Wired Church

First-Time Setup — Creating Your Church

Walk through the initial setup of your Wired Church account, from creating your organization to configuring campuses and basic settings.

Last updated 2026-03-15

First-Time Setup — Creating Your Church

Welcome to Wired Church. This guide walks you through the first few minutes after signing up — creating your organization, configuring your campus locations, and getting your dashboard ready for your team.

The entire setup takes about 10 minutes. By the end, you'll have a fully configured church management workspace ready for staff invitations, member imports, and day-to-day operations.

Step 1: Create Your Account

  1. Visit app.wiredchurch.com/signup and enter your name, email address, and a password.
  2. Check your inbox for a verification email and click the confirmation link.
  3. Once verified, you'll be redirected to the Organization Creation Wizard.
Tip

Use an email address you check regularly — this becomes the primary contact for billing notifications, platform updates, and password recovery.

You are now the Org Admin for your new church. This is the highest permission level within your organization, giving you full access to every module and all settings.

Step 2: The Organization Creation Wizard

After verifying your email, the setup wizard guides you through four screens. You can always change these settings later under Admin > Settings > Organization, but getting them right now saves time.

Organization creation wizard showing church name, address, and logo upload fields

Screen 1: Church Identity

Fill in the following fields:

Field Description Example
Church Name Your official church name as it should appear everywhere New Life Community Church
Short Name Abbreviated version used in the sidebar and mobile nav NLCC
Phone Number Main church office phone (555) 234-5678
Email Address General contact email (shown on public site) info@newlifecommunity.org
Website URL Your existing website, if any https://newlifecommunity.org

Screen 2: Church Address

Enter the physical address of your primary campus:

  1. Street Address — e.g., 100 Faith Avenue
  2. City — e.g., Enterprise
  3. State — select from dropdown
  4. ZIP Code — e.g., 36330
  5. Country — defaults to United States
Note

This address is used as the default location for events, contribution statements, and your public website footer. You'll add additional campuses in the next screen.

Screen 3: Logo and Branding

  1. Click the Upload Logo area or drag and drop an image file.
  2. Accepted formats: PNG, JPG, SVG. Recommended size: at least 512x512 pixels.
  3. The logo appears in the admin sidebar, member portal header, contribution statements, email templates, and your public website.
Logo upload area with drag-and-drop zone and preview of uploaded church logo
Tip

Upload a square logo with a transparent background (PNG or SVG) for the best results across all contexts. A version with a white or light background works best for printed statements.

Screen 4: Timezone and Locale

  1. Timezone — Select your church's local timezone from the dropdown. This defaults to America/Chicago (Central Time) but is fully configurable.
  2. Date Format — Choose between MM/DD/YYYY (US default) or DD/MM/YYYY.
  3. Currency — Defaults to USD.
Important

The timezone setting controls how every date and time is displayed across the entire platform — attendance records, contribution dates, event schedules, and reports. If your church spans multiple time zones, choose the timezone of your primary campus. Each additional campus can have its own timezone override.

Getting the timezone right at setup prevents a common category of bugs: contributions recorded on the wrong date, attendance showing up a day off, or event times confusing volunteers. Set it once, correctly, and everything flows from there.

Step 3: Add Your Primary Campus

Immediately after the wizard completes, you'll be prompted to configure your first campus. Every church in Wired Church has at least one campus.

Campus configuration form showing name, address, service times, and capacity fields

  1. Campus Name — e.g., "Main Campus" or "Downtown Location"

  2. Address — Pre-filled from your organization address. Edit if different.

  3. Service Times — Add each regular service your church holds:

    • Click + Add Service Time
    • Enter a label (e.g., "Sunday School," "Family Worship," "Wednesday Bible Study")
    • Select the day of the week
    • Set the start time
    • Optionally set an end time and expected capacity

  4. Click Save Campus.

Tip

Service times are used throughout the platform — attendance tracking, ministry scheduling, event defaults, and contribution batch labels. Take a minute to enter all your regular weekly services now so they're available everywhere from the start.

Step 4: Add Additional Campuses (Optional)

If your church has multiple locations, add them now:

  1. Navigate to Admin > Settings > Campuses.
  2. Click + Add Campus.
  3. Fill in the campus name, address, and service times.
  4. Each campus can have its own:
    • Timezone (if in a different time zone from the primary)
    • Service schedule
    • Contact phone and email
    • Campus pastor or primary contact person
Campus list showing two campuses — Main Campus and North Campus — with edit and service time details
Note

All data in Wired Church is scoped to your organization, but attendance, events, and ministry schedules can be filtered by campus. Members can be associated with a primary campus for reporting purposes.

Step 5: Configure Basic Settings

Before inviting your team, take a moment to review a few key settings under Admin > Settings:

General Settings

  • Fiscal Year Start Month — Defaults to January. If your church operates on a different fiscal year (e.g., July-June), set it here. This affects contribution reports, budget comparisons, and financial summaries.
  • Default Service Type — The service pre-selected when recording attendance or contributions. Typically your largest weekly gathering.
  • Member ID Format — Choose auto-generated numeric IDs or custom alphanumeric. If you're migrating from Planning Center or another system, custom IDs let you preserve existing member numbers.

Contribution Settings

  • Envelope Numbering — Enable if your church uses offering envelopes. Members can be assigned envelope numbers under their profile.
  • Fund List — A default General Fund is created automatically. Add additional funds (Missions, Building, Benevolence, etc.) under Admin > Finance > Funds.
  • Online Giving — Stripe integration is configured separately. See the Setting Up Online Giving guide.

Email Settings

  • From Name — The sender name on system emails (e.g., "New Life Community Church")
  • Reply-To Address — Where replies to system emails go (e.g., office@yourchurch.org)
Tip

You can configure all of these settings later, but setting the fiscal year and default fund before entering contributions avoids having to recategorize data.

Step 6: Your Dashboard

After completing setup, you land on the Admin Dashboard — your command center.

Admin dashboard showing stat cards for attendance, giving, and members, plus a recent activity feed and quick action buttons

Here's what you'll see:

Stat Cards (Top Row)

  • Total Members — Current active member count, with trend vs. last month
  • This Week's Attendance — Total across all services, with comparison to last week
  • Giving This Month — Total contributions for the current month
  • Upcoming Events — Count of events in the next 7 days

Quick Actions

Three prominent buttons for the most common tasks:

  1. Record Attendance — Jump directly to the attendance check-in screen
  2. New Contribution Batch — Start a new batch for entering tithes and offerings
  3. Add Member — Open the new member form

Recent Activity Feed

A chronological list of recent actions across your organization:

  • New members added
  • Contributions recorded
  • Attendance sessions completed
  • Events created or updated
  • Staff invitations sent

The left sidebar organizes all 17 modules into logical groups. See the Dashboard Overview article for a full breakdown of navigation and module structure.

What to Do Next

With your organization created and basic settings configured, here's the recommended order for the rest of your setup:

  1. Invite your staff — Add your pastoral team, office staff, bookkeeper, and key volunteers.
  2. Import your members — Use the CSV import tool under Admin > Members > Import to bring in your existing congregation data.
  3. Set up contribution funds — Define your giving categories under Admin > Finance > Funds.
  4. Configure online giving — Connect your Stripe account for web and mobile donations.
  5. Explore the member portal — See what your congregation will experience at the portal login.
Tip

You don't have to do everything at once. Most churches start with Members + Contributions, then add Attendance and Ministry Scheduling in the first few weeks. The portal, events, and communication modules can come later as your team gets comfortable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change my church name or address later? Yes. Go to Admin > Settings > Organization to update any field from the setup wizard at any time.

What if I picked the wrong timezone? Change it immediately under Admin > Settings > Organization > Timezone. The change applies to all future date displays. Existing records are stored in UTC and will render correctly in the new timezone.

Can I delete a campus? Campuses can be archived (hidden from dropdowns) but not deleted if they have associated attendance, event, or contribution records. This preserves historical data integrity.

Is there a limit to how many campuses I can add? No. Add as many as your church operates.

What if I need to start over? Contact support at help@wiredchurch.com. We can reset your organization while preserving your account login.

Next

Inviting Staff and Setting Roles

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