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Shul management software for UK synagogues
One system for your membership list, your subscriptions, your Gift Aid, your events, your davening times and your website, built around how a shul actually works rather than adapted from software written for something else.
The problem
Most shuls run on five systems that do not speak to each other
The membership list is a spreadsheet on the secretary's laptop. Subscriptions are standing orders reconciled by hand against the bank statement. Gift Aid is a second spreadsheet built once a year from the first one. Events are a WhatsApp message and a payment link. Davening times are typed into the website by whoever still has the password.
Each part works. The cost is in the joins: a member who moves house is updated in one place and stale in four, a donation is Gift Aided twice or not at all, and the person who understands how it all fits together is a volunteer whose retirement is a continuity risk.
Synagogue management software is worth having only to the extent that it removes those joins. That is the thing to judge it on.
What it covers
Everything a shul office does, in one place
Membership management
One record per member and per family: contact details, household links, membership tier, subscription status, yahrzeits and honours. The list stops being a spreadsheet somebody has to remember to update.
Subscriptions and invoicing
Membership subscriptions, burial society contributions and one-off invoices, collected by card or bank payment. Reminders go out on a schedule you set, so arrears chasing is not a person's job.
Gift Aid
Declarations captured once and applied to every eligible donation and subscription, with the claim schedule produced for HMRC. Calculated on the net amount after processing fees, so the claim matches what the shul banked.
Donations and campaigns
A donate page, appeal campaigns with targets and matched-giving, and pledges tracked to completion. Donors are matched to existing records rather than piling up as anonymous rows.
Events and ticketing
Capacity, pricing, RSVPs and paid registration for dinners, sponsored events and programmes, including the ones where half the shul signs up in the last three days.
Davening times and schedule
A minyan schedule that computes itself: rules and slots produce the week's times, with zmanim, Shabbat and Yom Tov handled rather than typed in each week.
Shiurim
Audio and video recordings uploaded once and published to the website and the member app, so a shiur has somewhere to live other than a WhatsApp group.
Website and member app
A public shul website (times, events, shiurim, donate page) that updates itself from the same data, plus a member app for iPhone and Android.
Every module is included on every plan. See how each one works.
Why it is different
Built for shuls, not adapted for them
Most software sold to synagogues was written for churches or for general charities and had Jewish vocabulary added afterwards. The vocabulary is the easy part. What does not get added afterwards is the shape of the year.
- The Jewish calendar is structural, not cosmetic. Hebrew dates, yahrzeits that move with them, Shabbat and Yom Tov, and davening times derived from zmanim rather than typed in.
- Honours and aliyot are records. Who had which aliyah, what was pledged for it, and whether it was ever invoiced.
- UK funding realities. Gift Aid on both donations and membership subscriptions, Achisomoch vouchers, and charity-number handling on receipts.
- Volunteers run it. The people using this are trustees and honorary officers with day jobs, not a full-time administrator with training budget.
Choosing
Questions worth asking any vendor
- Can we export every member, invoice and donation ourselves, without asking you?
- Does the price go up as we grow, and by how much?
- Who is the data controller, and where is the data held?
- Does Gift Aid come out claim-ready, or as a spreadsheet we finish by hand?
- What happens to our website and member links if we leave?
- How long is the contract, and what is the notice period?
We wrote these up at length, including what a good answer sounds like, in the buyer's guide to choosing shul management software.
Questions
Common questions
- What is shul management software?
- Shul management software is a single system that holds a synagogue's membership records, collects its subscriptions and donations, runs its events, and publishes its davening times and website. It replaces the usual arrangement of a membership spreadsheet, a separate accounts package, a mailing list, a payment link and a website nobody can edit.
- What is the difference between shul management software and general church or charity software?
- The Jewish communal calendar and the way a shul is funded. Generic software has no concept of yahrzeits, aliyot and honours, Hebrew dates, Shabbat and Yom Tov, zmanim-driven davening times, or Achisomoch vouchers, and it usually assumes weekly giving rather than an annual membership subscription plus appeals. Those gaps get filled by spreadsheets, which is where the system stops being a system.
- Does it handle Gift Aid for a UK synagogue?
- Yes. Members give a Gift Aid declaration once, it is applied automatically to every eligible donation and membership subscription afterwards, and the claim schedule is produced in the format HMRC expects. Kehilla calculates Gift Aid on the net amount after payment processing fees so the claim reflects what the shul actually received.
- How long does it take to move a shul across?
- The data move itself is usually an afternoon: members, families, spouses and yahrzeits import from a CSV or Excel export of whatever you use now, with your columns mapped to Kehilla's fields. The longer part is deciding your membership tiers and billing dates, which is a committee question rather than a software one.
- Is our members' data safe, and who owns it?
- The shul owns its data and remains its data controller under UK GDPR; Kehilla is the processor. Every record is scoped to your shul, data is held in the UK and EU, and you can export it at any time. See our privacy policy for the full detail.
- How much does shul management software cost?
- Kehilla is priced per shul rather than per member, from £75 per month billed annually, with every module included on every plan and a 45-day free trial. Pricing that scales per member penalises exactly the growth a shul is trying to achieve.
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See it with your own shul's data
Every plan starts with a 45-day free trial and no card. Long enough to run a real billing cycle through it before you decide anything.
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