A church calendar is not one calendar. It is a hall three groups want on a Tuesday, a vestry used for counselling, a wedding meeting somebody has to arrange, and a toddler group that happens every week without being asked. Picktime holds all of it in one place, and lets people book the parts you want them to book.
Blu ParishBook online
Main hall2h · Tue 18:00$30.00
Vestry1h · Quiet room$12.00
Wedding meeting60m · MinisterBook
Next free10:00 AM2:00 PM6:00 PM
Toddler group
Held to Jul
Booked once, for the term
Hall hire
$30.00
Taken online, not in cash
Outside hire
Pending
It waits for a person
Rooms, meetings and the things that happen every week, all on one calendar that the office is not the only keeper of.
Every room in the building is a bookable thing with its own availability. A group that wants the hall is only offered the hours the hall is genuinely free, so nobody arrives to find a christening party in it.
A wedding or a baptism takes several conversations before the day. Put them on a page and the family takes a time from the hours the minister has actually got, rather than leaving a message on Monday.
The toddler group, the choir practice, the food bank, the Wednesday lunch. On the paid plans you set them to repeat with an end date and the whole term is held, with the room reserved alongside.
On the paid plans you turn on approval, and a request from outside the congregation waits for a person rather than landing in the calendar. Regular groups book straight in; a party enquiry gets looked at.
Somebody who wants half an hour with a minister should not have to explain why to whoever answers the phone. Give pastoral conversations a service of their own with the minister’s real hours behind it (on the paid plans, ask only what you actually need at booking), and the appointment is made without a third person in the middle. Every past conversation stays on the minister’s own calendar rather than in a shared diary the whole office reads.
Churches are rarely one address. A parish or a group of congregations has a main church, a hall down the road and a centre that opens three days a week, each with different rooms and different people holding keys. Each site has its own opening hours, its own rooms and its own team on one account, so somebody booking a room picks the building as well as the hour and cannot book a hall on a day nobody can unlock it.
Twenty to seven and there are eleven people setting out chairs in the hall for a committee meeting while a dozen more arrive expecting a rehearsal. Both were agreed (one by email to the parish administrator in March, one to a warden after a service in April) and both are on a wall planner in an office that has been locked since half past four.
Picktime makes the hall itself a booking. Only one thing can hold Tuesday at seven, and everybody with a login can see it from wherever they are.
The main hall, the church, the vestry, the meeting room, the kitchen. Give each the hours it is genuinely available and say which of them can be booked together.
The minister, the administrator, the wardens who hold keys. Each one gets a login, their own working hours and only the appointments they take, so a pastoral hour is only offered when it exists.
Regular groups book directly, and on the paid plans an outside hire request waits for approval. Then put the link in the newsletter, on the noticeboard as a QR code and on your website.
Most church offices are open a few mornings a week and the phone rings all of the others. The Picktime AI receptionist answers on a number of its own, around the clock and on several calls at once, so somebody ringing about a funeral on a Sunday evening reaches something rather than an answering machine. It takes their name and number, guides them through what the church offers, books the meeting straight into the calendar and transfers to a person when the caller needs one. Every call is transcribed, so nothing said to an empty office on a Saturday is lost.
The free plan has no end date and no card behind it, which matters when the budget is agreed once a year by a committee.
A booking lands in the Google or Outlook calendar the office already keeps, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so a funeral put in on a Monday closes the hall for it. A committee meeting held over video gets its joining link generated with the booking, through Jitsi Meet on the free plan and Zoom on a paid one. A hire fee can be taken through PayPal without paying us anything, or through Stripe on a paid plan, rather than in cash on the night.
Picktime opens in a browser on a phone as well as a laptop, and there are iOS and Android apps, so a warden standing in the hall can see what is booked into it without unlocking the office.
Yes. Picktime has a free forever plan with no card and no end date: your own booking page, rooms held so nothing is double-booked, people booking and cancelling themselves, and email notifications. Repeating bookings and approval sit on the paid plans, and you pay when more people need their own login.
It depends what keeps going wrong. If it is the building (two groups in one hall, a wall planner nobody can see, meetings arranged by email), Picktime is built for that, and the free plan costs nothing to find out.
Yes. Every room is a bookable resource with its own hours, so a group is only offered times the hall is genuinely free, and on the paid plans you can require approval for anything from outside the congregation.
Yes. Put those meetings on your page with the minister’s real hours behind them and a family takes a time themselves rather than leaving a message with the office.
Yes. A parish with a church, a hall and a centre keeps three sets of opening hours, three sets of rooms and its own team on each, and whoever books picks the building as well as the hour.
Yes, on the paid plans. Set the toddler group or the choir practice to repeat with an end date and the whole term goes into the calendar in one action, with the room held alongside it.
It is booked directly with the minister from their own link and sits on their own calendar, rather than going through whoever is on the office phone that morning.
Nobody outside the vendors knows, and the answer would not help a parish anyway, because the tools with the largest installed bases are sold to sales teams and to businesses with a rota to run. The question worth asking instead is narrower: can a hall, a minister and a toddler group all be booked on the same page without the office standing between them and the person booking. Try the free plan against that and you will know inside an afternoon.
Not Picktime, and the volunteer rota is the one church job it does not do. A rota tool decides who is on the door at ten, chases whoever has not replied and lets two people swap a week between them. Picktime works the other way round: the church publishes the times that are free and a person takes one. Where the two meet is a sign-up sheet, and that does work here. Give a slot a limit on its places, put the link in the newsletter, and people claim an hour in the prayer room without anybody keeping a list. That much is on the free plan. Anything that needs cover, swaps and a roster by role is a separate purchase, and a parish that needs one should make it.
Not a list we are going to rank, and Picktime is not on it. Church management software owns the membership roll, the giving and the volunteer rota, which is a different job from booking a hall or half an hour with the minister. Picktime does the second and does not build rotas at all, so a parish that already runs a ChMS keeps it and puts the building on this.
Public services Advice appointments, room hire and programmes, on one calendar.
See community services scheduling
Charities Appointments, sessions and rooms held together on one account.
See charity scheduling
Venues Spaces hired by the hour or the day, each held against its own booking.
See event venue schedulingFree forever for a single church. No card, no trial clock, and the hall can be bookable before the next committee meeting.
Google Calendar
Outlook Calendar
Zoom
PayPal
Stripe