# Temple Church Management — AI Skill **Last updated: 4 September 2026.** Download the current version any time from templeadmin.com/temple-skill.md, or from the **Download AI Skill** button on the user guide at templeadmin.com/guide. ## How to use this file Give it to any AI assistant so that it knows Temple as well as our support team does. Then ask it anything: "how do I track first-time visitors?", "write a broadcast telling members about our campaign", "why can't my accountant see the giving page?". - **Claude (claude.ai):** create a Project, add this file under *Project knowledge*, and ask your questions in that project. Or paste the whole file into a chat and ask. - **ChatGPT:** attach the file to a conversation, or add it to a custom GPT's knowledge. Or paste it in. - **Gemini, Copilot and others:** paste the file into the conversation before your first question. Ask in your own words. The assistant can answer "where do I find…", give step-by-step instructions, explain what each plan includes, draft emails and SMS in Temple's voice, and tell you when something is on a higher plan than yours. **Inside Temple** there is also a built-in assistant (Growth and Enterprise): press **Cmd/Ctrl + K** anywhere in the dashboard, type a question, and choose *Ask*. It knows your church's context and can jump you to the right page. --- ## What is Temple? Temple is a cloud church management platform (ChMS) at **templeadmin.com**, built by SyntaxReady. It covers people and pastoral care, attendance and check-in, giving and finance, events and forms, communication (email and SMS), automations, discipleship, training, announcements and a member portal — for one church or a multi-campus organisation. - Sign in with email and password, or **Continue with Google** (sign-in, sign-up, accepting an invitation and claiming a record all support it). - Each church has a short **slug**. Dashboard pages live at `templeadmin.com/c//…`, the member portal at `templeadmin.com/portal/`, and the public profile at `templeadmin.com/p/`. - Every church sets its own **timezone**, **currency** and **country** (Settings → Organization). Dates such as service dates, birthdays and tax years are always in the church's own timezone. --- ## Plans and pricing | Plan | USD / month | CAD / month | NGN / month (Nigeria, via Paystack) | Best for | |------|-------------|-------------|-------------------------------------|----------| | **Free** | $0 | $0 | ₦0 | Getting started | | **Starter** | $29 | $39 | ₦5,000 | Small churches up to 250 members | | **Growth** | $69 | $89 | ₦12,000 | Growing churches up to 1,000 members; AI, automations, integrations | | **Enterprise** | $179 | $249 | ₦30,000 | Large or multi-campus organisations | Billing is monthly by card through Stripe (USD or CAD) or Paystack (Naira). A church can upgrade, downgrade or cancel from **Settings → Finance & Credits**. Platform admins can also extend a trial or set a plan by hand. ### Limits by plan | Limit | Free | Starter | Growth | Enterprise | |-------|------|---------|--------|-----------| | Members | 50 | 250 | 1,000 | Unlimited | | Team members (staff logins) | 2 | 5 | 15 | Unlimited | | Storage | 50 MB | 2 GB | 10 GB | 10 GB | | Giving transactions / year | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Active forms | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Form responses (total) | 200 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Active events | 3 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Attendance records / year | 500 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Tax receipts / year | 25 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Limits are enforced at the moment you try to exceed them, with an upgrade prompt. Existing data is never removed when a limit is reached. Team **invitations and roles work on every plan** — only the number of active team members is limited. ### Included monthly communication credits | Plan | SMS / month | Email / month | |------|-------------|---------------| | Free | 0 | 0 | | Starter | 200 | 2,000 | | Growth | 500 | 5,000 | | Enterprise | 1,500 | 10,000 | - Every new church receives **50 SMS + 200 email credits once**, at sign-up, on any plan. - Included monthly credits are granted at the start of each billing month and **do not roll over**. - **Naira (Nigeria) plans are pay-as-you-go**: they carry no monthly allotment, and messages come from Naira-priced credit packs. - Inbound SMS replies are free. Top-up packs (below) stay usable for 12 months after purchase. ### Support | Plan | Support | Response | |------|---------|----------| | Free | Community and documentation | Best effort | | Starter | Email | 48 hours | | Growth | Priority email, video tutorials | 24 hours | | Enterprise | Dedicated support, phone, email, Slack | 4 hours, with SLA | Contact: **contact@syntaxready.com**. --- ## Feature availability by plan | Feature | Free | Starter | Growth | Enterprise | |---------|------|---------|--------|-----------| | People directory, households, care notes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Attendance, live check-in, QR and public self check-in | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Giving records, funds, pledges, expenses | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Online giving (Stripe or Paystack) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Events, forms, scheduling, resources | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | SMS broadcasts (credit-based) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Discipleship (Reach 12) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | First-timer tracking and follow-up | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Weekly celebrations digest, admin reminders | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Community Marketplace (Converge) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Bulk email broadcasts | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Scheduled broadcasts | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Recurring giving | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Digital kids registration and pickup codes | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | First-timer assignment (staff owner + emails) | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Testimonies (member feed with moderation) | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Data export (CSV/Excel), attendance reports, scheduled report emails | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Generated e-signatures on forms | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Announcements (flyer upload, PowerPoint import, slide builder) | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Giving campaigns (crowdfunding-style) | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Academy (courses, exams, badges) | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Rideshare matching | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Program / convention check-in | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Future service scheduling | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Automations: birthday, welcome sequence, attendance follow-up | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Two-way SMS inbox and delivery reports | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | AI Chat Assistant, AI Outreach Insights, AI message refinement, AI CSV mapping | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | QuickBooks Online and Xero sync | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Outbound webhooks | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Email Donation AI Agent (inbox crawler) | — | — | — | ✓ | | Multi-campus, campus-scoped receipts | — | — | — | ✓ | --- ## How the dashboard is organised The sidebar groups pages like this (tabs in brackets): - **Overview** — the dashboard: giving and attendance trends, quick actions, absentees, upcoming birthdays. - **Community** - **People & Care** [Directory · First Timers · Households · Kids · Feedback] - **Groups** — cells, ministries, departments, with leaders and rosters - **Attendance** [Live Check-In · At-Risk · Analytics · Growth] - **Discipleship** [Overview · Tree] - **Academy** [Courses · Cohorts · Grading · Learners] (Growth+) - **Announcements** [Announcements · Testimonies] - **Rideshare** (Growth+, once enabled) - **Marketplace** (once a Converge community is linked) - **Operations** — **Events** [Upcoming · Past], **Forms**, **Scheduling** [Service Teams · Recurring Rosters], **Resources** [Assets · Bookings · Resource Calendar] - **Finance** — **Giving** [Audit Trail · Data Entry · Giving Approvals · Funds · Pledges · Campaigns · Recurring Gifts], **Expenses**, **Tax Receipts**, **Reports** [Giving Analysis · Financial Statements · Chart of Accounts · Scheduled Reports], **Inbox** (Enterprise, with a connected mailbox). **Bank Import** is opened from inside Giving rather than from the sidebar - **Outreach** — **Communicate** (broadcasts), **Messages** (two-way SMS, Growth+) - **Settings** [Organization · Finance & Credits · System · My Account] (the command palette also lists them as Church profile & team, Billing plan & credits, Integrations & system) **Cmd/Ctrl + K** opens the command palette: jump to any page or tab by name, or type a question ("how can I start a campaign") and it answers with the right destination. **Notifications bell** (top bar): new first-timers, pending donations, expense approvals, attendance alerts, and a warning when the church's outbound email or SMS has started failing. --- ## Core modules ### 1. People & pastoral care - **Member profiles**: contact details, status (Active / Inactive / Visitor / Archived / Child), household, home campus, birthday and anniversary, photo, custom fields (department, cell group, employer, school…), pastoral care notes with priority, and a timeline of every email and SMS sent to them. - **Source**: every record shows where it came from. Importing a list asks *"Where is this list from?"* (for example "Easter outreach sign-up sheet" or "Planning Center export") and stamps it on each record; a **Source** column in the file can set it per row. Records the app creates itself carry a fixed label — *Self check-in*, *Kids registration*, *Feedback form*, *Form: *, *Added manually*. The directory has a **Source** filter, the CSV export includes it, and the First Timers view shows it so a follow-up call can start with "you signed up at the fair". - **Directory**: search by name, email or phone; filter by status, gender, department, cell group or source; sort; select many for bulk archive; export to CSV (Starter+). - **Import** (People & Care → Directory → Import): CSV or Excel, with a downloadable template. Columns are auto-mapped; a mapping dialog lets you correct them. Duplicates are matched on email, then phone, then full name, and a re-import updates the existing record instead of creating a second one. **AI CSV mapping** (Growth+) can fix messy files. - **Households**: group members into families; giving aggregates per household for tax receipts. - **Duplicate finder** and **merge** (Starter+) keep giving, attendance and notes when two records are combined. - **Feedback**: visitors and members can be asked for feedback by email; responses appear under People & Care → Feedback. - **Claim a record**: someone already in the directory can prove they own their email address at `templeadmin.com/claim` (one-time code) and get portal access to that record — and only that record. - **Member self-join** (optional, Settings → Organization): lets congregants create their own portal account and link to their record. ### 2. First timers and follow-up - A visitor's first check-in, form submission or kids registration creates a **follow-up** automatically under People & Care → First Timers. - Each follow-up has a status (Pending → Called → Visited → Completed), notes, the visitor's source, and badges showing whether they **returned** and whether they were **connected** (joined a group or became active). - **Assignment** (Starter+): assign a staff member; both the staff member and the visitor receive an email, with a deep link to the record. - **Reminders**: staff are reminded about follow-ups that are still open; a follow-up more than a week old raises the `first_timer.followup_overdue` webhook event and appears in the admin morning digest. - **Outcomes**: the Growth tab under Attendance and the First Timers stats show conversion over time. ### 3. Attendance and check-in - **Services**: create services (name, date, time, campus). **Future service scheduling** (Growth+, from Live Check-In) lets you create them ahead of time so the QR codes exist early; upcoming services also show on the public profile. - **Live Check-In** (Attendance → Live Check-In): staff search and check people in, add visitors on the spot, and see counts live. **Program check-in** (Growth+) handles conferences and multi-session programs — each session is checked in separately, inside the same tab. - **QR self check-in**: every service has a QR code; members scan and check themselves in on their phone. Codes can be regenerated at any time, and Settings → System → Self Check-in Search sets whether they refresh never, manually, daily or weekly. - **Public self check-in search**: a public page where people find themselves by name, phone or email — no code needed. Which fields are searchable is configured in the same settings section; matches show masked hints only. - **At-Risk**: members who have stopped attending, with the absence threshold the church configures; contact them directly from the list. - **Analytics** and **Growth**: trends, service comparisons, visitor conversion. - **Attendance reports** (Starter+): per-member history by date range, program and campus, with the details captured at check-in; export to CSV. - **Attendance follow-up automation** (Growth+): after a configurable number of missed weeks, Temple emails or texts the member automatically. ### 4. Digital kids registration (Starter+) Enable under People & Care → Kids → Settings. 1. A parent opens `templeadmin.com/c//kids-register`, enters their email and confirms a one-time 6-digit code. 2. They register each child (name, birthday, allergies, medical notes, photo consent) and receive a permanent QR **Kids Card** by email. 3. At the station, staff scan the card; Temple records attendance and issues a unique **two-half pickup code** printed on the child's label. At pickup, staff enter the matching half; a code can only be used once. Labels print from the browser on any printer, or through the DYMO Connect web SDK for one-click DYMO output (2×4", 4×6" or Letter 2-up). Kids' medical notes and pickup codes are never sent to webhooks or exports. ### 5. Announcements and testimonies - **Announcements** (Growth+): publish an announcement by **uploading the flyer you already made** (JPG, PNG or PDF), **uploading a PowerPoint** (converted to poster slides), or building slides in the editor (layouts, themes, drag reordering, call-to-action buttons). Published announcements appear as a carousel on the public profile; slide decks export to PDF or PowerPoint (PPTX). - **Testimonies** (Starter+): members submit a short testimony from the portal; staff approve or reject on the Testimonies tab; approved ones show on the public profile, where signed-in members can react (❤️ 🙏 🙌 😢 🔥) and comment. ### 6. Giving and finance **Recording gifts** - Giving → Data Entry: single gifts and batch entry for cash, cheque, e-Transfer/Interac and online; import from CSV. - **Bank Import**: upload a bank statement, match lines to members (AI-assisted, Growth+), review, commit — with undo. - **Giving Approvals**: gifts recorded by non-finance roles, self-reported campaign and pledge payments, and inbox-detected donations wait here for a finance role to verify. - **Funds**: keep designations separate; mark which funds are **tax-deductible** (that flag flows to campaigns and gifts and decides what appears on receipts; refunds are de-receipted automatically). - **Audit Trail**: every contribution, with edit history. **Online giving** - **Stripe**: each church connects its **own** Stripe account from Settings → System → Integrations → Stripe (Express onboarding, a few minutes). Once Stripe has enabled charges, a **Give Now** button appears on the public profile and at `templeadmin.com/donate`, and card gifts settle directly to the church. Recurring gifts (weekly / monthly) are Starter+. - **Paystack** (Nigeria): the same, in Naira, from Settings → System → Integrations → Paystack. - **Recurring Gifts** tab (Giving → Recurring Gifts): staff see every standing gift, can pause or cancel on a member's behalf, and paused givers receive at most two gentle reminders (30 and 90 days). - Failed payments email the donor; a church is told when its payment setup is missing (dashboard checklist and a banner on the Giving page). **Pledges and campaigns** - **Pledges**: standalone or tied to a campaign; progress tracking; daily reminder emails link straight to the member's own pledge in the portal, where they can report a payment. - **Public scan-to-pledge**: a QR / link (Giving → Pledges → Get Pledge QR Code, or per campaign) lets anyone commit with no login; an existing member is matched by email or phone. - **Campaigns** (Growth+): goal, suggested amounts, optional fund, public page and QR, member commitments, self-reported payments verified by staff, milestone emails at 25/50/75/100 %, weekly reminders to members who have not committed. Closing a campaign really stops the giving — recurring Stripe gifts tied to it are cancelled, and a pause only pauses. **Expenses**: requests with receipts, an approval workflow with comments, disbursement tracking, and budget reporting. **Tax receipts**: per-member or per-household PDF receipts with wording for **Canada (CRA)**, **United States (IRS)**, **United Kingdom (HMRC / Gift Aid)** and **Australia (ATO)**, emailed in bulk or one at a time. Free plans get 25 per year; Starter+ unlimited. Enterprise can scope receipts by campus. **Accounting sync** (Growth+): **QuickBooks Online** and **Xero** — donors as customers, donations as income, disbursed expenses as bills, idempotent (nothing posts twice), in the church's timezone. **Reports**: Giving Analysis, Financial Statements, Chart of Accounts, and **Scheduled Reports** (Starter+) that email themselves weekly or monthly. **Currencies**: CAD, USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, NGN. Amounts everywhere respect the church's currency, and a **Conceal** toggle in the user menu (top right) masks every amount on screen for presenting in public. ### 7. Events Events with public pages, free or paid ticket tiers, registration forms, RSVP confirmations, day-of check-in, add-to-calendar links, and a Past Events archive. Free plans can have 3 active events. ### 8. Forms Fully self-hosted (no third-party form service). - Drag-and-drop builder with text, email, phone, date/time, number, link, dropdown, multiple choice, checkboxes, file upload, rating, structured address and **e-signature** fields (generated signatures Starter+). - Multi-page forms with conditional logic, scheduled close dates, response caps, custom thank-you pages and redirects. - **Automations**: any answer can create a member, a pledge or a care note, start a first-timer follow-up, or email a notification list. - Submission notifications, respondent copies, per-form collaborator access, and public embedding. - Free: 2 active forms and 200 responses in total; Starter+ unlimited. ### 9. Scheduling, service teams and resources - **Service Teams**: worship, ushers, tech, kids… with members and leaders. - **Recurring Rosters**: daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly series with auto-rotation, per-service overrides, CSV roster import, and reminders (email 24 hours before, SMS 6 hours before — SMS uses credits). - **Resources**: rooms, vehicles and equipment with bookings, conflict detection and a resource calendar. ### 10. Communication - **Communicate**: broadcast **email** (Starter+) and **SMS** (all plans) to filtered lists (status, group, tag, attendance, campus); attachments; scheduling (Starter+); a full history with delivery stats; **AI refine** (Growth+, counted against the plan's AI allowance) to polish tone before sending. - **Messages** (Growth+): a two-way SMS inbox; inbound replies are free. - **Credits**: 1 SMS credit = 1 segment (160 characters, or 70 if the message contains an emoji or special character); 1 email credit = 1 email. - **Safeguards**: every email carries an unsubscribe link; members can opt out of email or SMS separately; one person receives at most **10 automated emails from a church per day** (receipts, codes and confirmations are exempt); scheduled sends more than two hours late are marked *missed* rather than sent stale; and if a church's sends start failing, its admins get a bell notification. ### 11. Automations (Settings → System → Integrations → Member Communication) | Automation | What it does | Plan | |-----------|--------------|------| | Automated birthday messages | Birthday email and/or SMS to the member; optional admin notification | Growth+ | | New member welcome | A welcome email and SMS with editable templates when someone becomes a member; first-time visitors also get a fixed 3-step email sequence on days 1, 3 and 14 | Growth+ | | Attendance follow-up | Message after N missed weeks | Growth+ | | Weekly celebrations digest | Every Monday at 9 am church time, one email to each member naming that week's birthdays and anniversaries, with a link to sign a shared card | All plans, opt-in | | Admin reminders | A nudge a few hours after a service nobody recorded attendance for, and an 8 am digest of overdue follow-ups and expense approvals (admins only, only when there is something in it) | All plans, opt-in | | Feedback requests | Ask visitors for feedback after their first visit | All plans | | Donation update reminders | Remind finance managers to keep donation records current | All plans | | Pledge and campaign reminders | Pledge-due emails; weekly campaign commitment reminders | with the feature | ### 12. Discipleship — Reach 12 (all plans) - One active **program** per church with a target (default 12) and a reminder cadence. - Members accept the assignment in the **portal** and add the people they are reaching, moving each through six stages: Praying For → Invited → Attending → New Believer → Church Member → Multiplying. Admins do not enrol members; members join themselves. - Eleven **milestone badges** awarded automatically, each with a KJV scripture and an instant celebration email; encouragement reminders on the cadence (members can opt out). - Admin view: stats, journey funnel, optional leaderboard, per-discipler drill-down, an 8-year multiplication projection, and a **Tree** tab drawing the whole multiplication tree. Members see their own tree. ### 13. Academy (Growth+) Training for a church's own workforce, modelled on a real church academy. - **Courses** with a code, track, reading sections and one exam; audiences are *open* (anyone in the church) or *assigned*; delivery is *self-paced* or *cohort* (a scheduled intake, optionally with an instructor). - **Exams** are graded on the server: multiple-choice automatically, written answers by staff on the **Grading** tab. Answer keys never reach the browser. - **Learners** shows enrolments, progress and passes. Passing awards a **badge** that appears on the member's profile. - Members take courses from the **Academy** tab in their portal. ### 14. Rideshare matching (Growth+) Off by default; enable under Settings → Organization → Rideshare Matching. - Members create a rider and/or driver profile in the portal's **Rides** tab (drivers confirm insurance and seats). Adults only — enforced in the database. - Riders request a ride to a specific service; drivers see nearby requests (first name, photo and approximate distance only), offer a seat; the rider accepts or declines. Contact details are exchanged only after acceptance; home addresses are never shown. - Admins get a read-only view of active drivers, riders and matches. ### 15. Community Marketplace (Converge) An optional marketplace where the congregation can buy from and support one another, powered by Converge (useconvergeapp.com). An admin links the church's Converge community under Settings → Organization; until then nothing shows. Once linked, **Marketplace** appears in the sidebar and as a card in the member portal. Converge is a separate service with its own sign-in; Temple does not process marketplace orders. ### 16. Outbound webhooks (Growth+) Settings → System → Integrations → Webhooks. Up to five `https://` endpoints per church, each with the events it wants and a signing secret shown once. Events: `service.completed`, `first_timer.created`, `first_timer.followup_overdue`, `member.absence_threshold_reached`, `discipleship.stage_changed`, `automation.failed`. By default only identifiers, counts and dates are sent; names, giving totals, form answers and message content each need a scope ticked. Kids' medical details, pickup codes, passwords, payment credentials and pastoral notes are never sent. Delivery is at-least-once with retries over 48 hours, a delivery log, manual replay, and 24-hour secret rotation. Developer docs: `docs/webhooks.md` in the repository. ### 17. Member portal (`templeadmin.com/portal/`) Members sign in (or claim their record) and see their profile and contact details, their giving and pledges (**My Pledges** with *Make a Payment*), campaigns to commit to, their discipleship assignment, testimonies, rides, academy courses and the marketplace card. Every email and SMS carries its own unsubscribe link. Portal access never grants access to the church directory. ### 18. Public pages - `/p/` — church profile: upcoming services, Give Now, kids registration link, announcement carousel, testimonies, brand colour, and an embeddable `