How do you currently register parents and kids for Camp and VBS? Is it still paper forms? Or are you using a third-party tool or a basic website form, then exporting to Excel or manually re-entering everything into your database? And what about communicating well with parents of registered children and tracking payments on top of all that?
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Most churches start with some combination of paper, spreadsheets, and disconnected sign-up apps. And it works, sort of, until it comes to the details and follow-up ministry work after the event.
In Meet the Software, our weekly webinar, I talk about how we help leaders bring their scattered data sources, including email lists, SignUpGenius exports, and Excel spreadsheets, into a single database. Information shouldn’t live in five different places when it’s valuable to ministry work. When it’s unified, leadership can actually use it. Join the Zoom webinar using the link above for more on why this fragmentation happens in the first place, and how to fix it. In the meantime, let’s talk about your camp and VBS registrations and how to improve them.
Why is it so hard to keep parent and child registration data accurate?
Registration software for kids’ events comes with a few unique challenges, and one of the biggest is collecting and keeping parent and child information separate and accurate.
Here’s a common example. Parents often enter their own email address or mobile number in the fields meant for their child, particularly with Youth Ministry events. In reality, the child either doesn’t have that contact info piece or has a different one entirely. The result is inaccurate data in the child’s record that must be manually cleaned up later. The same is true for mobile phone numbers.
At the same time, you obviously need parent contact information for any event involving their kids. So how do you capture both accurately, without one overwriting the other?
What’s the recommended way to set up Camp and VBS registration?
Over the years, we’ve refined how ChurchTeams handles this and many other registration nuances based directly on feedback from churches hosting these events. We’ve recently updated our Knowledge Base article with step-by-step instructions and videos covering our recommended setup. The tutorial includes how to handle parent vs. child contact fields correctly from the start.
The best part about our system is that you’ll end up with two separate groups of information. A parent group for accepting payments, sending out emailed packing lists and reminder texts, and following up with other upcoming event information. And another group for the children or students. This group is used for attendance and communications that matter more to students, such as devotional or prayer guides leading up to the event.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. When set up correctly, registration forms separate parent and guardian fields from child fields. Contact information is captured separately and accurately for each person rather than mixed together.
Yes. Integrated payment processing lets churches accept and track payments as part of the same registration process, eliminating the need to reconcile a separate payment tool with your database afterward. With Churchteams, you’ll have options to use promo/discount codes, accept deposits, and make scheduled payments.
Apps that are separate from your church management software and paper spreadsheets require manual export or re-entry into your church database, creating extra work and increasing the risk of data entry errors. This is especially true with parent-child contact information.
Learn more about our Churchteams – Church Management Software
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