FAQ

We offer three subscription levels: $149/yr for standard plan, or $249/yr for the plus plan, or $499/yr for the premium 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.
See our Price page for available add-ons.

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.

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.
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 secondary authenication method to email or sms.

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.
Exporting reports require Excel / Word / CSV data (or compatible).

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.
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.

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.
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.

Emails to Staff or Clients can be sent from Food Pantry Helper. The from email address will show as "noreply@foodpantryhelper.com".
Limitations exist depending on your Plan.

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, you can sign up for a free, no obligation trial of our Standard version. No credit card required. Takes 1 minute to get going.
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.

Although we dont recommend specific barcode readers, you need one that acts as a keyboard and can read PDF417 and UPC codes.
Learn more about BarCode Scanning ->

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.

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