Is CiviCRM a 'master database' / 'master system'?

Question

The membership organisation I work for currently has serious issues with it's membership databases. That information is currently split between a wordpress user database with an extension s2pro which extends that, mailchimp, paypal, and an accounts package KashFlow.

Those all have various relations with each other but somehow seem to conflict and don't work properly - resulting in the system unsubscribing people from mailchimp, and various other problems with data not matching up.

My manager thinks that what we need to sort this out is a new 'master database' for the membership information which would communicate directly with all the other software packages and be an authoritative place for the data, rather than them all talking to each other and conflicting.

I'm wondering, would CiviCRM be able to serve as that master system? Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, CiviCRM would be a great match for what you're describing. CiviCRM is a central 'master' information hub that has quite a bit of reach out of the box:

• membership data (What Is CiviMember? and the following sections are a good start)
• mass emails (which can be integrated with MailChimp via an extension)
• Paypal integration for membership payments, donations and event sign ups (using Paypal Standard or Pro)
• integration into your Wordpress CMS with tiered permissions determining who can see/do what

Using KashFlow for accounting, there may be a little bit of custom work involved for you (or a developer) to customize the CiviCRM CSV export for accounting information (looks like Kashflow has a good bit of CSV instructions on what is needed for their system; without diving into the particulars, hard to say if custom work would be needed). The default CSV accounting batch export from CiviCRM has a large number of fields: it would be a matter of making sure your Kashflow-needed fields are in that export and potentially removing the unneeded ones.

Personal testimony: prior to using CiviCRM, our organization had a separate contact management system for each department, and none of the systems talked with each other (and manual comparisons between them often resulted in conflicting information). We have benefited 100x fold from the time and energy put into learning and customizing CiviCRM. We have one central place, integrated with our website, that keeps all our information current and accessible for staff. I'm so glad we made the choice to introduce CiviCRM into our administrative process.