FAQ

We offer five subscription levels:
$59/yr for starter plan, $149/yr for standard plan, $249/yr for the plus plan, $499/yr for the premium plan, and $699/yr. for premium with AI plan. See Plans
You can pay via credit card or by check. Payment is required before your account will be activated. If you desire to pay by check, you may mail your payment to Creating Genius, Inc., PO Box 787, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.

We welcome you to upgrade subscriptions at anytime. You may upgrade to a higher level plan at anytime and just pay the subscription cost difference.
See our Price page for available add-ons.

Subscriptions are non-refundable.
New subscriptions offer: Refundable balance of unused plan if you request to end subscription within 30 days of your organization's original trial start date.
This offer does not apply to any subscriptions that have been renewed or already existed. It's only for new subscribers and you must notify us via email within 30 days of your trial start date.
Custom programming, reports or design fees are not refundable.

To upgrade, login as your admin account, click upper right username, choose "pay subscription" and pick your desired subscription level.
Or you may email us and we can arrange to upgrade your current subscription.
Any unused credits on your current subscription will be used to extend new subscription expiration date.
Downgrading a subscription during your subscription term is not available, however you may downgrade when your subscription term ends.

Because we want to help people in need. And we know that local pantries are an important resource for our fellow community members who are food deprived.

Yes, you can sign up for a free, no obligation trial of our Standard version. No credit card required. Takes 1 minute to get going.
We strongly recommend you use the trial period to test your hardware with our software solution.
Register for free trial ->

It is NOT recommended to enter real Client data during your trial. Although you can delete the data before your trial expires.

Food Pantry Helper Website is SSL 128 bit enabled and is Hosted at Microsoft Azure Cloud (https://azure.microsoft.com). Security and privacy is very important to us and every effort is made to protect the data.

We are here to support you. You may email questions at anytime and expect an answer quickly.
When asking us questions specific to your pantry, the from email address must be the same email as your Food Pantry Helper Admin account.
Please tell us your Pantry name, your username and describe your question to us. You may also include screen prints when asking for support.

Yes, all accounts require 2FA. You may set your primary and secondary accounts authenication method to email or sms. This feature can not be turned off. It is required for security purposes to protect your data and the entire system from unauthorized access.

Yes, your client data is segmented and protected. You own your client data and can be exported for your external use at any time.

Food Pantry Helper works best and has been tested using a PC with recent versions of Windows OS and Chrome browser. Cookies and Javascript should be enabled.
You may use other browsers and other Operating Systems but results may vary and it is not suggested.
Testing is strongly recommended.
Exporting reports require Excel / Word / CSV data (or compatible).

Food Pantry Helper has a "Theme" feature which allows you choices to change font and color theme.
In addition, you may be able to make changes via your OS and browser settings.
Windows OS may have features you can adjust. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/discover-windows-accessibility-features-8b1068e6-d3b8-4ba8-b027-133dd8911df9
Chrome browser: To make writing bigger/smaller - hold down ctrl key and use mouse scroll.

It helps us identify your organization as a not-for-profit. (and therefore offer you discount subscription).
It assures organization maintains account accessibility if a key member leaves your organization.
It helps us identify who you are when you contact us for support.
It's required that only an authorized representative of your organization create the account.
The email address used for your account can only be used by one person. Sharing userid accounts is prohibited.
The email address must be a working email that supports sending and receiving emails (not a forwarding account). AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail accounts are not allowed.
Please see Acount Name Policy - https://www.foodpantryhelper.com/Home/AccountNamePolicy
Due to the cumbersome task and security concerns when changing account information, fees will apply for requests to change Account information after initial registration.

Starter Plan (1 account), Standard plan (2 accounts), Plus Plan (5 accounts), Premium Plan (20 accounts). One Primary account which has access to all your features, and Secondary accounts which can be configured to allow access by features. We strongly recommend only administrators use the primary account, while having staff/volunteers use the secondary accounts. As an example, you can create a secondary account and only give that user rights to use Client section. They can be used at the same time.
Any one user accounts can not be shared by multiple people. Each person using our system must have their own user account.
You may request more userids for a small additional fee. See our price page.

You can use our built in reports or you can download the data into your own spreadsheet and run your own custom reports. The built in reports include Executive Summary which gives you a view of age groups served between a date range. And a dashboard view that shows you Households Served, new Clients on boarded, and Donations. Our "Learn" section shows a brief video on reports. https://www.foodpantryhelper.com/Home/Learn

Most likely reason for that is if you delete Clients you will not be able to see the Client / Pickups on the Pickups list but the system still has the Pickup logged. If you didn't want the Pickup to show in reports, you would have to have deleted the Pickup before deleting Client.

Yes, it's your data, you are able to export most of data in raw form (CSV) to a spreadsheet/csv/word form and run your own custom reports on it.

Yes, you will need software that can read Excel, CSV and Word formatted data. If you don't own a copy of Excel/Word, you may use free open source software versions or use Google Docs/Sheets.

You may still use Food Pantry Helper if you don't have all the data collected, but you will not be able to get accurate and meaningful reports. Some fields are required, but most are not.

Yes, we have a Client Data Import feature. Basic Client data can be imported but there are some restrictions. Format of data must be (15 fields): ClientFirstName,ClientMiddleName,ClientLastName,Address,Address2,City,State,Zip,Phone,Cell,Email,BirthDate,DateBecameClient,Notes,HouseHoldIncome (whole number, no decimals).

It's okay. You choose what features of Food Pantry Helper you want to use. If your goal is to track Clients / Household members / Pickups, then it's okay to only use those features of Food Pantry Helper. The other features will be there when you want to use them.

Our Learn section has several short 3 minute videos explaining how different featrures work. In addition, plenty of How-To descriptions to help you userstand the system.
Learn (How to articles and videos) ->

Yes, most features have a Edit / Delete function.
For security and preventation of accidential data corruption, these features are a one at a time Edit / Delete function.

Food Pantry Helper will work either way.
You may enter data as its happening or at a later time (using the date when pickup occured).

Once a Client is added they count towards your totals.
Whether they are deleted or not, they will always count towards your totals.

Emails to Staff or Clients can be sent from Food Pantry Helper. The from email address will show as "noreply@foodpantryhelper.com". Your pantry's admin email adddress will show in the body of the email.
This service is only for outgoing emails. (send only)
The amount of emails you can send per year depend of which plan you are on.

Any data within the email or cell data fields will be counted upon a send.
Whether the email / cell # information is correct or not, an attempted send is counted against your total.