Shul Software: What Synagogue Management Systems Do, and Where Member Calls Fit

What is shul software?

Shul software is the system a synagogue office runs the congregation on: the member records, dues and billing, statements, donations, and the email that goes out when a payment is due. "Shul software" and "synagogue management software" are the same category of product. The word a vendor puts in its name mostly tells you which community it grew up serving.

It is very good at sending the statement. What happens after a member ignores that statement is usually nobody's job until the office finds the time, and the office rarely has time in the weeks before the High Holidays. That gap is where member calls fit, and it is what this guide is about.

Which shul software do synagogues use?

The field is wider than most directors expect. The main names:

• ShulCloud: the best-known billing and membership system. Its financial features "support batch billing, mass payment reminders, and billing statement generation" (Shulware).
• ShulSuite and Rakefet: membership, billing and giving for congregations that run something other than ShulCloud.
• ShulHub and EasyShul: smaller systems built specifically for shuls.
• Chabad One: Chabad houses run their own software, separate from the rest of the market.
• MyShulApp: a member app that can turn a message into a phone call: members "configured for calls receive an automated phone call that reads the message aloud" (MyShulApp).
• Evant: text-message RSVPs built for shuls, to "collect and sort data a lot more efficiently with SMS" (Evant).
• General membership tools: some congregations run WildApricot, ChurchTrac or Notebird instead of a shul-specific system.

What does shul software handle well?

More than it gets credit for. Anyone who says synagogues have no dues automation has not looked at a modern billing system, and an executive director would know it.

• Batch billing: "Batch Billing allows admins to issue multiple invoices or charges simultaneously, streamlining the process of applying dues or fees to a large group of accounts at once" (ShulCloud help centre).
• Payment reminders: mass reminders go out to every household with a balance.
• Recurring and split payments: members can spread dues across the year.
• Pledge forms: a form can suggest a higher amount based on last year's gift.
• Statements: a clean statement for every household, generated in one run.

So the reminder already exists. It is an email, and it works well for the members who read their email.

What happens when a member ignores the statement?

Nothing escalates. That is the whole gap, and it is the same in almost every congregation:

• The statement goes out, then a reminder, then perhaps a second reminder, all by email.
• The members who acted are fine. The ones who didn't are now a list on someone's desk.
• The list lands in the busiest weeks of the year, right before the High Holidays, when seats and dues deadlines arrive together.
• Some members never open email at all. In one congregation's High Holiday campaign, older members engaged well on live calls, and a text-only or email-only approach would have missed them.
• The stakes are real: dues cover somewhere between "45 percent all the way to 85 percent" of synagogue costs (Etz Hayim).

Shul, temple or synagogue: why does the word matter?

The same institution goes by three names, and each one signals a different community. Vendors know this, which is why so many products put "shul" in their name.

• Shul: skews Orthodox. Most shul-named products (ShulSignal, ShulText, ShulHub, EasyShul) are aimed here.
• Temple: skews Reform and Conservative, as in congregations like Har Zion Temple.
• Synagogue: the neutral, institutional word. Listicles and cross-movement articles default to it.
• Chabad: a fourth community with its own software and its own way of speaking to members.

A member call has to use the word your members use. A call that says "the temple" to an Orthodox shul, or "the shul" to a Reform temple, sounds like it was written for someone else's community, and members notice in the first sentence.

Does the movement change the calendar too?

Yes, and this is where generic calling tools go wrong. The dates a campaign runs on depend on the movement and on the Hebrew calendar, not on last year's civil dates.

• Reform festival lengths differ: the Central Conference of American Rabbis states Reform practice as "Pesach for seven days, Shabuot one day, Sukkot (including Shemini Atseret) eight days, and Rosh Hashanah one day," which changes four end dates against the standard Diaspora calendar.
• Holidays start at sundown: observance begins the evening before the date most people quote, so no member should get a call after candle-lighting on a festival eve.
• The dates drift: Rosh Hashana fell on 11 to 13 September 2026 and falls on 1 to 3 October 2027, because 5787 is a Hebrew leap year (Hebcal). A schedule copied from this year's civil dates would call three weeks early next year.
• Diaspora, not Israel: Pesach, Shavuot and Shmini Atzeret differ between the two, and some calendar tools quietly use Israeli dates.

Where does a phone call fit next to shul software?

Right after the statement, for the members who did not act on it. Your software keeps doing what it does; the call picks up where the email stops.

1. Your system sends the statement or the seat reservation form, exactly as it does today.
2. Members who haven't acted get a call in a normal, two-way conversation. They can ask a question, say they already paid, or say they need to talk to someone.
3. No answer means a voicemail in your director's own recorded voice.
4. Then a text with your own payment or ticket link, the one your shul software already gives you.
5. Your office gets one plain list each morning: paid, will pay, wants a call back, moved, wrong number, can't manage it this year, remove me.
6. The list also cleans your records. Moves, deaths and dead numbers surface on the call, which is exactly the data hygiene ShulCloud's own "10 Commandments of Annual Billing" shows offices doing by hand.

Which shul software does AutoCallFlow work with?

All of it. AutoCallFlow integrates with ShulCloud, ShulSuite, Rakefet and the other shul systems congregations run, and we connect your member list for you during setup. Nothing in your software changes.

• Your member list, connected for you: households, phone numbers and who still needs to act on the statement.
• Your own links: members pay dues and buy tickets through the pages your system already uses.
• Outcomes back to your office: who paid, who promised to, who moved and who needs the rabbi, in one morning list your staff can act on.

Shul software vs. texting apps vs. a calling service: what does each do?

Most congregations need more than one of these. The question is which gap each one fills.

What did one congregation's calling campaign find?

These are real numbers from one congregation's High Holiday campaign across roughly 1,900 members, followed by its Sukkot invitation:

• A person answered on 26% of calls. Plan on about a quarter for live conversations.
• About half of the calls went to voicemail, so roughly three in four members heard from the synagogue in some form.
• 966 voicemails were in the director's own voice. On the biggest part of the campaign, members heard someone they knew.
• 155 members called back to carry on the conversation.
• On Sukkot, 115+ text replies came in on the first day, most of them from members who hadn't answered the call.

It isn't calls versus texts. It is one thread, and each member answers on the channel they actually use.

What should a member call never do?

• Never claim to be a member or a volunteer. The call says who it is calling for, in your own words, and whether it says it's an automated assistant is your decision.
• Never sound like a bill: no "past due," no "final notice." Dues and seats are part of the holidays, not a debt.
• Never press a member who says they can't manage it. Synagogue dues policies already send that conversation to a person: "please call Executive Director ... or Rabbi ... to discuss alternative arrangements" (Ansche Chesed).
• Never ask twice. A principle from Jewish law on debts: "If after asking the borrower once whether they have the money to repay they respond in the negative ... we may not ask them again." Dues asks stop for that member; event invitations continue.
• Never call after candle-lighting on Shabbat or a festival eve.

How much does calling cost next to your software subscription?

• Member calling runs on the $60/month plan, with 220 minutes included and $0.20 a minute after that. The $150/month plan includes 360 minutes.
• Most congregations add minutes for a big month like the High Holidays, then drop back.
• Judge it by result, not by call. "A platform advertising '$0.05 per call' may actually cost more than one advertising '$0.03 per minute' depending entirely on how long your calls are and how their billing rounds" (RoboTalker).
• One household that renews instead of drifting away is worth "$1,420 dues each" per adult at Har Zion Temple, or $2,140 for one adult and $3,650 for two at Anshe Emet.

What should you set up before you call members?

A summary of public regulatory material, not legal advice. Talk to TCPA counsel before your first campaign.

• AI voice counts as "artificial" under the TCPA, per the FCC's February 2024 ruling (FCC 24-17). So does a prerecorded human voice.
• Most member lists are mobile numbers, and calls to mobiles need consent.
• Add a consent line to forms you already send: the membership renewal form and the High Holiday seat reservation form.
• Register texting early: "As of December 1, 2024, carriers began blocking unregistered A2P traffic outright" (JustCall). Registration takes weeks, so start well before the season.

For how a full campaign runs for tickets, dues and events, see Synagogue Calling Service: How It Works for Tickets, Dues and Events. For what is permitted when members fall behind, see Synagogue Dues Collection: What's Actually Permitted, and What Isn't.