Shul management that fits how a shul actually works.
Membership, dues, kibbudim, yahrzeits, seats, sponsorships, zmanim and a real set of books — in one system, built by a shul treasurer who got tired of the alternatives.
What it does
Everything below is built and running, not planned. The demo is the same code with invented families in it.
Members and families
People, accounts and households as three separate things, because the family tree and the billing relationship are not the same graph. Hebrew names, with an on-screen alef-beis for typing them.
Dues and billing
Membership types with dated rates, a monthly dues run you read before you post, charges, payments, partial payments and credits. Money received stays unapplied until somebody says what it is for.
Kibbudim
Aliyos recorded on a phone or a desktop, sale cards printed for Yom Tov with clip strips, per‑festival member numbers, pledges, and the chiyuv board that says who is owed an aliyah.
Yahrzeits and simchos
Hebrew dates projected forward properly, bulk entry for the gabbai's existing list, and chiyuvim raised automatically from dates already on file.
A real set of books
Double‑entry from the first line: chart of accounts, funds, accounts payable, a payment run that writes cheques, bank reconciliation, trial balance and financial statements.
Statements and tax letters
Statements as PDFs, posted or emailed, and annual acknowledgments written against what the IRS actually asks for — the sentence chosen by what happened that year, not fixed in a template.
A member portal
His balance, his statements, and paying by card or bank transfer. He chooses what the payment is for. Autopay warns before it takes a variable amount and can be skipped for a month.
Zmanim and minyan times
A rule is one sentence — mincha starts fifteen minutes before shkia, rounded down to the nearest five — and every shita is a setting. Public times page and a lobby display.
Seats and sponsorships
Yom Tov seating laid out by the office and taken by the member, and kiddush or shiur sponsorships booked from the calendar with the charge raised on confirmation.
Email and text
Through the shul's own provider and from the shul's own address. Nothing reaches a member until the shul says it is live, which is its own deliberate act.
The shul's own website
Included, with the minyan times computed rather than typed — so the page is right every day without anybody editing it.
Roles the shul sets
A gabbai does not see balances. Who sees what is edited by the shul, not requested from a supplier, and every change is on an audit log.
Ideas it is built on
Most systems for this are a general‑purpose CRM with shul words pasted over it. The differences that matter are small and stubborn.
Every minhag is a setting
How a week with no parsha is named, which transliteration the board uses, which shitas the zmanim follow. A setting records a decision; a code branch hides one.
An honour is not an invoice
The honour, the sale and the pledge are three separate things from one aliyah, and only the purchaser is charged. Collapsing them is what produces a statement full of $0 lines.
The ledger is append‑only
Nothing is edited or deleted; a mistake is undone by a reversal that stays visible. A statement reprinted in six years reads what it read when it was sent.
Your data is yours
Each shul has a database of its own, so an export is the whole thing rather than a report. A shul that wants to leave takes everything with it.
Have a look
The demo is a fictional shul with invented families, rebuilt every night. Sign in as a gabbai and then as a treasurer — the difference between what they can see is the clearest thing about it.
demo.shulplatform.com
Every login is listed on the demo's own front page, with its password. Nothing there is real and nothing it sends can leave it.
Getting your shul on it
Shuls are set up one at a time, by hand, with somebody who knows the system — there is no self‑service button, on purpose. Tell us about your shul and we will come back to you.
Or just write: info@shulplatform.com