online internet based - web interface tax office certified accounting system that uses plain english for my accounting. The company handles all my data protection (regular backups), maintains the software to accounting systems, I can get to it from any internet connected computer (which means I am not dependant on any one computer, my accountant can also get access, it has multiple user access, it is 'secure', blah blah blah...   The kicker... it costs me less per year than MYOB, AND they give discounts to charity/church organisations... I pay $295 per year incGST... I haven't got the latest price but even if it is only 10% off it is far cheaper than MYOB.   They can convert data from MYOB directly into it... it does pretty much everything MYOB does that a congregation really needs... including handle files from banks... PLUS because they are reasonably good friends... they will even personalise the web based interface (really easy, really cheap). Imagine a form based system specifically designed for people who don't understand accounting but do understand how to count the offering and bank it. Imagine the Synod being able to log on and generate their own report information rather than treasurers having to understand the forms...   Yes... as a former (tech savvy but non-accountant) congregation treasurer... plus a person who is on the tech team at a congregation that has to support the current system... I don't understand why MYOB was chosen... it is clunky, expensive, and hard for a non-accountant to understand. I don't know many small business operators who really understand it either.   It was something that is on my list to go to the NSW Synod BFP about... but since you raised the subject...   Shalom   Dean -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Stuart Sent: Friday, 6 August 2004 9:07 AM To: 'insights-l' Subject: Who to be angry at! Perhaps I should wait and try to understand this better but I’m not going to.  I’m going to spit it out.   In the place where I am one of the ministers all sorts of wonderful things are happening.  It is wonderful to just go along for the ride.  I feel like I’m surrounded by people touched by God (Well I guess that is the way always!).   Anyway, one of the things that is happening is that we are finding whole new ways of helping little village worship groups become places of real hope, and life, and faith.   One of the components of this is that we have tried to help these groups with the “admin” that is the painful part of the church these days.   So, (and it happens to be my uncle who is doing this) one of the members of a larger centre is being the treasurer for a small worship group.  They don’t have the skills for all that sort of stuff and we didn’t want them to be leg roped by administration.   Recently we purchased (actually the presbytery purchased) MYOB.  It was my uncle’s hope that he could do all the treasurer tasks he is doing on MYOB.  BUT MYOB has this thing where you have to register, not just the software as a single user, but the company (or in our case the congregation).  That means that for our 6 member congregations they would have to pay $500 each (actually $800 when you include the proprietary church stuff).   Now, I don’t like complaining about the “synod office vs out there in the world” divide because it is all too often just avoiding responsibility on the person doing the crowing, but I cannot understand why we have gone head first into an arrangement with MYOB that is clearly inaccessible to the vast majority of congregations out there who might want to use it.   Let me put it plainly, I’m crapped off.  There are enough obstacles out there for the church … why do we have to face one more?  The synod screams for the lack of money but the BFP just forces places that don’t have money either to go and spend a $1,000 (if you add training) on to the rest of the cash strapped church.   Where is the imagination?  Where is the consultation?  Where is the thinking for out there in the real world of congregational life?   Tom   [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.milman.uniting.com.au Ph: 6862 5502  Mobile: 0427 625 502 14 Bushman St Parkes NSW 2870   'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. I prefer to die living than to live dying! "War is a poor chisel with which to carve out the future." - Martin Luther King, Jr "There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."  Henry Ford