Our client, 3Crosses has been with Regpack since 2015. They initially came to Regpack to help manage registration for their summer camp, and have grown to use Regpack for their winter camp and annual fall Disneyland trip.
While they love all of the traditional registration tools Regpack has to offer, the ability to manage both automatic and manual payments, as well as a variety of discounts and scholarships is really how Regpack helps them manage their programs.
Below I talked with Amy, admin for 3Crosses Student Ministry, about how she is using Regpack to manage registration and why she loves it!
Tell me a bit about 3 Crosses and what you were using for registration before Regpack?
I am the admin for our student ministries at 3Crosses Church.
We take almost 300 kids to summer camp every year. We don’t run the camp, but we get our students to that camp.
We used our normal church database to manage camp registration before Regpack but it had a lot of limitations. We made it work but every year we were getting more and more students, and not only did we have a high cost of camp, we also have lots of ways for kids to fundraisee and deduct money from their camp bill.
We really wanted a way for them to be able to make payments monthly rather than all at once.
When I came on, we were using a different database for camp. So we launched camp registration using that software and after that, I realized it wasn’t going to do all these things we needed it to do. In a weeks time, the Youth Pastor and I tried to find as many options as we could that were out there. Not church related, just anything that does registration.
We found Regpack and I talked to Edgar and Carina. And I just said to them, “Hey, I’ve got 150 people registered for camp and I need to move them to you! What we haven’t isn’t working.” We built it and I’ve been with you guys ever since.
It was a great find!
What sold you on Regpack?
The automatic payments ability. The manual payment ability. And the discount deductions that I can do on an ongoing basis over the course of 5-6 months. Having clients login themselves and make payments on their own with a manual payment is also a plus.
I loved that Regpack gave them options. For those campers who want to do the monthly payments, it will happen automatically. And then for those who do fundraising, we can do campership (scholarship) deductions, and apply that to their balance.
It’s not that you couldn’t do those deductions in the other software or our original church software database, but it was messy and ugly and would get really confusing when you looked at it. You almost had to guess what you had done.
I don’t think I knew about all the email features in Regpack and statuses available to me. I love all of that stuff now, but that isn’t what sold me initially. I knew I could run reports, but the major selling factor was automatic monthly payments and logging manual payments.
How has the automation of payments helped save you time?
I could not find any system that would let me automate payments.
A few software options I did find were no comparison to Regpack. I knew that if we were looking for a new software, Regpack was it.
I started asking other people who are similar to us, other churches that attend the same camp as we do, about what they do. They said they just do registration manually on paper and with a spreadsheet. I thought, how on earth can they do that? But I think they are just taking 1 payment and don’t have the fundraising ability like we offer at our church.
You recently signed up for our annual plan. Was there a specific reason you made the switch?
Since we joined with you in 2013, we moved from one church database to a new database. And there were all these promises that it will make registration so much better for all of our smaller events. It was worse!
We do a Disneyland trip in the fall and when it came time to start planning that trip, there was just no way I could use the new church software. I couldn’t even put a discount in the system, I couldn’t do anything.
At the same time, I saw annual plans now come with free additional projects. So it just worked out, both for our Disneyland trip and our family camp. They start registration pretty early, so I launched a whole other ministry in our church using Regpack.
Switching to the annual plan ended up being a win-win and helped us save money as well.
Our old system wasn’t flexible, and with Regpack I can do what I need to do. Regpack is just so powerful!
You are just a 1 person team. How does Regpack help you save time and manage your tasks?
With the features Regpack has for emailing, template emails and more – it’s been great to modify what I need and send them out. That saves a ton of time.
I didn’t say this earlier, but I could tell Regpack would save me a lot of time in the whole registration process even in 2015 compared to what the other systems could do for me.
We take the money for the camp, but they also have to register and fill out the online forms for the actual camp – so I use stars in Regpack to track whether I sent each applicant the email about completing the camp’s forms, and then did they submit it, did they complete it but not send it, etc. That saves me a ton of time as well. As we get closer to camp starting, I can sort by those stars and reach out to camper’s who still have outstanding items.
The ability to make comments on each user I really love as well. If they haven’t made a payment or deposit, I can put that note. For example, if I tried calling but they didn’t get back to me I can make a note of that.
The other thing I really love, is that when an applicant logs on and creates a profile, I can see that. I can see their progress and it gives me a chance to follow up with applicants and check in with them on their application. I really love that feature because with our church system, we can’t see those details. We can either see that you submitted your application or nothing at all.
Would you recommend Regpack and if so, why?
I know the two big databases out there that help churches and I know neither of them will get your kids to camp the way Regpack will and help you, as an admin, do it.
If someone needs a software for automatic payment processing, Regpack is a no-brainer. Fellowship One doesn’t do it, CCB (Church Community Builder) doesn’t do it. Those are two database systems in the church world that I’m very familiar with. And they just can’t even do what Regpack does.
I’m sure we get charged a hefty penny to use our current church management software. And Regpack is inexpensive in the grand scheme of things.
If you are using any other church database system and you’re asking yourself why can’t it do what I want it to do, Regpack will do it. When it comes to registration for anything, if you can’t see it happening in your current church database, Regpack will do it and blow your mind.