Top 5 Check-in Systems for Churches - Attendance Tracking App

The church is more than a building; the church is people. Therefore, tracking attendance and managing check-in for your children’s and student ministries are both vital parts of church management. 

These practices let your leadership and staff understand how many people are entering your building and attending worship on a given week. They can also serve as valuable safety measures for the youth attending services. Measuring attendance reveals your church’s growth over time and allows you to properly plan for your budget and staffing needs.

There are a number of ways to track your church’s attendance, but one of the most popular methods is to use a digital check-in system. A church check-in system allows you to track who is attending your services and collect other details, link contact information or volunteer preferences.

Why Your Church Needs a Check-in System

Before we take a look at some specific systems to consider, it’s worth asking why you need an attendance check-in system in the first place. There are a number of reasons, but these are some of the most important reasons you should consider.

• Increased safety: Check-in systems help ensure all children are accounted for and that only authorized adults can pick them up.
• Improved efficiency: These tools streamline the check-in process, which saves time and frustration for parents and volunteers. This also frees up volunteers to focus on other tasks.
• Enhanced communication: An effective check-in system improves communication between parents and volunteers. For example, parents can be notified if their child is late for check-in or if there is a change in their child's classroom.
• Data tracking: A check-in system allows churches to track attendance and participation. This info can be used to improve events and look at attendance trends over time.

In this Article:

Top 5 Check-in Systems for Churches

Breeze from Tithely is a cloud-based church management system with a built-in check-in feature. Breeze's ChMS is known for being easy to use and the check-in feature integrates with other elements of the management system. This means your attendance numbers are connected to your entire church database—including giving and service planning.

Breeze is accessible from a number of different devices and includes a mobile app (for the Apple store only) where you can track attendance from your mobile phone. This check-in feature also includes event check-in so you can measure attendance for specific church events. 

Other features of the Breeze check-in system include:

• Print name tags for attendees
• Integrates with your church calendar
• Create online registration forms
• Assign volunteers to events

Tithely’s Church Check-In system is built directly into its church management platform (powered by Breeze), making it a strong option for churches that want everything connected in one place. Instead of juggling separate tools, attendance, events, member records, and giving all live inside the same system.

Check-ins are simple. Volunteers can scan QR codes from mobile phones or use physical check-in stations to quickly register families, kids, or event attendees. Because it connects directly to Tithely’s events platform, churches can create custom forms, manage ticket tiers, offer discount codes, and track registrations in real time.

The mobile app allows staff and volunteers to handle check-ins from anywhere—whether that’s the kids’ ministry hallway, a special event, or an off-site gathering.

Key Check-In Features:

• Integration with physical check-in stations
• A comprehensive children’s check-in feature
• Integration with physical check-in stations
• Custom forms and event registration pages
• QR code scanning for fast event entry
• Real-time attendee list management
• Fully integrated with church management and digital giving

Planning Center is known for its strong worship planning software. But you might not also realize that this is now part of an online suite of tools that includes calendaring, people management, event planning, and attendance check-in.

The fast and smooth check-in process can be handled either from a manned station with a volunteer, a roster station outside classrooms, or a self-check-in station using QR code scanners. The main component of Planning Center’s check-in feature is their child check-in, which focuses on security and reporting.

Planning Center has grown into one of the more popular church management systems. However, this also means that it can be one of the more expensive. This may be the perfect tool for a church with the right budget, but it might be too costly for some smaller churches.

Other features of the Planning Center check-in system include:

• Mobile and desktop apps
• Connection to printers for name tags
• Custom labels and setup
• Volunteer check-in and background checks

Similar to Tithely, Church Trac is billed as an all-in-one church management software, which also includes an attendance check-in feature. Similar to Planning Center, Church Trac’s feature is primarily built around family check-ins and less for other church events.

Just like with any of these systems, security around who picks up a child is of paramount importance. Church Trac helps manage that by tracking who pick up children and using security tags to ensure they’re an authorized family member.

A disadvantage of choosing Church Trac is the limitations of personalization with the forms and the customization with the forms. Most of the check-in feature is pre-built to fit a certain template. If your church doesn’t fit into that template, the system can be slightly more challenging to use.

Other features of the Planning Center check-in system include:

• Listing known medical issues
• Listing emergency contacts
• Register guest attendees
• Establishing check-in stations
• Record who picked up the child each time

Realm is an online church tool that’s built into the ACS ChMS system. The Realm check-in feature focuses equally on efficiency and safety. They want to present a quick and easy check-in process that removes bottlenecks from the Sunday morning check-in process.

Realm looks to help with this by automating as many of the check-in steps as possible. This eliminates some of the manual processes and makes check-in also available for individuals. This also ties in with their mobile device which allows people to track their attendance virtually.

Realm is a part of the ACS platform that’s used for church management. ACS is one of the largest and oldest ChMS providers. However, this also means that their platform can be seen as outdated and a little clunky to use. It takes time to familiarize yourself with the user interface.

Other features of the Planning Center check-in system include:

• Check-in options on mobile, kiosk, and virtual
• Self-service check-in
• Barcode scanning
• Badge printing

How to Pick the Right Check-in System for Your Church

These are five of the most popular check-in systems available to churches, but they’re far from the only ones. There are plenty of other helpful church tools that include a check-in feature. 

So how do you select the right one for your church? This is a list of factors you should consider when making your selection.

• Church size: If you have a large church, you will need a check-in system that can handle a high volume of people. Larger churches will also have to consider multiple worship services, locations, and different types of events. 
• Budget: Check-in systems can range in price from free (or included in an existing system) to hundreds of dollars per month. What is your church able to afford?
• Features: Some check-in systems offer more features than others. Make a list of the features your church must have and those you’d like to have. Use that as a jumping-off point to see which tools offer the right number of each.
• Ease of use: The check-in system should be easy to use for both you and your congregation. There’s no point in investing in a system that isn’t properly used. An attendance check-in system is only helpful if it saves your time and headache, not adds to it.

Choosing the right check-in system for your church can be a challenge. However, by considering these factors, you can choose a system that will make attendance tracking easy and provide valuable insights into the growth and engagement of your people.

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