Combining spousal gifts to receive one total

Dodie Stogner

I am trying to find the best way to build a report - I am trying to find out out our donors who have cumulatively give $7500 or more - but I need the make sure the spouses are added together.  I have a query and I have tried several reports - I just can't seem to merge the spouses.

Melissa Graves 2

Dodie Stogner:

I am trying to find the best way to build a report - I am trying to find out out our donors who have cumulatively give $7500 or more - but I need the make sure the spouses are added together.  I have a query and I have tried several reports - I just can't seem to merge the spouses.

The answer to this lies in your soft crediting policies. Do you soft credit spouses for eachother's giving?

JoAnn Strommen

Dodie Stogner:

I am trying to find the best way to build a report - I am trying to find out out our donors who have cumulatively give $7500 or more - but I need the make sure the spouses are added together.  I have a query and I have tried several reports - I just can't seem to merge the spouses.

To make sure I'm clear.  You have instances of each spouse having their own constituent record with gifts recorded on either spouses record.

Do you have the spousal relationships set to soft credit each other for the gifts?  If not, it will probably require manual combining.  If they soft credit, you can have report include SC figures by changing options in the soft credit section of general tab.  If you change it to both, Joe Smith's totals will include gifts on his record that he's hard credited for and soft credited.  Jane Smith's totals will also include HC and SC amounts.  Both will be listed in report but both records should show total giving by the spouses. Depending on the query criteria you may have only one on the list.

Do donors have other say business SCs on their records?  Do you want those $ included too?  They will also pull.   

What report are you running?  It's an option for most but not all reports. 

It can be a bit confusing.  Does that help at all?

Dodie Stogner

Melissa Graves:
The answer to this lies in your soft crediting policies. Do you soft credit spouses for eachother's giving?

Yes we do soft credit - the problem I am still running into is when we pull a report we can't combine them.  Let's say husband has gifts of $1000 - wife is soft credited.  Then wife has gifrts of of $2500 and husband is soft credited.  I need a report that says the Smith gave $3500.  I don't know if the best way to build it in a query, a report or an export.

Melissa Graves 2

Dodie Stogner:

Yes we do soft credit - the problem I am still running into is when we pull a report we can't combine them.  Let's say husband has gifts of $1000 - wife is soft credited.  Then wife has gifrts of of $2500 and husband is soft credited.  I need a report that says the Smith gave $3500.  I don't know if the best way to build it in a query, a report or an export.

What report are you using?

Unfortunately reports are probably not going to work for you. If you use Export (I mean real export - not exporting from Query) you can set your Head of Household processing to export only the HOH (one of them is automatically HOH - even if you do nothing, RE picks one as HOH. You can then set the summary total you export to include SC to BOTH and you will get only the HOH showing with a total of $3,500. If you have a joint salutation you can include that to show it is a husband/wife or you can export the spouse name in a separate column - whichever works for your report.

Melissa Graves 2

Dodie Stogner:

Yes we do soft credit - the problem I am still running into is when we pull a report we can't combine them.  Let's say husband has gifts of $1000 - wife is soft credited.  Then wife has gifrts of of $2500 and husband is soft credited.  I need a report that says the Smith gave $3500.  I don't know if the best way to build it in a query, a report or an export.

Oh, and I will say yet again - the answer to "how do I create this report" will NEVER be query. Query is a grouping tool - not a reporting tool. If you have a particular group you want included in the export - create your query and save it (with or without output fields - they matter not). Then go to Export and "include" that query on the first tab.

Melissa Graves 2

Melissa Graves:
Oh, and I will say yet again - the answer to "how do I create this report" will NEVER be query. Query is a grouping tool - not a reporting tool. If you have a particular group you want included in the export - create your query and save it (with or without output fields - they matter not). Then go to Export and "include" that query on the first tab.

If your query is to include only those over $7,500  including soft credits you need to (in Query) go to tools - query options then find the gift processing tab. It is there you can change it to soft credit both of them. If one gave $5,000 and the other $2,500 and they were both soft credited to eachother then they both will be above $7,500 and both included in your query. You will then have to take that query to export to eliminate the duplicates using HOH processing.

Dodie Stogner

Melissa Graves:

If your query is to include only those over $7,500  including soft credits you need to (in Query) go to tools - query options then find the gift processing tab. It is there you can change it to soft credit both of them. If one gave $5,000 and the other $2,500 and they were both soft credited to eachother then they both will be above $7,500 and both included in your query. You will then have to take that query to export to eliminate the duplicates using HOH processing.

Thanks so much - that is what I needed.