Frequently asked questions

Temple Hub is a complete temple management platform built for Hindu temples. It gives every temple a dedicated admin portal with tiles for Puja Services, Temple Calendar, Manage Deities, Bookings, Facility Services, Devotee management, Priest Scheduling, Donations & Campaigns, a Canteen & Store module, Newsletters, and more — all accessible from any browser or the Temple Hub mobile app on iOS and Android.

It takes about a minute, and you don't need to sign in just to find your temple. First, open the Temple Hub app (or the Select Organization page) and search for your temple by name or short code — temples with an active Temple Hub subscription appear in the results, and no email or OTP is required at this step. Next, select your temple: your temple page opens right away, and Temple Hub remembers your choice, so every time you reopen the app your temple page loads by default. Then, on your temple page, sign in with your email or mobile number and the one-time passcode (OTP) you receive. Finally, once verified, new devotees complete a quick profile, and you can book pujas and services, manage your household, and add details such as your spouse and company or business information.

Yes. The admin portal ships with two themes: the default dark front-desk look and a light "Morning Parchment" theme, plus a System option that follows your device's appearance automatically. Switch anytime from the theme control in the top-right of every admin page's header (sun = Light, monitor = System, moon = Dark), right next to the Home button. The choice is remembered per device and applies to every admin page, including the Bookings POS, Finance Dashboard, and Calendar. Printed receipts, thermal labels, and PDF reports always keep their fixed paper colors regardless of the on-screen theme.

Yes. Inside the Training Guide & FAQ tile, admins can take an interactive, voice-guided course that walks through every tile step by step with narration, captions, and animated highlights — you can pause, change speed, and resume exactly where you left off. After the course, a certification exam (flashcards plus multiple-choice questions covering every area of Temple Hub) awards the "Certified Temple Hub Administrator" badge and a downloadable, emailable certificate to anyone who scores 90% or higher. The exam can be retaken anytime, and the course automatically covers new features as they're added.

Contact our team through the Request Demo page. We will set up your temple's account, assign your unique temple code, and guide you through the onboarding process. Most temples are live within a single business day.

Yes. Every plan includes a 30-day free trial — no credit card required. You get full access to all tiles and features in your selected plan during the trial period. After 30 days, you can subscribe or speak with our team about an extended pilot.

There's no separate sign-up form to fill out in advance. A devotee simply enters their email or mobile number, verifies it with a one-time passcode (OTP), and — if they're new to the temple — a short form guides them to finish creating their account (name, phone, household, and optional gotra/nakshatra). They're set up as a devotee and signed in right away; returning devotees skip the form and go straight to their portal. For the best experience, install the Temple Hub app from Google Play (Android) or the App Store (iPhone and iPad) and enter your temple code once — after that it opens to your temple automatically, with push notifications. Prefer not to install? Everything also works from any web browser. Either way, devotees can book pujas, view the temple calendar, reserve facilities, and download newsletters.

Yes. Temple Hub runs on any iPad in a counter-top stand as a full front-desk point of sale — no proprietary hardware to buy. Staff can charge pujas, donations, memberships and facility bookings with cash, card, or split tender, reconcile the cash drawer at the end of each shift, and the same stand can flip to a devotee self-service mode for check-in and donations. A secure stand locks it to the counter and swivels for the devotee to sign or tap to pay. Contact us for a kiosk demo.

You can configure any puja type — archana, abhishekam, homam, sevas, and custom services — each with its own pricing, duration, priest requirements, and materials list. Devotees can browse and book these services directly from their portal.

The Bookings tile lets admins view, manage, and update all puja and facility reservations in one place. You can see upcoming bookings, check devotee details, and coordinate with priests — all without switching between systems.

Yes. Devotees can book pujas on behalf of any family member in their profile. All bookings appear in the devotee's order history and in the admin's Finance Dashboard tile for easy tracking and refund management.

The Finance Dashboard tile gives admins a full view of all devotee puja orders — including payment details, service records, and order status. Admins can issue refunds directly from this tile without needing to contact the payment provider separately. It opens as a full-screen three-frame console (like the Bookings POS): a left navigator rail with section jump-links — clicking Trends & Compare expands one-click Quick Range buttons (Today, Last 7 Days, This Month, This Quarter, This Year, All Time) below it, and clicking Revenue Analytics expands a Filter View and Revenue View picker right below it that drive the center breakdown and ledger, with a badge showing how many filter rules are active; the center holding all metrics, charts and the transaction ledger at full width, with the transaction search box in the ledger header; and a collapsible right-hand Finance Snapshot (slide it open or closed with its arrow button) showing what the center doesn't: a payment-mix bar, a Needs Attention list of anomaly flags (high refund rate, cash variance, drawer over/short, complimentary orders), Range Highlights (top service, top contributor, peak revenue day), and Export PDF/Excel buttons. On narrow screens the rails hide and the Filters & Tools card appears above the revenue breakdown instead. Key metrics for the selected date range include Gross Sales, Refunds, Net Revenue, Order Volume, Average Order, plus Donations (and their share of revenue), Tax-Exempt total, Refund Rate, and Cash vs Card collected. A Business Analytics row adds derived insight metrics for the finance/BI team: Net Margin (net ÷ gross), Daily Average run-rate, a linear Projected Month total, Median Order (outlier-robust vs the average), Unique Devotees and revenue per devotee, Repeat-Devotee Revenue Share, Online vs Front-Desk share, Complimentary and Tax-Exempt shares, and Cash Variance (drawer over/short as a percentage of cash handled). Every figure respects the active date range and filters and updates in real time.

The Finance Dashboard's Revenue Analytics section breaks collections down several ways: By Payment Channel (the tender — cash, card terminal, online card, split, cheque, complimentary), By Source (Temple Website self-service vs the admin Front Desk/POS), By Category, By Service, By Devotee, By Priest, By Collector / Cashier, and By Time of Day. The "By Devotee" view is a contributor leaderboard showing how much each devotee has paid, along with the number of unique devotees and the average given per devotee — handy for recognizing top supporters and for year-end acknowledgements. Click any row to instantly filter the transaction ledger. Cash-drawer reconciliation entries (shift over/short) are excluded from every breakdown and from Gross/Net revenue — they appear only in the dedicated "Drawer Over/Short" card and the ledger, since they are internal adjustments rather than sales. The one exception: extra cash converted to a general donation at shift close counts as real Cash + Donation revenue.

They answer different questions. By Source is a two-bucket split of where the sale originated: Temple Website (the devotee paid online themselves) vs Front Desk (POS) (a staff member collected it at the desk, whatever the tender). By Collector / Cashier breaks the front-desk bucket down to the individual person who collected each payment — useful for per-cashier accountability and matching each cashier's total against their shift reconciliation; website orders appear there as "Online / Self-Service". In short: Source tells you whether the temple or the devotee ran the transaction; Collector tells you which staff member's hands the money passed through — and Source's Front Desk total should equal the sum of all human collectors.

Every record carries up to three references. The Order ID (e.g. order-mr61iegvrm8w) is the permanent database ID of the order/booking itself — it exists even before payment and is what you use to look up or refund a specific order. The Transaction ID (e.g. TXN-LL7Q55) is the payment reference generated when money is collected. The Invoice No is intentionally the same number as the Transaction ID — the payment reference doubles as the receipt/invoice number so the devotee's receipt always matches the ledger; seeing them identical is expected, not an error. Card payments also store the processor's own identifiers (Square payment ID or Datacap Ref No/Auth Code) separately for settlement and refunds, and a cash-change donation is logged with a "-D" suffix (TXN-LL7Q55-D) so it traces to its parent transaction.

Yes. In Confirm Payment Details, choose the "Other" mode (next to Cash / Card / Split) and pick the method — Check, Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, Bank Transfer, or Other. Enter the reference or confirmation number and attach a required proof image (take a photo or upload a screenshot). The payment is recorded as a paid order, so it appears in the Finance Dashboard and the devotee's profile, and an acknowledgment is emailed to the devotee and can be printed. The proof image is viewable only by Finance, SuperAdmin, and the cashier who collected it. For checks, automatic scanning of the check number and amount is planned in a later update.

The Bookings tile opens a full-screen point-of-sale (POS) view built for the temple front desk. Staff pick puja or facility services from a category-organised store, attach the devotee (search, add new, or continue as guest), choose the date and time, and take payment — cash with change calculation, card, split cash+card, complimentary, or "Other" methods like check and Zelle. The same screen manages existing reservations (collect payment, reschedule, reassign priest, cancel, holds with expiry countdowns), shows order history with refunds, and runs the cashier shift: opening cash count, live cash/card totals, and end-of-shift reconciliation with a printable closing receipt. Records where money moved (paid, refunded, or complimentary) can never be deleted — they are retained permanently for financial reporting and audit; only never-paid rows such as expired holds or unpaid cancellations can be cleaned up.

That's up to each temple. Under Temple Setup → Booking Rules → Holds, the "Allow reserve without payment" rule controls it: when it's on, a booking can be saved On Hold for a devotee with no payment collected — the date is blocked, a hold expiry counts down, and payment is taken later when the devotee confirms. When the rule is off, payment is required at booking time and the Save-on-Hold and Reserve options disappear from the POS entirely. A Reservation Policy panel in the same section fine-tunes it: which services may be reserved (all, only chosen categories, only chosen services, or none), whether a reservation needs admin approval before the devotee can pay (never, always, facilities only, or only above a set dollar amount), how long an unpaid reservation lasts, the maximum number of open reservations one devotee may hold, and whether reserving is members-only. When approval is required, a devotee's website reservation lands in Bookings → Active marked "Awaiting approval"; a SuperAdmin or Admin taps Approve (or Reject with a reason) — only after approval does the "Pay Now" button appear on the devotee's dashboard for that booking, and the devotee is emailed either way. Pair it with "Auto-expire on-hold bookings" so unpaid reservations cancel themselves after the window.

The reservation lands in the admin Bookings screen (Active tab) with an "⏳ Awaiting approval" badge. Admins and SuperAdmins see ✓ Approve and ✕ Reject buttons on the row — other roles don't. Approving emails the devotee and unlocks Pay Now on their website dashboard, and the row shows "✓ Approved · awaiting payment" until they pay. Rejecting requires a written reason, which is emailed to the devotee along with a push notification, and the booking is cancelled. Every decision — who approved or rejected, when, and why — is recorded in the audit log.

Yes. Shifts are per-admin: each cashier starts their own shift with their own opening cash count, and any number of shifts can be open at once. Every POS payment is tagged with the shift that collected it, so at End Shift the expected totals are derived directly from that shift's orders — one admin's drawer never mixes with another's. Cash drawers are configured under Settings → Add Setting → "Cash Drawer / Counter" (one row per physical box, e.g. "Front Desk 1", "Floor 2"); at Start Shift the cashier picks their drawer from a dropdown, a drawer already in use shows as taken and can't be claimed twice, and the drawer remembers its float — the closing count left in the box pre-fills the opening count for whoever runs that drawer next, whoever they are. The drawer name appears on the shift bar, printed labels, and the reconciliation record. Temples that configure no drawers can still type a free-text label. For counters where several cashiers genuinely work one box at once (e.g. a festival counter), mark the drawer "Shared" in its setting: it stays selectable while in use ("in use — join"), the first shift carries the opening float (joiners start at $0 unless they add cash), and the last shift to close counts the box against the whole group's collections — with the trade-off, stated plainly, that any over/short belongs to the group rather than one person. If an admin accidentally starts a shift on a second device, the POS adopts their existing open shift instead of creating a duplicate. The Finance Dashboard shows an "Open Shifts" panel listing every open drawer with its running totals and a combined expected-cash figure for the treasurer. Best practice: one login per person, one cash box per login — never share an admin account between two people.

Yes. The Facility Services tile lets devotees and admins book the temple hall, kitchen, AV equipment, and other shared spaces. These reservations appear alongside puja bookings in the main Bookings tile so admins always have a unified view. When booking a facility at the front desk, staff pick the required duration/rate for the space and can optionally add In-Temple priest services to the same reservation — the calendar automatically blocks dates the chosen priest is already booked.

Yes. The Canteen & Store module lets you run a temple canteen, kitchen, or prasadam/gift counter. You can build and manage the menu (with portions and pricing), take and track orders, mark items as sold out, and receive low-inventory alerts so popular items can be restocked in time. You also control when orders may be taken: set per-day business hours in Canteen → Settings, or turn on "Open 24/7" to accept orders at any time — and pause ordering instantly with the "Accept New Orders" switch. It also includes promotions, reviews, and basic sales analytics — keeping food and store operations in the same platform as the rest of your temple.

Yes, when the canteen order is placed for a selected devotee at the counter. Each such order links to that devotee's profile, so their canteen spend appears in two places for admins: a "Canteen Spend" section on the devotee's profile in Manage Devotees (lifetime and this-year totals and order count, broken down by branch when you run more than one), and a "Top Customers" panel in Canteen → Analytics that ranks devotees by attributed spend net of refunds. Orders taken without picking a devotee stay as walk-ins and are grouped into a single "Walk-in / unattributed" line rather than guessed at. To keep history unified, when a cashier types a phone or email that matches an existing devotee the counter offers that profile with one tap instead of creating a duplicate. Canteen spend is a purchase, so it is always kept out of giving totals and never appears on tax letters. Temples can also show each devotee their own canteen history on the temple website's My Profile — turn "Canteen spend on the website" on or off under Booking Rules → Canteen Spend, and choose how much detail to show (itemized dishes, per-order summary, or totals only).

Yes, an optional one — off by default. Configure it under Booking Rules → Canteen Spend: choose a punch card (every Nth qualifying order earns a reward, with an optional minimum order value), points ($1 spent earns points redeemable in whole hundreds), or spend tiers (annual-spend recognition bands with no redemption). The "Loyalty Program" quick action in Canteen → Settings is the same on/off switch, so either page controls the one program. Once on, the canteen's New Order screen shows the selected devotee's live progress under their name — punch count, points balance, or current tier — and flags a punch-card order that completes the card before payment so the counter can honor the reward. Balances are always calculated from the devotee's actual order history (net of refunds), never stored, so changing settings can never strand points. Only orders placed for a selected devotee earn loyalty — walk-ins earn nothing — and automatic redemption at the counter arrives in a later release.

Admins can assign priests to specific pujas, sevas, and events and manage their shifts. Each priest gets a personal schedule of their upcoming services, so they always know what they are assigned to and when. Priest assignments also flow into each priest's personal schedule, into the Temple Calendar's Bookings filter (visible to SuperAdmins and to any role granted the Bookings tile in Tile Access), and into finance reporting, where you can see revenue attributed to each priest.

Yes. Memberships are sold like any other service at the front-desk Bookings POS. Create a service with the category "Membership" and the subcategory "Yearly" (or "Annual") or "Lifetime", set its price, and it appears in the POS store. When the membership is paid — cash, card, or other methods — the devotee's profile is updated automatically: yearly memberships get an expiry date one year from purchase (renewing early extends from the current expiry, so no paid time is lost), and lifetime memberships never expire. A membership can only be sold to a devotee profile, never to a guest — the POS asks the cashier to select or create the devotee first.

Every service can carry two prices: a Member Price and a Non-Member Price. The Bookings POS checks the selected devotee's membership status automatically — active members (yearly not yet expired, or lifetime) are charged the Member Price, everyone else the Non-Member Price. If a service has no Non-Member Price configured, everyone pays the Member Price, so nothing changes until you fill in non-member prices. The devotee's status ("Member until …", "Lifetime member", or "Not a member") is shown right on the POS cart when they are selected.

Every devotee profile in Manage Devotees has a Membership tab showing their status: "Not a Member", the membership start date, and — for yearly members — the expiry date. The same status also appears as a column in the devotee list and on the POS cart when the devotee is selected for a booking. These fields are read-only: they are set automatically when a membership is purchased at the Bookings POS. Manual grants for legacy or complimentary members (with full audit logging) are planned for a later update.

Yes. Under Temple Setup → Booking Rules, the "Offers & Concessions" section lets admins create offers: a percentage or fixed-dollar discount, optionally with a minimum order value, a validity date range, a members-only or non-members-only restriction, specific service categories, or a repeat-visit condition (the devotee has a prior paid order within a chosen number of days — the classic "second visit within 2 days" concession). With multiple offers you decide exactly which ones may combine; when they do, each percentage is calculated on the original order value, never compounded. Discounts always apply to the original price, and sales tax and card fees are then calculated on the discounted amount. Offers never apply to Membership purchases or Donations. At the front desk, staff tap "Check Offers" in the POS order column: every offer appears as a tile showing the order cost with and without the offer — eligible offers apply to the total instantly, and offers the devotee doesn't qualify for yet still show the potential savings alongside the reason (a gentle nudge to qualify). Non-members see a "Become a Member" button right in the panel: choosing Yearly or Lifetime adds the membership to the same order and immediately unlocks member pricing and member-only offers for it. The receipt shows the original amount, the discount, and the amount charged.

Yes. Devotees can make general donations or give toward a specific purpose, and admins can create fundraising campaigns with public-facing pages so the community can contribute to temple causes. All contributions appear in the Finance Dashboard alongside puja orders, with donation totals and tax-exempt amounts tracked for reporting.

None beyond what you already have. Temple Hub runs in any modern web browser on smartphones, tablets, or computers, and there's an optional mobile app on Google Play and the App Store for a faster experience. Priests and staff can use personal devices or temple-issued tablets. No dedicated hardware or POS terminals are required — though Temple Hub does integrate with card terminals if you choose to accept in-person card payments.

The Temple Calendar tile shows all scheduled pujas and events in a unified three-panel view (navigation and filters on the left, the month grid in the center, and a selected-day panel on the right that opens on today) accessible to admins, priests, and devotees. Announcements and events published via the Announcements and Manage Event Pages tiles automatically appear on the calendar, keeping everyone aligned. Scheduled puja services (daily, weekly, or specific-date schedules) appear too, and each puja service has a "Show on Temple Calendar" toggle in Manage Services, so admins control exactly which offerings show on the calendar, independently of the "Show on Website" toggle. (Private Puja Services are booked on demand and don't carry the calendar toggle.)

The Manage Deities tile lets you maintain detailed profiles for each deity — including shrine location, consort details, iconography, and sacred histories. These profiles power the devotee-facing temple website and puja booking flows.

Use the Announcements tile for internal updates and special pujas, and the Manage Event Pages tile to create public-facing campaign pages visible outside the portal. Both feed into the Temple Calendar automatically.

The Home Page Slider tile lets admins upload and manage images and announcements that appear on the temple's public-facing home page. Use it to promote upcoming festivals, special pujas, or community announcements without any coding.

Yes. The Manage Contact Info tile lets you update the temple's name, address, phone numbers, and social links. The Temple Gallery tile manages public-facing images. The Home Page Slider handles banners and announcements. Together they keep your public website current.

The Manage Timings tile lets admins set and update the temple's operating hours, holiday closures, and special opening times. These timings are reflected on the public-facing temple website and can be updated at any time.

The Manage Users tile lets admins add team members and assign one of seven roles: Admin, SuperAdmin, Priest, Volunteer, Devotee, Finance, or Facility. Each role determines which tiles are visible in that user's portal, fully configurable through the Tile Access tile.

Tile Access is an enterprise-grade access-control console that lets SuperAdmins and Admins configure exactly which dashboard tiles each role can see and use. The overview shows one card per role with a live coverage bar and per-category breakdown, plus a Matrix view that lays every role against all tile categories in a single grid — click any cell to enable or disable a whole category at once. Opening a role launches a Booking-POS-style editor: a category rail on the left, a searchable grid of toggleable tile cards in the center, and a summary panel on the right with a coverage ring, one-click access templates (Front Desk, Clergy, Communications, Finance, Full Access), and a "Copy access from" option to clone another role. Changes are tracked as unsaved until you Save, saved individually or all at once, and every save is written to the audit log. For example, you can give priests the Temple Calendar and Puja Services tiles while restricting Finance Dashboard or Subscription & Billing. SuperAdmin always has full access and cannot be restricted, and pure Devotee accounts only ever see the public website tile.

Yes — when the temple is a 501(c)(3), receipts and the annual tax statement carry the required wording automatically. Admins choose how each payment type is treated under Booking Rules → Receipts & Tax, where every revenue category — Donations, Sponsorships, Advertising, Puja Services, Private Puja & Life-Cycle Ceremonies (weddings, gruhapravesham, vahana puja), Facility Rentals, Fundraiser Events (gala/benefit dinners), Canteen & Catering, Event Tickets / Raffle / Parking, Classes / Tuition, Gift Shop / Store, and Membership — is an expandable card with plain-English guidance, a concrete example, and a note showing exactly what the current choice puts on tax letters. The four treatments, in plain English: "Pure Donation" (nothing received in return), "Religious Service" (pujas and ceremonies — treated as intangible religious benefits), "Part Donation, Part Purchase" (hall rentals, gala dinners, memberships with perks — enter each item's fair value and only the amount paid above it counts as a donation; items without a value stay off letters), or "Not a Donation" (raffle tickets, parking, canteen food, gift-shop/store items, paid journal/program ads, and mandatory class/tuition fees are never deductible, so they are left off tax letters — but a voluntary school donation that is not required to enroll is recorded as a Donation and stays deductible). Devotees download their itemized annual tax statement from My Profile on the temple website; it lists each qualifying contribution with date and amount, the temple's EIN, the 501(c)(3) acknowledgment, and an authorized signatory. Amounts are shown net of any refunds. When an admin has linked a household for combined giving, the statement automatically includes the spouse's and linked companies' contributions, attributed by name, with the household named jointly on the letter. Admins can also generate the same statement for any devotee — open Manage Devotees, view the devotee's Bookings, and switch to the Tax Statement tab — handy when a devotee without a website login requests their letter at the front desk (each download is audit-logged). Each payment locks in its tax treatment at the moment it is made, so changing the Receipts & Tax settings mid-year never alters receipts or statements for past payments. The temple sets its EIN, exemption status, and signatory under Manage Contact Info, and should confirm the Receipts & Tax choices with its CPA (Publication 526 / 1771).

Charged rates are set in one place — Settings — and receipt wording in another — Booking Rules → Receipts & Tax — because they are different things. In Settings you add rate rows: (1) Tax, Service Fee, Merchant Fee, Convenience Fee — percentages added to card payments at the Bookings POS for pujas and facilities, on the discounted amount with donations exempt; and (2) Canteen Sales Tax — the percentage applied to taxable dishes on canteen orders only, per item after discounts (which dishes are taxable is set per dish under Canteen → Menu). These are independent, so booking card payments read only the four fee names and can never pick up the canteen rate; turning the canteen tax on while the booking-side tax is off works fine. Booking Rules → Receipts & Tax shows all of these rates at a glance (read-only, with an "Edit in Settings" link) and, below that, controls what receipts and annual tax statements say — that policy never charges anything. Canteen → Settings also displays the current canteen rate read-only. So there is exactly one editing home for every rate (Settings) and one for receipt wording (Receipts & Tax), and every other surface only displays — no conflicting copies.

System Logs is a read-only, tamper-proof audit trail — entries can never be created, edited, or deleted. It's a three-panel console: filters and live stats on the left, a day- or actor-grouped stream in the center, and a full entry-detail panel on the right. Every entry records who did what and when — user, role, action, affected record, and a precise timestamp. Actions are grouped into eight intuitive categories (Auth, Booking, Order, Shift, User, Content, Settings, System): pick a category chip — each showing a live count — to filter, then optionally narrow to a specific action within that category. You can also filter by user, exact date, or a time range (7/30/90 days, last year, all time), search across everything, and flag critical actions (deletes, cancels, failures, cash discrepancies). The stream is paginated at 50 entries per page — page numbers at the bottom load each section on demand rather than rendering thousands of rows at once. Clicking an entry reveals its full metadata plus the actor's recent activity and that record's history for investigation, and Download CSV exports exactly what the current filters show (all pages, not just the visible one).

The Manage Volunteers tile lets admins add volunteers, track their applications, and assign them to events or services. Volunteers log in with OTP and see only the tiles relevant to their role, keeping the interface focused and simple. Admins can also download a volunteer service acknowledgment letter from any volunteer's row — it is required when a volunteer claims $250 or more of out-of-pocket expenses (supplies, mileage). The letter describes the volunteer's service areas and states no goods or services were provided; it never lists hours or amounts (those are the volunteer's own records, and the value of time itself is never deductible).

Temple Member Profiles (also shown as Temple Member Pr...) covers roster management, committees, and land donor records. It is the central directory for your temple's core membership — separate from general devotees who book pujas online.

The Manage Devotees tile gives admins a full view of devotee profiles, contact numbers, and subscription status. Admins can search, update, and manage any devotee record, including their booking history and newsletter subscriptions.

The Manage Devotees tile includes a built-in analytics dashboard about your community (not finances). At the top, stat cards show Active Today and Active This Week (distinct devotees who recently signed in), Total Individuals, Company Profiles, New This Month, Created Today, Newsletter Subscribers, and Households. Expanding the dashboard reveals: Directory Composition (individuals vs companies, active/inactive, households), a 12-month Registrations Trend showing congregation growth, Communications Reach (newsletter opt-in rate and how many devotees are reachable by email/phone), Geographic Spread (top states and cities), Language and Preferred Priest distribution, Profile Completeness (a data-health gauge), Family Footprint (total people represented and average family size), and Birthdays This Month. The analytics are read-only and update automatically.

The dashboard shows "Active Today" and "Active This Week" — counts of distinct devotees who signed in during those windows, based on the login history. This is an activity measure rather than a live "online right now" number; Temple Hub does not currently track real-time presence. For revenue and payment figures, use the separate Finance Dashboard tile — the Manage Devotees analytics intentionally cover community insights only, with no cost data.

Yes. From the Manage Devotees list, click "Bookings" on any devotee to open their booking history with a per-devotee analytics summary. It shows lifetime giving, total bookings and average booking value, donations vs services, tax-exempt total (useful for year-end receipts), how long they have been a devotee, and their most recent booking. You also get a giving-by-year chart, a spend-by-category breakdown, their top services, preferred priest, largest contribution, and counts of upcoming and cancelled bookings. For households marked as cumulative, spouse and linked-company contributions roll up into a combined total. Everything is calculated from that devotee's own bookings.

The Manage Newsletters tile lets admins upload and publish monthly, quarterly, and yearly newsletters. Devotees can access and download newsletters directly from their portal, keeping your community informed without requiring a separate mailing system.

The Temple Gallery tile lets admins upload and organize temple images that appear on the public-facing website. Use it to showcase festivals, shrine photos, and community events. Images can be reordered and categorized from within the admin portal.

Yes. Devotees can browse the temple gallery and download newsletters directly from their portal — no separate website or app needed. The content you upload in the admin tiles is immediately available to all devotees.

All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest using AES-256 encryption. Each temple's data is strictly isolated — admins of one temple cannot access another temple's records. We do not share, sell, or use devotee data for advertising.

OTP (one-time passcode) login sends a 6-digit code to a verified email address or mobile number each time someone signs in, and the code expires in 15 minutes. Because there is no stored password, there is nothing for attackers to steal or brute-force. Once verified, your session is carried by a cryptographically signed, tamper-proof JWT, and every request travels over TLS (HTTPS) so your data is never sent in the clear.

Temple Hub uses role-based access combined with the Tile Access configuration. There are seven roles: Admin, SuperAdmin, Priest, Volunteer, Devotee, Finance, and Facility. Admins control exactly which tiles each role sees — a Priest sees their schedule and puja calendar; a Finance user sees orders and billing; a Facility user manages space reservations; Devotees see booking and gallery tiles. No role can view data outside its configured scope.

Yes. Temple Hub is built around U.S. state privacy laws — the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the CPRA) and the comprehensive laws of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and other states as they take effect. Each temple is the controller of its devotee data and Temple Hub acts as a service provider that processes it only on the temple's instructions under contract. We follow data minimization, do not sell personal information or share it for targeted advertising, honor the Global Privacy Control signal, and support consumer rights (access, correct, delete, portability, opt-out, and appeal). Temple administrators can export or delete devotee records at any time. See our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy for full details.

Yes, you're in control. On your first visit a banner lets you Accept All, Reject All, or Manage Cookies by category. Strictly-necessary cookies (secure sign-in sessions, security, remembering your choices) are always on because the platform can't run without them; Functional, Analytics, and Marketing cookies are optional and default to off until you allow them. Temple Hub does not sell your data or use third-party advertising networks, and we honor the Global Privacy Control browser signal. You can change your choice anytime via the "Cookie Preferences" link in the footer, and full details are in our Cookie Policy (linked in the footer).

Temple Hub offers three plans: Starter ($499/temple/month, up to 500 households), Community ($1,199/temple/month, up to 2,500 households), and Multi-Temple (custom pricing for organizations managing multiple temples, with unlimited households). Every plan includes a 30-day free trial and has no hidden fees or per-booking charges.

No — and this is what makes Temple Hub different. Every plan includes every feature: puja booking, deity and priest management, the event calendar and Panchang, facility and hall bookings, the Finance Dashboard and refunds, donation management, Temple Member Profiles, volunteer management, newsletters and gallery, the home page slider, announcements and push notifications, and role-based Tile Access. Your price scales with the size of your community — never with the features you get.

Starter includes the complete Temple Hub feature set for temples serving up to 500 active households. Nothing is locked away — Starter temples get the same Finance Dashboard, Member Profiles, newsletters, and every other tile that larger plans include. The only difference between Starter and Community is the household band.

Community is our most popular plan. It includes everything in Starter — the entire feature set — but supports up to 2,500 active households, five times Starter's capacity, with priority support. Choose Community when your congregation has outgrown the Starter household band.

You are billed by active households — the families currently engaging with your temple — not by the total number of records in your database. Archived devotees, past puja bookings, completed donations, and years of historical data never count toward your tier. Your archive can grow for decades while your bill stays tied only to the community you serve today.

Nothing breaks and no family is ever turned away. Temple Hub uses a soft cap — if you approach or pass your household band, the platform keeps working normally and our team will simply reach out to discuss moving to the next tier. You stay in control.

Multi-Temple is built for organizations running more than one temple. It includes everything in Community plus unlimited households, custom web design, multiple temple tenants you can switch between in a tap, centralized reporting, custom onboarding, and a dedicated success manager. Pricing is tailored to your organization — talk to our team.

The Subscription & Billing tile lets temple admins view invoices, check the current plan, and update payment details — all from within the admin portal. You do not need to contact our team for routine billing updates.

No. Temple Hub charges a flat monthly fee per temple based on your household band. There are no per-booking fees, no per-devotee charges, and no per-transaction charges on puja orders or donations processed through the platform.

It depends entirely on what the payment is for, so Temple Hub records the correct treatment on every receipt automatically based on your temple's Receipts & Tax settings. In short: a pure gift where you receive nothing in return — a hundi offering, a general or campaign donation — is generally fully deductible under IRC Section 170. A payment for a specific personal service or a tangible item you take home — a private ceremony at your house, a hall rental, canteen food, class fees, or a gift-shop purchase — is generally not deductible, because you received something of value in exchange. In-temple ceremonies such as archana and abhishekam fall in between: many temples treat them as deductible contributions for an "intangible religious benefit." This is general educational information and not tax advice; deductibility is fact-specific and state-specific, so please confirm your own situation with a CPA or tax advisor. (Reference: Publication 526.)

It falls on a spectrum. A fee to take part in an in-temple public ceremony (archana, abhishekam) is a defensible deductible contribution that many temples record with "intangible religious benefit" receipt language — the devotee receives only a spiritual benefit with no market value. A fixed fee for a private or at-home ritual, or a life-cycle ceremony (wedding, upanayanam, gruhapravesham, annaprashana, shraddham, or a vahana/vehicle blessing), is generally treated as a non-deductible personal service under the Hernandez v. Commissioner quid-pro-quo precedent, and the receipt reflects that. Recurring seva subscriptions — such as a weekly archana auto-billed for a deity — follow the same analysis each billing cycle, and you receive one consolidated year-end giving statement. Your temple chooses the exact treatment with its CPA under Booking Rules → Receipts & Tax.

Yes. An unconditional, voluntary contribution where you receive nothing in return is generally 100% tax-deductible under IRC Section 170. For any single contribution of $250 or more, federal tax rules require a contemporaneous written acknowledgment (Section 170(f)(8)) stating the amount and that no goods or services were provided in exchange — Temple Hub issues this automatically when the payment is captured, and a consolidated year-end statement lists your full year of giving.

It depends on the dues amount and what the membership includes. Annual dues of $75 or less that grant only routine benefits — voting rights, a newsletter, small ceremony discounts — are generally fully deductible under the Publication 1771 membership-benefits exception. Dues above $75 that come with tangible perks (merchandise, or meaningful discounts on private bookings) are only partially deductible: you subtract the fair market value of the perks, and the temple must issue a Section 6115 written disclosure with a good-faith value estimate. Dues above $75 that carry only spiritual or voting benefits can still be treated as fully deductible for an intangible religious benefit. Memberships whose main perk is discounted pricing on services or hall rentals follow the same logic: dues of $75 or less stay fully deductible even with routine discounts, while above $75 the yearly value of the discount package is subtracted from the deduction — and each discounted purchase itself keeps its own tax character (a discount never turns a purchase into a donation). Confirm your temple's specific treatment with its CPA.

No. Renting the temple hall, kitchen, or AV room is paying for the use of a physical space, so the rental fee is not a charitable contribution and is left off your tax letter. If you deliberately pay more than the facility's normal posted rate as a gift, only the excess above fair value may count as a donation — your temple can configure a fair value per facility so the receipt itemizes the deductible portion, if any.

No. A required fee to enroll in classes — religious/Sunday school, or cultural classes such as music, dance, language, or yoga — is treated as non-deductible tuition, because you receive instruction in return. A separate, voluntary donation to the school that is not required for enrollment is a gift and remains deductible. (Separately, several states charge sales tax on some class types such as fitness or yoga instruction; that is a temple-side matter, not part of your deduction.)

No. Buying prasadam or a meal at the canteen, or an item at the gift shop or store — including deity clothes (vasthram), books, calendars, or souvenirs — is the purchase of a tangible item, so it is never a charitable deduction and never appears on a tax letter. (These sales may still carry state sales tax, which the temple handles on its own side; that is separate from your personal deduction.)

Usually yes, depending on the type. Sponsoring annadanam (prasadam or meals for visiting devotees) with a sankalpa is generally deductible as an intangible religious benefit, since you receive no tangible return. Construction-fund gifts such as a brick, pillar, or square-foot sponsorship with donor-name recognition are generally 100% deductible, because public recognition or naming is not treated as a return benefit; multi-year pledges are deductible as you pay each installment. A corporate sponsorship that only displays a name or logo, with no advertising message, is a tax-free qualified sponsorship. Confirm specifics with your tax advisor.

Raffle tickets are never deductible — they buy a chance to win, not a gift. For a ticketed fundraiser such as a benefit dinner or gala, only the amount you pay above the fair value of the meal or entertainment is deductible, and the receipt itemizes the gift portion versus the benefit portion (a Section 6115 disclosure). Paid admission to a cultural program or concert is generally not deductible up to fair value, with any excess deductible only if the event is run as a fundraiser with the fair value disclosed.

Yes. Publicly traded stock is generally deductible at fair market value, and donating it directly can also avoid capital-gains tax; the temple acknowledges the shares without stating a dollar value, and you file Form 8283 for gifts over $500. Gold, jewelry, and silver placed in the hundi or gifted to the deities are deductible at fair market value, with Form 8283 required over $500 and a qualified appraisal over $5,000 — and if the temple sells the item within three years it files Form 8282. A donated vehicle's deduction is generally limited to the amount the temple sells it for, and you receive a Form 1098-C. Temple Hub logs each non-cash gift with a photo and description and tracks these filing deadlines.

Temple Hub issues the right substantiation automatically for each transaction type: a contemporaneous written acknowledgment (Section 170(f)(8)) for any single contribution of $250 or more; a quid-pro-quo disclosure with a good-faith fair-value estimate (Section 6115) for payments over $75 that include goods or services; "intangible religious benefit" language for qualifying religious ceremonies; and a property description without a stated value for non-cash gifts. At year end you receive one consolidated giving statement covering your household. If a payment is later refunded or canceled, the related acknowledgment is voided or amended and your year-end statement reflects the net amount. The statement you download from My Profile is identical to the one the temple can print for you at the front desk.

Only for pure donations. Federal tax rules say a DAF grant or an IRA QCD cannot confer any more-than-incidental benefit to you, so these payment sources may be used only for pure-donation items — never for puja bookings, event tickets, memberships with perks, or any payment where you receive goods or services in return. Temple Hub blocks DAF and QCD payment sources on those quid-pro-quo items at checkout and accepts them only on pure-donation options.

Your deduction is a separate question from the temple's own tax picture, which has two more independent parts. Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) can apply to commercial-style activity — for example a secular gift-shop line or regular advertising — but common temple activities are often exempt through the volunteer-labor and "convenience of members" exceptions, and one-time or annual events (a festival food stall, an annual gala) are generally not taxed because they are not "regularly carried on"; a temple files Form 990-T only once unrelated business income reaches $1,000. Separately, state sales tax may apply to food, retail, and some class types regardless of federal status, and interstate shipping from an online store can trigger state registration under economic-nexus (Wayfair) rules. Temple Hub tracks these on the temple's behalf, and none of it changes your personal deduction.

No — this FAQ encodes general federal and state tax concepts as software defaults for temples; it is not legal, tax, or accounting advice, and no position here has been individually validated for your situation. Deductibility, UBIT, and sales-tax outcomes are fact-specific and state-specific, and every default your temple uses is reviewable and adjustable by a qualified CPA or tax attorney before it applies to you. Helpful federal tax sources, all at irs.gov: Publication 526 (Charitable Contributions), Publication 1771 (Substantiation & Disclosure), Publication 598 (Unrelated Business Income), and Publication 1828 (Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations). For anything specific to your own taxes, please consult your CPA or tax advisor.

No. Temple Hub is a cloud-based platform and requires a stable internet connection. This ensures that bookings, the temple calendar, devotee records, and admin tiles are always in sync across all devices in real time.

Temple Hub works on all modern browsers — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and their mobile equivalents. It is fully responsive and optimized for smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. The admin portal tiles adapt to any screen size.

Yes. Temple Hub has a dedicated mobile app for Android on Google Play and for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. Install the Temple Hub app, enter your temple code once on first launch, and from then on the app opens straight to your temple's page every time you open it. You get a fast, full-screen experience with push notifications for booking updates and announcements. Prefer not to install? You can also use Temple Hub from any web browser.

The Contact Support tile in the admin portal connects you directly to the Temple Hub support team. You can also reach us at support@templehub.org, Monday through Friday 9 am – 5 pm EST.

Updates are deployed automatically to the cloud platform — your team never needs to install or update anything. New tiles, features, and security patches are released regularly and take effect immediately without any downtime for your temple.