Gift Entry - to batch or not to batch

Karen Stuhlfeier

When  you enter the gifts in batch you can run all of the acknowledgement letters in that batch together using a conditional mail merge in Mail. Or you can run multiple batches all at once. I use a query using the ask operator for the batch number to pull them all together.


Once you have it all set up it's easy to use and you can still edit the letters before printing them. 


 

JoAnn Strommen

In batch you can include the "letter" field and select your acknowledgement letter that you want to use. Then using Mail > Acknowledgement you can run the letters for reocrds in that batch.  You can do a conditional merge and use a variety of letters or separate Mail merges for what ever letters you need.  After they are merged you can do your individual tweaks.


I haven't used the conditional "acknowledgement" for a batch in years (we use Receipts) so if I got something wrong, hopefully another user will post a correction.

Jaime Fortier

Vicki Peckron:

Peggy Vidya:
Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

I have a question....I enter gifts through the gift tab on each record. Honestly, its just the way I've always done it and it didn't occur to me to change. I would be open to batching after reading this post as it seems that is more of the norm, but what does everyone do about acknowledgement letters. When I enter a gift in individual gift record, I pull a letter to print, but I also usually make an edit or two in the letter. So since I feel this has to be individualized,  I am not sure I could acheive that through batch. Suggestions?

 

l also enter gifts individually and save the acknowledgement letter to each donor record. If you do the letters as a batch and then try to save to an individual record it was my understanding that all letters (how ever many letters you have processed) would all go under that individuals record. The system does not just save the individuals letter in their record it saves ALL letters in the record.  Am I understanding that correctly from those that do letters in batch?

JoAnn Strommen

We're a small org compared to many of you but I can't imagine doing each gift individually.  Yes, I'm guessing you're correct in that it would save all letters.


But I have a question for those of you who save each gift acknowledgement to the constituent record. Why do you find it necessary to do that? Do you go back to them frequently?


We record special correspondence using actions but have never found a need to save each gift ack/receipt to the records. When I run the batch of pledge acknowledgements and/or gift receipts I just save the Word file in a designated folder. I add batch # to file name - easier to search by batch than by date. On the rare occassion when I need to look up a letter that was sent I can just open the batch file. Our auditors have never even asked to see those files.


Perhaps different types of orgs have different requirements for documentation but I have wondered about this for a long time.

Karen Hartt

Peggy Vidya:
Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

Hi Peggy,

We always do gift entry through Batch. It makes reconciling with FE and our finance department much easier.

Gracie Schild

Hi  - I'm for Batch all the way, for a number of reasons. The main one is consistency of data. If you're entering gifts into a pre-made batch that you load each time (Master Batch), you are far less likely to miss a field. Once you've loaded the Master, you can set defaults for that particular Batch, so if all the gifts are from the same day, you can set that to auto-fill, which is much more accurate and faster than typing it in on every gift. If your volume is very high, you can sort the gifts into the funds or appeals or whatever that they have in common, making that a default value - another way that you avoid entering incorrect data. It will also allow you to add fields that might not be in the entry person's mind each time, like a gift attribute. You can double check on donor addresses while you're at it. At my last job, we had different batches for different types of gifts, so, for example, all the in-kind gifts went into a specific Master - which had the receipt value set at $0 in the defaults. We also used the batches in reconciling the Foundation gifts against the deposits.


The acknoweldgement letters are also much easier (once set up, and I'll admit that's a pain), because you just enter the batch number into the specially made Mail file, and whatever letter you chose when entering the gift in Batch is then chosen through the conditional merge. You can then tweak individual letters if necessary, but we had it down to a science and they rarely needed much beyond changing the signer for certain ones. If your batches are large, you can also insert the batch number into a label or envelope Mail file to run those quickly. We generally just printed the letters, then went back and sent each address block to the printer for the envelope.


We scanned all the incoming documents (online donation form, check, letter, response form, whatever) and attached those to the Media tab - and we did it by opening the already committed batch and using the blue arrow on the toolbar for each gift record to go to the Constituent. That way, the poor work-study didn't have to type in every name, and didn't choose the wrong John Smith (assuming the data entry person had chosen the correct one in Batch!). We saved the Word file of the letters on our department's shared drive. We only scanned and attached the finished letter to a constituent's Media tab if there was something very unusual about it - a really special note from the signer, or a letter that dealt with a sticky situation. The auditors told us they really don't need to see what we sent to the donors, only what they sent to us. We used Actions for one-off or unusual letters, often using the "dropdown" list of letters (next to the Word "W" on the tool bar) to get a basic template and then editing and saving as an Action. 


At first, I was reluctant to run batches of just one or two gifts, but I found that it actually was a better choice, both for accuracy and for accountability. It was much easier to research problems by looking at the batches rather than guessing what happened in a one-off entry. Also, if you have multiple people doing different parts of the process (entry, letters, attaching media), they can work from the batch number rather than trying to make sure they got every name off of - where would you get that? A Query based on Gift entered date? And even it one person does it all, they may not be able to do it all in one fell swoop. With Batch, you are separating different tasks into little bits of work that you can pick up as time permits.


We also entered Recurring Gifts and (most) Pledges as one offs, but the regular gifts? Nope, Batch it, baby!!!


Gracie Schild

Bluebird Business Services

Santa Fe NM

Ray Huber 2

I also, always use Batch to enter gifts, with two exceptions: Pledges and Stock Gifts. Batch is the best way to maintain good tracking and consistency. It is also best practice for financial accountability. 

Anna Zimmerman

I was trained to do manual entry for everything but OLX or CC/DD gifts, but that's one of the earliest adjustments I made. I now do 99% of gift entry in batch, and have found the following:

• There's a lot less room for error
• Easy way to double-check my gift entry (thank goodness right now working from home, considering I have a toddler running around!)
• A good control report for bookkeeping.
• A heck of a lot faster (I save at least half the time)
• If I ever have to take an extended leave for some reason (say a lonnggggg vacation someday, lol), I would feel more confident handing a batch template over to a temporary gift entry agent than asking them to go in to each individual record and recording gifts manually.  

One obstacle I was nervous about in switching was catching details to change that would come in with gifts, like an address change or updated phone number. I set up a little side bar in each batch so I can preview those things on each record while inputting the gift. If I see a change that needs to be made, THEN I go in to the constituent record. 

JoAnn Strommen

Thanks @Anna (couldn't find your record to link).  I'm  in similar situation with our data entry person being trained by my predecessor to do manual entry. I know it will be a long time before I can convince her that batch is quicker and more accurate. Bookmarking your response for reference. 

Karen Hartt

We are in the batches camp, for all gifts. Using batches saves time, for us is more accurate, and makes reconciling with our finance department easier.