The parish register, the calendar and the books, in one place.
Families, the sacramental registers, the calendar, dues and double-entry books, notices and pastoral care. A website for the office, and an Android and iOS app for every family.
- Android and iOS app
- UPI without a gateway
- Double-entry books
- Privacy per member
Waiting on you
Baptism date asked for
Kurian family · Sat 14 Nov, 10:30
DatePayment reported by UPI
₹1,200 · Annual subscription · UTR given
To confirmAsked to join
Puthenpurackal family · 4 people
JoiningA change to approve
Date of birth · Anu Thomas
ChangeCertificate asked for
Baptism certificate · from the register
Certificate
Who it is for
Everyone in the parish, each with their own part
Each role sees only what it needs. Choose one to see what they do in Parish Bells.
Parish office
Keeps the registers and the directory, and answers what families ask.
Workflows they take part in
Works through one “Waiting on you” list: dates asked for, certificates, changes families have made, people asking to join and payments reported.
Keeps the baptism, marriage, death and confession registers, with serial numbers given when an entry is recorded.
Issues certificates filled in from the register entry, as a PDF.
Keeps families and members, with each person’s privacy settings respected.
Writes notices and publishes bulletins for the whole parish or a group.
Invites people to sign in, and answers families who ask to join online.
Vicar
Decides the dates, keeps the pastoral list, and sees the whole parish.
Workflows they take part in
Approves, declines or proposes another time for the dates families ask for, with clashes shown before deciding.
Keeps a diary of services and meetings, across every parish they serve.
Keeps “Who needs a visit”: the sick, the housebound and the bereaved, longest waiting first.
Sees the parish’s celebrations, including the ones kept for the clergy.
Hands the committee over to the next one, and the access goes with the offices.
Treasurer
Raises dues, confirms what households paid, and keeps double-entry books.
Workflows they take part in
Raises dues for the whole parish, a ward, a prayer group, an organisation or chosen families.
Confirms UPI payments households report, each confirmation needing a second factor.
Records receipts and payments in double-entry books that refuse an entry that does not balance.
Closes the month with the trial balance, income and expenditure, and the GST summary.
Auditor
Reads the books and the change history, and can change nothing.
Workflows they take part in
Reads every account, the trial balance and the income and expenditure statement.
Reads the change history: who changed what, and when.
Holds view access only, with no way to write anywhere in the parish.
Never sees the parish directory or a family’s private details.
Head of family
Keeps the family’s record, asks the office for what it needs, and pays dues.
Workflows they take part in
Corrects the family’s details and adds people to it, from the phone or the website.
Asks the office for a date: a baptism, a wedding, a Mass, the hall.
Sees the family in the registers and asks for a certificate from an entry.
Pays dues by UPI and reports the payment with its reference number or a screenshot.
Asks the office for a login for somebody else in the household.
Member
Reads the notices, sees what is on, and chooses who can see their details.
Workflows they take part in
Receives the parish’s notices as push notifications on the phone, and reads them on the website.
Sees what is on in the parish, and the album of past events.
Finds people in the parish directory, each shown as they have chosen.
Chooses what the directory shows about them, and how the parish reaches them.
Accepts or declines being tagged in a photo, or opts out of tags altogether.
Features
Everything a parish keeps, in one place
Thirteen parts of parish life, built to work together. Choose one to see what it does.
People and families
Every family, and who belongs to it, kept once.
Families, members, wards, prayer groups and organisations live in one directory. A person’s facts are kept on the person, never typed twice, and a household’s history is kept, so the parish can say who was in a family on any past date.
- Families and members, with wards, units, prayer groups and parish organisations
- Search across the parish, and saved searches the office reuses
- A household history: who joined, who left, and why
- A printable directory, laid out to print
- A member is in one household at a time, and the office is shown anybody recorded in two
Registers and certificates
The sacramental registers, and the certificates drawn from them.
Baptism, marriage, death and confession registers are kept as entries that name the people in them. A request becomes a draft entry, the serial number is given when it is recorded, and a certificate is filled in from the entry rather than typed again.
- Baptism, marriage, death and confession registers
- Serial numbers given at recording, with duplicates refused
- Each person in an entry linked to their profile, or named when they are not in the parish
- Certificates issued as a PDF, filled in from the register entry
- A family sees its own entries and asks for a certificate from one
- Confessions record that it happened, with whom and when, and never what was said
Calendar and bookings
What is on, and the dates families ask for.
The parish calendar holds services, feasts and meetings, including prayer meetings at a family’s house. Families ask the office for a date, the office sees any clash before it answers, and the family hears back.
- What is on, by week and by month
- Families ask for a date: a baptism, a wedding, a Mass, the hall
- Approve, decline with a reason, or propose another time
- A clash check before a date is given
- The clergy’s diary across every parish they serve
Dues and giving
Dues the office names, paid by UPI, no gateway needed.
The treasurer raises a due for the whole parish or just the people it concerns, mandatory or optional, per household or per member. Families pay by UPI from their own app and report it; the treasurer confirms it into the books.
- Raise dues for the parish, wards, prayer groups, organisations or chosen families
- Mandatory or optional, a fixed amount, each household’s own rate, or give what you like
- Preview before raising, and revert a run raised by mistake
- Families pay by UPI and report the reference number or a screenshot
- Pay several of the household’s dues together
- Reminders only to those who still owe
Books and finance
Double-entry books a treasurer can close the month with.
Every receipt and payment is posted to a chart of accounts. An entry that does not balance is refused and says by how much, money is held to the paisa, and the reports a parish council asks for are ready when the month ends.
- Receipts and payments, each to its income or expense account
- Opening balances for a parish moving its books here
- Trial balance, and income and expenditure for the year so far
- A GST summary: what is owed, and on what
- A numbered receipt for every payment confirmed
- An auditor who can read every account and change none
Notices and publications
Written once, to the people it concerns.
The office writes a notice for the whole parish, a group or a saved search, and sees how many people it will reach before sending. Notices arrive as push notifications on the phone app and stay in each person’s messages; bulletins and documents are published alongside.
- Notices to everyone, a group or a saved search
- A reach preview before anything is sent
- Push notifications on Android and iOS, and a messages page on the website
- Quiet hours, kept in each member’s own time zone
- Bulletins and documents published for the parish
- What we have sent: every notice, and who received it
Pastoral care
Nobody who needs a visit is forgotten.
The clergy keep a list of the sick, the housebound and the bereaved, longest waiting first. Each visit is recorded, and a concern is closed when it is no longer needed. The list is the clergy’s, in no export and not part of the directory.
- Who needs a visit, longest waiting first
- Raise a concern about a member, sick, housebound or bereaved
- Record each visit, and close the concern when it is no longer needed
- Kept by the clergy, in no export, and outside the directory
Committee and roles
An office carries its access, and hands it on.
The committee is kept with its terms and office bearers. An office such as Secretary or Treasurer carries the access that goes with it, so the handover to next year’s committee moves the access too, in one step.
- Committees with terms, and office bearers this year and before
- Each office carries a role while it lasts
- Handover to the next committee in one step, undone if any part fails
- Roles as areas at view or manage, plus named powers such as confirming a payment
- Elected and diocese-appointed offices told apart
Joining online
Families find their parish and ask to join.
Alongside the office’s invitations, a family can sign up, record its household, find the parish and ask to join. The office approves it as a new family, links it to the family its register already holds, or declines with a reason.
- Sign up with a confirmed account, and record the family before any parish
- Find the parish by name or place, and ask to join with a note
- Approve as a new family, or link to a family already in the register
- Pair each person with the register, with the register’s facts kept by default
- A head of family asks for a login for somebody in the household
- The parish chooses whether it takes requests to join
Celebrations
Birthdays and anniversaries, remembered with care.
Parish Bells finds birthdays, wedding anniversaries and death anniversaries from the records. A morning notice goes out on the day, the office gets a weekly digest, and privacy comes first: minors are left out by default and anybody can opt out.
- Birthdays, wedding anniversaries and death anniversaries
- A morning notice on the day, in the parish’s own time
- A weekly digest for the office
- Minors left out by default, and a per-member opt-out
- Death anniversaries shared with the bereaved family and the clergy only
Album
Past events become the parish’s album.
Every event that has happened keeps its photographs. Parishioners add photos from the phone app and tag the families and people in them; the person tagged accepts or declines, and the office can hide a photo.
- Past events, each with its photographs
- Add photos from the phone app
- Tag families and people; the person tagged accepts or declines
- Anybody can opt out of being tagged
- The office hides a photo, with a reason kept
Security and privacy
A parish’s records, seen only by those who should.
Each parish’s records are kept apart from every other parish’s. A role reaches only what it needs, each member chooses what the directory shows about them, and whoever keeps the money signs in with a second factor.
- Each parish’s data kept apart, checked on both sides
- Roles that reach only what they need; an auditor reads and never writes
- Each member chooses what the directory shows about them
- A second factor for whoever keeps the money, from an authenticator app
- See where you are signed in, and sign out everywhere
- A change history: who changed what, and when
Imports and exports
Bring the old register in; take your records out.
A parish starts from the spreadsheet it already has. Columns are matched, a dry run shows what will happen, and an import can be undone. The parish’s records and accounts can be exported whenever it wants them.
- Import from a spreadsheet, with columns matched to fields
- A dry run before anything is written
- Undo an import that went wrong
- Malayalam names in a spreadsheet read correctly
- Export the parish’s data and its accounts
See how it works
How a baptism goes, from the first request to the certificate
The family asks once, naming the child, the parents and the godparents. That request becomes the draft register entry, so nothing is typed twice between the request and the certificate.
Step 1 of 5
The family asks for a baptism date
On: Ask the office, in the phone app
The head of family chooses a baptism, the day they would like, and names the people: the child as a new profile, the parents and the godparents, each chosen from the family or typed in for somebody from elsewhere.
What the others see
The request appears in the office’s “Waiting on you” list, with the people already in it.
Step 2 of 5
The vicar decides
On: Dates asked for
The vicar sees the people, any clash on the calendar, and what approving will do. He approves, proposes another time, or declines with a reason.
What the others see
On approval the child’s profile is made in the family, the baptism goes on the parish calendar, and the family is told on their phone.
Step 3 of 5
The office records the baptism
On: Baptism register
After the ceremony the office opens the draft entry, fills in the day and the celebrant, and records it. The serial number is given now, never before.
What the others see
The entry appears in the family’s registers, and on the child’s profile under “In the registers”.
Step 4 of 5
The family asks for the certificate
On: Our family in the registers
The head of family opens the entry and asks for a baptism certificate from it.
What the others see
The certificate request joins the office’s list, already pointing at the entry.
Step 5 of 5
The office issues the certificate
On: Certificates
The certificate is filled in from the register entry; the office checks it, marks it as being done, and issues it as a PDF.
What the others see
The family is told that the certificate is ready, and the entry records the day it was issued.
The outcome: One request carried the people from the first screen to the certificate: a recorded register entry with its serial number, a child’s profile in the family, and a certificate drawn from the register.
Workflows
How the work goes, step by step
Each workflow follows real work through Parish Bells: who does what, on which screen, and what the other person sees.
Questions
What parishes ask us
About cost, privacy, the phone app, payments and getting started.
A parish management app for the parish office and the families it serves: families and members, the sacramental registers and certificates, the calendar and bookings, dues and double-entry books, notices, pastoral care and the committee, in one place.
Plans are being finalised. Parishes joining now come in as early partners; speak to the Parish Bells team to ask for early access.
We set up your parish with you. You bring your existing records in from a spreadsheet, with a dry run first and an undo if anything looks wrong, then invite the office, the vicar and the treasurer. Families are invited, or join online if your parish takes requests.
Yes. Parish Bells has an app for Android and iOS, for every family, and the parish office works on the website. Both read the same records.
No. Families pay the parish directly by UPI from their own app and report the payment with its reference number or a screenshot. The treasurer confirms it against the bank, and it goes into the books with a receipt. No card or bank details pass through Parish Bells.
As push notifications on the Parish Bells phone app, kept in each person’s messages on the website too. Quiet hours are kept in each member’s own time zone, and each person chooses which kinds of notice they want.
Only people in your parish, and only what their role allows. Each member chooses what the parish directory shows about them, an auditor never sees the directory, and the pastoral list is kept by the clergy alone. Every parish’s records are kept apart from every other parish’s.
Each role reaches only what it needs, and whoever keeps the money uses a second factor from an authenticator app before recording or confirming a payment. Everybody can see where they are signed in and sign out everywhere, and the change history records who changed what, and when, without letting anyone edit or erase it.
The interface is in English, with Malayalam in progress. Each parish can also set its own terms, so the app says what your parish calls things.
Yes, if your parish chooses to take requests. A family signs up, records its household, finds the parish and asks to join. The office approves it, links it to the family already in its register, or declines with a reason.
Yes. The parish office can export the parish’s data and its accounts, and print the directory, whenever it wants to.
Only that a confession happened: who, with which priest, and on what day. Never what was said. It is never shown on a profile or in a family’s registers.
Parish Bells keeps true double-entry books: receipts and payments to a chart of accounts, opening balances, a trial balance, income and expenditure and a GST summary, and the accounts can be exported for your accountant.
Bring your parish to Parish Bells
Plans are being finalised, and parishes joining now come in as early partners. Write to the Parish Bells team for early access.