Gift Coding Feedback - Converting to RE

Tara Christiansen

I would like to get input on how you all code your gifts in RE. We are in the middle of a conversion to Rasier’sEdge and our Finance department will also be converting to Financial Edge.

 

Our current coding structure tracks two different types of information at the Fund level. Historically Funds represented where the money came from on a broad scale (for example Direct Mail, Telethon, General Donations, Events Miscellaneous) with the appeal being more specific to the exact appeal. However, when a gift is restricted, the Fund code changes to Temporarily Restricted with a further dropdown menu of restriction options. Our RE conversion team has recommended that we make each restriction a separate Fund, which makes sense to us. Our problem is that a gift cannot be coded Direct Mail AND Restricted to the Kitten Nursery at the Fund level; it is one or the other. In the past it wasn’t as big of a problem because restricted gifts were the exception, but after merging with a few other organizations we now receive many donations that are restricted to these specific new programs.

 

An example of coding is Fund – Direct Mail; Appeal – 0415N (April 2015 Newsletter); Package – A15. Finance is requested to report on Direct Mail income, but when a direct mail piece brings in restricted money it becomes Fund – Kitten Nursery; Appeal – 0415N (April 2015 Newsletter); Package – A15. Finance is especially concerned about losing information such as Bequest at the Fund level because they need to be easily identified to be able to report on them.

 

As you can see, tracking the source of the income as well as the restrictions (when necessary) in the same field presents a problem. My question is, how do you all code your gifts? We don’t know how we can separate this information and provide Finance with what they need at the same time. It is our understanding that only the Fund information is posted into Financial Edge, not the appeal information.



Thank you!



Tara Christiansen

 

John Conyers

Dear Tara,



I would recommend changing the structure for clarity's sake. Information on where the money came from should be in the appeal. The specific information is the Appeal ID (0415N), and the broader category is the Appeal Category (Direct Mail ), the more specific information is in the package (A15).



That leaves your funds free to do what they are designed for, namely to record the financial purpose of the gift (Kitten Nursery).



Good luck!

John

JoAnn Strommen

Have you considered gift sub-types for your restricted gifts within the same fund? If you know when gift is received by person entering gifts and it's for Kitty fund it can be entered in Fund Kitty.  If gift is restricted it could possibly be entered as Fund Kitty with a gift sub-type linked to a different GL account that is restricted.  We use gift sub-type for gifts that need to be tracked separately by finance.



Another thought to consider - we use gift code to indicate if money is result of direct mail, community fundraising, event etc.  This might be a possibility if you can't record that as the 'fund'.  Our reporting is probably not as detailed as it sounds like yours might be but this has worked well for us.



Just FYI - you didn't mention using solicitors for your gifts.  But in case you do, solicitor assignments can be added globally and by import at the fund level but not at the appeal level.  I learned this when wanting to do mass assignments for what we were recording as an appeal.  Now we just keep at fund level and use gift code for filtering same info.



You're question is a good one as RE can be used in many ways but needs to work for how your org needs to report and work with FE.  Hope you get lots of suggestions.  Welcome to RE!

Barbara Krause

Hi Tara,

I balance monthly with my Finance Department using a gift financial attribute structure that matches Development (RE) with the Finance Contributions Budget.  I also input the following additional information for each gift that enhances internal Development reporting and query capabilities.  Gifts are received through batches from Finance daily as contributions are received.

Fund: The program (Operating Fund, Day Care, Foster Care, Group Homes, etc.) that specific contribution will benefit.

Campaign: These accounts coincide with our contributions budget; annual giving individuals, major giving, estate/planned giving, foundations, matching gifts, special events, Auxiliary, Annual Gala. etc.

Appeals: The accounts vary within each Campaign to enhance query and reporting capabilities, could be a specific BRE that came in based on; Fall Mailer, Holiday Mailer, Spring Mailer, Fundraisers, Grants, United Way, Corporate Fundraisers, Memorials, etc.

Packages: Provide an additional level of reportability.

Gift Attributes (Financial Codes): These gift financial codes are set up to match financial account codes.  A Comparison and Summary Report is run within the Demographical and Statistical Report option to balance each financial code.

I'd be happy to share my RE Database Contributions Structure with you if you need additional information.

Good Luck!

Regards,  Barb

Tara Christiansen

John Conyers:

Dear Tara,



I would recommend changing the structure for clarity's sake. Information on where the money came from should be in the appeal. The specific information is the Appeal ID (0415N), and the broader category is the Appeal Category (Direct Mail ), the more specific information is in the package (A15).



That leaves your funds free to do what they are designed for, namely to record the financial purpose of the gift (Kitten Nursery).



Good luck!

John

Thank you for your reply, John.



Do you report off of appeals or appeal categories reports to your Finance Department? Our Finance Department tracks not only the gift restrictions, but also where the money came in from (e.g. Event, Direct Mail, Bequest revenue, etc.) I like your suggestion as far as organizing the data appropriately. What I'm unsure about is how I can get Finance all the information they need.

Tara Christiansen

Barbara Krause:

Hi Tara,

I balance monthly with my Finance Department using a gift financial attribute structure that matches Development (RE) with the Finance Contributions Budget.  I also input the following additional information for each gift that enhances internal Development reporting and query capabilities.  Gifts are received through batches from Finance daily as contributions are received.

Fund: The program (Operating Fund, Day Care, Foster Care, Group Homes, etc.) that specific contribution will benefit.

Campaign: These accounts coincide with our contributions budget; annual giving individuals, major giving, estate/planned giving, foundations, matching gifts, special events, Auxiliary, Annual Gala. etc.

Appeals: The accounts vary within each Campaign to enhance query and reporting capabilities, could be a specific BRE that came in based on; Fall Mailer, Holiday Mailer, Spring Mailer, Fundraisers, Grants, United Way, Corporate Fundraisers, Memorials, etc.

Packages: Provide an additional level of reportability.

Gift Attributes (Financial Codes): These gift financial codes are set up to match financial account codes.  A Comparison and Summary Report is run within the Demographical and Statistical Report option to balance each financial code.

I'd be happy to share my RE Database Contributions Structure with you if you need additional information.

Good Luck!

Regards,  Barb

Thank you, Barb! This is very helpful. I'm very interested to see your RE Database Contributions Structure. I'll send you a message shortly.

Marc Seleman

Tara:



I highly recommend you consider the advice of the conversion team; especially if you will be integrating RE and FE.  



Now for your concern:  "Our problem is that a gift cannot be coded Direct Mail AND Restricted to the Kitten Nursery at the Fund level; it is one or the other"



You have two possible solution to this issue.  You could have two separate funds....Kitten Nursery Unrestricted and Kitten Nursery Restricted. These woudl go to the appropriate account code in FE.  Direct Mail is an Appeal code.  This would map to a Transaction Code in FE.



The other way to do it if you want a single fund is to use a gift subtype for Restricted.  The gift subtype can have a different FE account code.  You will still use the appeal code for Direct Mail.



One of the other responses mentioned Campaign.  The campaign field in RE does not map to anything in FE if the integration is used.



 

Gina Smith 2

FUND:

In companies that I've worked with who use FE and RE, it has helped us to coordinate the Fund field with what the GL uses in FE as if RE and FE are integrated. We even used the same fund codes as the finance office uses.  

For example:

Fund ID -3200, Fund description - Annual Fund

Fund ID- 3400- Fund description- Grants

Fund ID- 3500- Fund description- Restricted



APPEAL

You can further filter and report on the Appeal field for the method used to solicit the gift (I.e., direct mail, email appeal, 3rd party event, grant, etc.). This has worked well. 

You can also associate expenses in the appeal record that can help you track expenses vs income. 



In my database, appeal fields were already organized and set up to be created NEW EACH YEAR.  For example,

15-16 Direct Mail  (fall)

15-16 Direcr Mail holiday card)

15-16 direct mail 

15-16 CFC

15-16 Bartenders Brawl

15-16 Staff Appeal

I don't think it's necessary to create new ones each year- but it has made it pretty easy to pull reports for analysis. 



So - in reporting we would filter by the fund for a fund total to balance monthly with accounting. Then we could further break it down by appeal to know what methods yelled the best return. 



GIFT SUBTYPE

ive seen this used and tracked in FE for one organization I work with like rhis:

fund = Annual Support for Special Programs

gift subtypes associated with the fund:

-Fine Arts

-Athletics

-Technogy



I understand the need for reconciling monthly with your Finance department.  It sure helps when it's time for reporting to boards and administration. 



Hope this helps. 

Gina Smith 2

Tara Christiansen:

Barbara Krause:

Hi Tara,

I balance monthly with my Finance Department using a gift financial attribute structure that matches Development (RE) with the Finance Contributions Budget.  I also input the following additional information for each gift that enhances internal Development reporting and query capabilities.  Gifts are received through batches from Finance daily as contributions are received.

Fund: The program (Operating Fund, Day Care, Foster Care, Group Homes, etc.) that specific contribution will benefit.

Campaign: These accounts coincide with our contributions budget; annual giving individuals, major giving, estate/planned giving, foundations, matching gifts, special events, Auxiliary, Annual Gala. etc.

Appeals: The accounts vary within each Campaign to enhance query and reporting capabilities, could be a specific BRE that came in based on; Fall Mailer, Holiday Mailer, Spring Mailer, Fundraisers, Grants, United Way, Corporate Fundraisers, Memorials, etc.

Packages: Provide an additional level of reportability.

Gift Attributes (Financial Codes): These gift financial codes are set up to match financial account codes.  A Comparison and Summary Report is run within the Demographical and Statistical Report option to balance each financial code.

I'd be happy to share my RE Database Contributions Structure with you if you need additional information.

Good Luck!

Regards,  Barb

Thank you, Barb! This is very helpful. I'm very interested to see your RE Database Contributions Structure. I'll send you a message shortly.

 

Barb- id love to see a copy of your structure as well if you are willing to share. 

JoAnn Strommen

Barbara Krause:

Hi Tara,

I balance monthly with my Finance Department using a gift financial attribute structure that matches Development (RE) with the Finance Contributions Budget.  I also input the following additional information for each gift that enhances internal Development reporting and query capabilities.  Gifts are received through batches from Finance daily as contributions are received.

Fund: The program (Operating Fund, Day Care, Foster Care, Group Homes, etc.) that specific contribution will benefit.

Campaign: These accounts coincide with our contributions budget; annual giving individuals, major giving, estate/planned giving, foundations, matching gifts, special events, Auxiliary, Annual Gala. etc.

Appeals: The accounts vary within each Campaign to enhance query and reporting capabilities, could be a specific BRE that came in based on; Fall Mailer, Holiday Mailer, Spring Mailer, Fundraisers, Grants, United Way, Corporate Fundraisers, Memorials, etc.

Packages: Provide an additional level of reportability.

Gift Attributes (Financial Codes): These gift financial codes are set up to match financial account codes.  A Comparison and Summary Report is run within the Demographical and Statistical Report option to balance each financial code.

I'd be happy to share my RE Database Contributions Structure with you if you need additional information.

Good Luck!

Regards,  Barb

Barb, are you integrated with FE?  Just wondering how using a gift attribute gets money to correct GL unless it's all done manually?  Maybe I missed something in your post.

Christine Cooke 2

So a key question -  will RE and FE be connected?  If they are, then that will have dictate over how things are coded moving forward because RE entry will download directly to FE and therefore, if the Finance Department has different account numbers (which would be Funds on the RE side) that correspond with Restricted and Temp Restricted and UnRestricted, then you will need to structure your Funds to feed into FE.  When I have seen the two linked, at least part of the FE Account number was in the Fund Code in order to make it easier to report on the RE side and see how you are matching up with the FE side.



If they are linked, your recolinciation system is also going to change, so don't assume you have to keep any of your current coding just for that reason.



I suggest that if you have Restricted and Temp or Unrestricted monies going to the same Fund, that you make a Fund for each type.  Kitten-R 04-2299 (fund description: 04-2299 Kitten-R, Kitten-T 02-2299 (fund description: 02-2299 Kitten-T, Kitten U 01-2299. 

If they are not going to be linked, I would still suggest doing this because it will make reconcilation easier.  I suggest putting the Account number first in the description so you have the option to sort by Account Number for the Finance Department, but make the Fund name by Name first, because that is how the Development Department thinks/functions.



I would stay away from Gift Subtypes until you coordinate with Finance, because in some cases they require the use of that field, so you cannot put your additional codes there.  Appeal should really be describing the source of where the $$ came from.  If you have to be more specific, get more specific.  I have seen some Orgs have 15-20 specific Appeal codes for one appeal.  Example: Fall Appeal has: Fall-parents, Fall-employees, Fall-event invite, Fall-event day-of, Fall-board, Fall-direct mail.



Hope this makes sense.

Rose Benavidez

Hi Tara,

Our RE and FE are fully integrated. 



In FE, there are only two Funds (Restricted and Unrestricted).

The Funds in RE are Project ID's in FE.

The Appeals in RE are Transaction Codes in FE.



We use the conventional way of using the Fund, Appeal, Package in RE.

In the GL Distrubution of the Fund, we use the Gift Subtype to further cateogrize the donation into Event, 3rd Party, Major Gifts, Annual, etc.



Our FE account structure is 80-40100-NT-WK.  The first two digits indicates whether is it restricted (81) or unrestricted (80), next 6 digits indicates appeal (transaction code in FE), the next 4 digits are locations and department.



In our case, it is RE that dictates the coding structre when it comes to revenue.



I can chat with you if you think this is the direction your organization is going.