In a software world that loves shiny trends and churn, Icon Systems Inc. has made a different bet by staying close to the people doing the work, making the tools simple, and letting the power hide under the hood until you need it. It’s a philosophy that has carried the Fargo-based company from a single church desktop program in the early ’90s to an all-in-one, cloud platform used by churches, nonprofits, small cities and, for-profit companies.
A Founder Who Came From The Accounting Trenches
Icon Systems was founded in 1992 by Robert Gifford, a name that carries weight in the accounting-software world. Before starting Icon, Gifford led research and development at Great Plains Software, where he helped create Great Plains Accounting and Dynamics—systems that became industry standards in the for-profit space and were later aquired by Microsoft.
That background matters. Great Plains was built to handle complexity without punishing the user. When Gifford’s church asked for help managing its own operations, he brought that same mindset into a new arena. The result was Revelations, a desktop platform designed specifically for church management as a starting point that eventually evolved into today’s web-based IconCMO ecosystem.
“Simple To Use. Power To Grow.”
Icon’s mission statement—“Simple to use. Power to grow.”—sounds like a tagline until you see who it’s for.
A huge share of church and nonprofit administration is done by people who didn’t sign up to be accountants. They are volunteers, office managers, secretaries, part-time treasurers, small-business owners wearing five hats. They need software that doesn’t require a degree, a week of training, or a support ticket every time something changes.
So Icon built the front end for normal humans by having intuitive screens, help on every page, and workflows that match the way churches and nonprofits actually function. But underneath, the system is fully scalable. Organizations can choose modules à la carte, add complexity over time, and assign secure duties to as many users as they need without hitting upcharges for each new login.
A Midwest Company In The Best Sense
The company’s leaders describe Midwestern employees as competitive in the right ways. They are the people who want to succeed personally, but also want the team to win. There’s pride in doing the work well and doing it together
They also talk about valuing staff as full human beings, not “resources.” In practice, that means treating employees as individuals and as members of families with real lives outside the office.
That culture also comes with a kind of practical resistance to fads. Icon doesn’t chase trends just because the tech world is loud about them. They just want to help churches and nonprofits do their job better.
Cloud-based, Because Ministry Doesn’t Happen At A Desk
IconCMO is cloud-based, meaning clients can log in securely from anywhere. That solves two growing realities in church and nonprofit life.
First, pastors and staff are mobile. They visit members, lead off-site gatherings, travel, preach, counsel, and manage ministry from cars, homes, hospitals, and conference centers. They need access to membership data, giving history, calendars, and communication tools wherever they are.
Second, bookkeeping talent is harder to find, especially for fund accounting. Remote access widens the pool: churches or organizations can work with bookkeepers who live far away, share duties across staff, or partner directly with Icon Systems for professional bookkeeping services.
On security, Icon says data is encrypted in transit between user computers and their servers, and they publish a detailed security overview for clients who want the full breakdown.
Automatic Updates, Nightly Backups, Less Stress
For many organizations, keeping software current is a low-grade nightmare. Icon removes that burden through automatic updates. Users don’t have to download patches or worry about missing a security fix. If one user reports a bug, Icon can correct it across the system for everyone at once.
Backups help in two ways. System backups run nightly for 30 days, plus monthly archives for a full year. If anything goes wrong, whether it’s human error, a corrupted file, a messy import, Icon can restore a database. Users can also create their own backups before making major changes, then roll back if they don’t like the result.
True Fund Accounting
Lots of platforms handle pieces of church or nonprofit life. One will handle memberships over here, giving over there, bookkeeping in another system entirely. Icon’s pitch is that everything works together in one ecosystem, and that the accounting side is not a rebranded for-profit ledger pretending to be nonprofit-friendly. Their system is true fund accounting, which is rare even among nonprofit products. In Icon, every dollar is tied to a specific fund.
Why It Matters
Nonprofits don’t receive money “just because.” They receive money for purposes like youth programs, building repairs, missions, scholarships, outreach, grants, and so on. Fund accounting tracks those buckets separately, so organizations can prove that a donor’s gift was used exactly as promised.
That’s a trust issue, a legal issue, and a spiritual issue for faith-based organizations
Compliance Without The Pain
Icon ties fund accounting to compliance in a few practical ways:
- Reversing entries make corrections transparent, so you can see what changed and why.
- Logging tools record transaction activity and edits, creating a clear audit trail
- Payroll tax updates are monitored and refreshed as regulations change, keeping churches compliant without requiring staff to be tax nerds.
- Funds inside balance-sheet accounts show where money is held and what it’s for—helping meet IRS documentation needs and FASB reporting standards.
For audits, the system can produce Statements of Financial Position and Statements of Activity for specific funds. That makes a huge difference when an organization receives restricted donations in one year and spends them in another. Because fund balances live cleanly on the balance sheet, those dollars don’t “disappear” at year-end the way they do in weaker systems. And since Icon is web-based with unlimited users, auditors and board members can be granted readonly access to pull reports directly.
Scaling A Mission Without Scaling Overhead
When churches and nonprofits grow, the first thing to break is usually admin capacity. Icon tries to solve that with a mix of cost control and workflow efficiency.
- Email-based donor statements and thank-yous reduce printing and mailing costs while improving donor communication.
- Unlimited user access lets organizations spread workload across staff and volunteers— pastors, secretaries, youth directors, treasurers, finance teams—without paying per sea
Where They’re Headed Next
Icon Systems isn’t standing still. Their roadmap focuses on practical upgrades that help churches and nonprofits operate better right now:
- improvements to the communications module
- adding a NACHA file option for payroll direct deposit (beyond the current Kotapay partnership) • a cleaner, more purpose-built mobile app experience for staff workflows
- a new Grant Management feature to track grants from start to finish
- stronger competitiveness with mainstream accounting tools and expanded in-house accounting services
- continued expansion beyond churches into the broader nonprofit and forprofit markets
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