June's Stuff You Need to Know Forum Contest

David Springer

Stuff You Need to Know is focused this month on Financial Reports in Raiser's Edge. Take a look at our favorite resources, and then we'd love to hear from you! 


What are YOUR favorite resources you use when working in Financial Reports? What tips and tricks do you share to WOW your fellow RE users? 


Leave them in the comments below, and then the tip or resource with the most likes at the end of the month will receive a gift card. We'll be accepting suggestions all month, but the sooner you post, the more time your post has to generate likes. 


Also, don't forget to join us for our Financial Reports Live Chat this Wednesday, June 8!

Sunshine Reinken Watson

I use Pivot Reports to compare YTD numbers against the last fiscal YTD. It takes some setting up and upkeep, but it works fairly well.

Faith Murray

I think the most useful tip I've received has to do with the small checked options under the Financial Reports "Gift Types" tab. Specifically, the last one - "Calculate gift balance based on date range, campaign, fund, and appeal". Our last DBA never noticed that button (or else didn't know what it meant) and thought she HAD to run all our fiscal year-end reports the last day of the fiscal year, or else her numbers would be errant. Little did she know all she had to do was click one little button, and she could have run them at her leisure anytime over the next two months.


So, my tip is: watch those small button settings! They make a huge difference in report results.

Madeleine Holdsworth

I see that button but it's grayed out on my existing reports.  Tried creating a new report and it's grayed out on that template as well.

Faith Murray

Because it applies specifically to pledges, it only becomes active when you select a "Pledge" gift type, and then click on the "Use gift balance instead of gift amount" button right above it. So what it does is, if you are needing to run a report that includes pledge balances as of fiscal year's end, it will calculate the balance remaining as of fiscal year end, instead of the date you are currently running the report.

Brad Kimball

Sunshine Watson:

I use Pivot Reports to compare YTD numbers against the last fiscal YTD. It takes some setting up and upkeep, but it works fairly well.

We use the Pivot Reports on a monthly basis to reconcile our batches with what hit the bank including BBMS on any given day. Works 99% of the time we just need to manually add any adjustments that were from periods past (ie last year).  

Beth Romano

we use the pledge status report (summary) on a monthly basis and like the ability to use it in conjunction with the activity report (detail) to make sure our monthly figures equal and match our FE general ledger reports.

Christine Cooke 2

Utilizing the Donor Category Report to export for the honor roll of donors, include the soft credit because they are flagged with a symbol, and then you can be sure that everyone is recognized at the right level and using their "for publications/recognition" name.  And then if there are other donor lists that are alphabetical, you can run them sorted alpha.


Gift Detail and Summary has been great for reconcilation when you are not linked with your finance department software.  Export the report and sort it by Fund and Batch.  Easy to find the discrepencies, if there are any.

Teresa Skidmore

I use the Gift Detail and Summary Report far more than any other report, but this tip is useful in many different reports:  When filtering on campaigns, funds or appeals, you can select each one specifically OR use a query.  I find this helpful especially for limiting gifts included to those with specific types of funds or appeals that I can easily query.  On the Filters tab, change filter option to "Include Selected" and a window opens with two buttons at the top - "Selected" which is the default and "Query".  If you click "Query" another window opens that allows you to then choose the query you want to use.  Finding this has made it easy to do highly specific reporting on funds and appeals.



 

Christine Robertson

I love the Summary version of the Cash Receipts Journal as a means to balance at the end of the month with the GL.  If you've entered your GL numbers on the Fund records, the report can even list those.

David Springer

Faith Murray:

I think the most useful tip I've received has to do with the small checked options under the Financial Reports "Gift Types" tab. Specifically, the last one - "Calculate gift balance based on date range, campaign, fund, and appeal". Our last DBA never noticed that button (or else didn't know what it meant) and thought she HAD to run all our fiscal year-end reports the last day of the fiscal year, or else her numbers would be errant. Little did she know all she had to do was click one little button, and she could have run them at her leisure anytime over the next two months.


So, my tip is: watch those small button settings! They make a huge difference in report results.

Thanks for all the great tips, everyone! With the most votes last month, Faith Murray is the winner of June's Need to Know Forum Contest with her reminder to allways check the checkboxes on your reports. I'll follow up with Faith, but in the meantime, check out this month's Query Need to Know resources and Forum Contest for another chance to share your wisdom and win a sweet prize! Also, please join me in our Query LiveChat later this month!


For more info on the suggestions in the contest, check out these Knowledgebase articles:

• What do the checkboxes on the Gift Types tab do? 
• How to create a Pivot Report in the Raiser's Edge
• What is the Pledge Status Report and What is the Activity Report
• How to run the Donor Category Report 
• How to filter a report by query
• What is the Cash Receipts Journal and How to run it? 

Jill Freidmutter

Faith Murray:

I think the most useful tip I've received has to do with the small checked options under the Financial Reports "Gift Types" tab. Specifically, the last one - "Calculate gift balance based on date range, campaign, fund, and appeal". Our last DBA never noticed that button (or else didn't know what it meant) and thought she HAD to run all our fiscal year-end reports the last day of the fiscal year, or else her numbers would be errant. Little did she know all she had to do was click one little button, and she could have run them at her leisure anytime over the next two months.


So, my tip is: watch those small button settings! They make a huge difference in report results.

Under Financial Reports, I don't have a "Gift Types" tab. We are on 7.93 and are self hosted. Are you on RE NXT?

 

Faith Murray

Jill Freidmutter:

 

Under Financial Reports, I don't have a "Gift Types" tab. We are on 7.93 and are self hosted. Are you on RE NXT?

 

 

Not on NXT, but we are on 7.95. I was referring to the Gift Types tab within a specific report, like when creating a new Gift Detail and Summary Report - sorry if I wasn't clear!

Jill Freidmutter

Faith Murray:

Jill Freidmutter:

 

Under Financial Reports, I don't have a "Gift Types" tab. We are on 7.93 and are self hosted. Are you on RE NXT?

 

 

Not on NXT, but we are on 7.95. I was referring to the Gift Types tab within a specific report, like when creating a new Gift Detail and Summary Report - sorry if I wasn't clear!

 

ah! thank you for clarifying.