CCLI Reporting Software: Turn Your Display History Into a Report

Ekkli's CCLI reporting software reads the display-session history your church already has — the songs you've actually run on screen during services — and turns it into a ready-to-use list for your CCLI Copy Activity report. It's a reporting aid built on data your worship team generates just by using Ekkli to project lyrics each week, not a separate system you have to remember to update.

If you're the person who ends up filling in the CCLI report every few months, you know the usual alternative: scrolling back through old service plans, group chat messages, or your own memory, trying to reconstruct which songs you actually sang and when. Ekkli's reporting aid exists to remove that reconstruction step, because the record already exists — it's just sitting in your display-session history rather than a spreadsheet.

What the CCLI reporting aid actually does

Every time your team runs a service through Ekkli's worship display, that session — the songs shown, in the order they were shown — is recorded as part of your church's normal display history. The CCLI reporting aid reads that existing history and organizes it into a summary built for churches with a CCLI licence in the UK or Ireland, who report their Copy Activity at reporting.ccli.com.

Worth being precise about what this is and isn't, because it matters for how you use it:

• It is not a CCLI API integration. Ekkli does not connect to CCLI's systems, and there is no live data exchange between the two.
• It does not submit anything to CCLI on your behalf. Ekkli never files, transmits, or auto-submits a report to CCLI automatically. Your church stays in full control of what gets reported and when.
• It's a self-report aid, not a filing. The output is a compiled summary that a church administrator reviews and then enters, themselves, at reporting.ccli.com — the same place you'd report from if you'd tracked song usage by hand.

In short: Ekkli does the tedious part — remembering and compiling what you actually displayed — and your church still does the reporting, on CCLI's own site, in full control of the final submission.

Why this matters more than it sounds like it should

CCLI reporting isn't complicated in theory — write down which songs you sang and how often — but it's one of those small-church admin tasks that quietly falls through the cracks because it isn't anyone's whole job. The worship leader is focused on Sunday, the office admin has a dozen other things on their plate, and by the time reporting season rolls around, nobody has a clean record of the last few months.

A display-history-based reporting aid works well here because it doesn't ask anyone to do extra work up front. There's no separate log to fill in, no second system to remember to update after service. The songs your team ran on screen are already captured as part of normal Sunday operation — the reporting aid just makes that existing record usable for CCLI purposes.

How it fits into your existing CCLI reporting routine

The workflow stays simple and stays in your hands:

1. Run services through Ekkli as normal. No extra step — this is just your worship team using the display and remote control tools they already use every Sunday.
2. Pull the reporting summary when it's time to report. Whenever your CCLI reporting period comes around, generate the summary from your church's display-session history for that period.
3. Review it. Check the compiled song list against your own memory of the period — this is your report, and you're the one who knows if a special event or a song run from outside Ekkli's display needs adding.
4. Enter it yourself at reporting.ccli.com. Ekkli's part ends at the compiled summary. You submit the actual report on CCLI's own site, the same as you always would.

That last step is deliberate, not a limitation Ekkli is working around. CCLI reporting is a legal declaration your church makes about its own song usage, and it should stay something a real person at your church reviews and confirms before it goes anywhere — not something that happens silently in the background.

A reporting aid, not a licence

It's worth being just as plain about what this feature doesn't cover: it has nothing to do with whether your church holds a valid CCLI licence in the first place. A CCLI licence is the separate legal permission that lets you display and reproduce copyrighted worship lyrics during a service — reporting is simply the ongoing obligation that comes with holding one, so songwriters get paid for the songs actually being used. Ekkli's presentation tools work the same either way, but if your church displays lyrics from a contemporary worship catalogue, you almost certainly need a licence.

For CCLI licensing basics — what a licence covers, how it differs from streaming licensing, and how public-domain hymns fit in — see the church presentation software guide, which has a dedicated section on CCLI and copyright.

What's included, and what it costs

The CCLI reporting aid is part of Ekkli's six-month free trial — free for up to 50 people, no card required, and not a time-limited trial. It's included alongside the rest of the free trial's worship tools: live lyrics and Bible verse display, teaching and sermon slides, stage view, phone and tablet remote control, and a song library that stores your songs once rather than making you retype them every week. There's no separate paid tier or add-on purchase for the reporting aid itself.

New churches also start with six months of the full Ministry-plan feature set at no cost, a useful window to explore Ekkli's wider platform while your display history builds up naturally in the background.

Who this is for

The reporting aid is built around the Copy Activity report format used by CCLI-licensed churches in the UK and Ireland at reporting.ccli.com. If your church holds a CCLI licence in that reporting framework, this feature is compiling exactly the kind of record you need each reporting period. Churches reporting under a different territory's CCLI process should check reporting.ccli.com directly for what that territory requires — reporting formats and requirements are set by CCLI, not by Ekkli, and can vary by country.

Frequently asked questions

Does Ekkli submit my CCLI report automatically?

No. Ekkli compiles a summary from your church's existing display-session history, but a person at your church reviews it and enters it themselves at reporting.ccli.com. Ekkli never files or transmits anything to CCLI on your behalf.

Is this a CCLI API integration?

No. Ekkli does not connect to CCLI's systems in any live or automated way. The reporting aid works entirely from your own church's display-session history inside Ekkli, formatted to be useful when you go to report at reporting.ccli.com yourself.

Do I still need a CCLI licence if I use the reporting aid?

Yes. The reporting aid helps with the ongoing reporting obligation that comes with holding a CCLI licence — it doesn't grant or replace the licence itself. If your church displays copyrighted worship lyrics, you need a valid CCLI licence separately.

Is the CCLI reporting aid free?

Yes, it's included on Ekkli's six-month free trial for up to 50 people, no card required, alongside the rest of the free worship display tools.

What data does the reporting aid use?

It reads your church's own display-session history inside Ekkli — the songs your team has actually run on screen during services — and compiles that into a summary formatted for CCLI's Copy Activity reporting.

Is this only useful for churches in the UK or Ireland?

The reporting aid is built around the Copy Activity report format used at reporting.ccli.com for UK/IE CCLI licences. Churches reporting under a different country's CCLI process should confirm their own territory's requirements directly with CCLI.

This guide is maintained by the Ekkli team, who build the CCLI reporting aid described above. Have a question about how it fits your church's specific reporting period? Reach out — we're happy to help you think it through, whether or not you end up using Ekkli.