Categories are the key to tracking and reporting accurate data in your Church Metrics account. Categories are set by each church and should match how you measure attendance and giving. Accounts are set up with some default categories, but always feel free to add, modify, or delete categories in your account.
Keep in mind what metrics you want to track, and what you want to see on reports and charts. Ask yourself "What meaningful decision could I make by tracking this metric?" And try to keep it simple! Your volunteers will thank you 😉
Example 1
Typical format
Total Attendance (Attendance, Parent category)
Adults (Attendance)
Nursery (Attendance)
Kids (Attendance)
Teens (Attendance)
Total Contributions (Contributions, Parent category)
Tithes (Contributions)
Offerings (Contributions)
First Time Visitors (Other)
Visitor Follow Ups (Other)
Volunteers (Other)
Salvations (Salvations)
Baptisms (Other)
Life Groups (Other)
Some churches want to know the average tithe by adult. In that case, you may want to exclude kids from your Total Attendance, or use just the "Adults" category. e.g. Average Tithe = Total Contributions / Adults.
Example 2
Setting Up Sanctuary, Kids, and Total Attendance Tracking in Church Metrics
If you want to track Sanctuary Attendance, Kids Attendance (with volunteers broken out), and have these automatically sum to a Total Sunday Attendance number, the best approach is to use Parent Categories in Church Metrics.
Understanding Parent Categories
A Parent Category is a category that automatically calculates the sum of the subcategories linked to it. You cannot enter numbers directly into a Parent Category — instead, it’s calculated from the values you enter in its child categories.
For example:
Total Sunday Attendance (Parent Category)
├─ Sanctuary Attendance
└─ Total Kids Attendance
├─ Kids
└─ Kids Volunteers
In this setup:
Total Kids Attendance = Kids + Kids Volunteers
Total Sunday Attendance = Sanctuary Attendance + Total Kids Attendance