Realm Migration Checklist for Churches (2026)

Realm by ACS Technologies is a long-standing church management platform, but many churches move on when they want true fund accounting, simpler reporting, or a free plan for smaller congregations. This checklist walks through what exports cleanly from Realm and where to expect manual review. For a full feature comparison, see Alignmint vs Realm.

What You Can Move

• People and family records (names, addresses, emails, phone numbers)
• Giving history and contribution records
• Recurring gift schedules
• Fund and campaign labels
• Group and ministry membership
• Member status and engagement notes
• Pledge and commitment records

What Needs Review

• Fund labels that changed over the years (these may need consolidating)
• Member statuses and inactive records you can archive instead of import
• Giving records that should reconcile to fund balances before go-live
• Third-party connections (payment processing, email tools)
• Custom report definitions, which rebuild quickly in the new system
• Attachments and documents linked to member profiles

Migration Checklist

1. Audit your Realm data. Export a people summary and a giving summary to confirm record counts. Note duplicates, outdated families, and funds you can retire before import.

2. Export people and families. Use Realm's people export for member and family records. Include households, contact details, and member statuses.

3. Export giving history. Pull full contribution history including gift amount, date, fund designation, payment method, and recurring schedules.

4. Export funds and groups. Download your fund list, campaign labels, and ministry group membership so church structure transfers alongside records.

5. Map fields to Alignmint. Match Realm fields to Alignmint's donor management structure, and flag any fields that need manual mapping.

6. Set up your fund structure. Create your funds in Alignmint's fund accounting before importing giving so each gift lands in the correct restricted or unrestricted fund.

7. Import and validate. Upload your mapped files. Confirm record counts match your audit, spot-check ten member profiles, and verify recurring gifts are active and fund balances reconcile.

8. Reconnect giving and integrations. Update payment processing, email tools, and any links that pointed to Realm online giving.

9. Train your team. Share logins, walk through the new interface, and confirm staff and volunteers can reach the records and reports they use weekly.

10. Decommission Realm. After a parallel-run period of two to four weeks, cancel your ACS Technologies subscription and archive your final export as a backup.

Timeline and Support

Most Realm migrations finish in one to two weeks. Alignmint offers a free migration review where our team maps your people, giving, and fund data, then gives you a pre-import report before anything moves. For how fund accounting fits weekly church finance, see the church accounting hub.

Bottom Line

Moving from Realm to an all-in-one platform means member records, giving, fund accounting, volunteers, and events live in one place. Your finance team can follow a gift from donor record to fund balance without exports or separate reconciliation.

Schedule Your Free Setup | Start Your Free Migration Review.

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Related:

• Alignmint vs Realm — Full feature, pricing, and fund accounting comparison
• Fund Accounting — How Alignmint handles restricted funds and board reports
• Best Accounting Software for Churches — How to evaluate church finance tools