adjust vs. write off - pros & cons

JoAnn Strommen

At this point it looks like our org can use either option for changes to gift amounts. I have been using write off for non-payment of a pledge and outstanding balance of former employee. Due to the way RE handles write offs these people still pull on lists of gifts for the year at pledge amount. We have a multiple year capital campaign where a former board member cancelled pledge and with a write off their pledge amount still pulls into most queries and reports when we are using pledge amounts.  I'm considering a change starting in 2018 of using gift adjustments instead. To me it would result in more accurate reports.


Anyone else considered this? Have pros or cons to one or the other?


Thanks

 

Beth Romano

JoAnn Strommen:

At this point it looks like our org can use either option for changes to gift amounts. I have been using write off for non-payment of a pledge and outstanding balance of former employee. Due to the way RE handles write offs these people still pull on lists of gifts for the year at pledge amount. We have a multiple year capital campaign where a former board member cancelled pledge and with a write off their pledge amount still pulls into most queries and reports when we are using pledge amounts.  I'm considering a change starting in 2018 of using gift adjustments instead. To me it would result in more accurate reports.


Anyone else considered this? Have pros or cons to one or the other?


Thanks

 

we use a combination of both write-off's and adjustments, it depends what the end result you are looking for.  If the pledge is during the current fiscal year we tend to adjust the pledge amount, if it is after the fiscal year we tend to write off the pledge.

Marie Stark

We switched from Write offs to adjustments, for exactly the same reason. We created an Adjustment type called Write Off.

Beth Gibney

Hi!  At our organization, I use write off, but I add in the reference Write Off and amount, so if you quickly pull a report, you can see at a glance the note that it was written off.  Whenever I pull financial reports, I include the gift type write off, so if someone is looking for overall giving for example, I include the write off amount so that it reduces to the actual amount.

If the pledge was in the same fiscal year, I use adjustment.  If the pledge was in a prior fiscal year, since the revenue was already recorded, I use the above process for write off.

Since our database has had many different users and transition in database management, any time i pull a financial report, I also review write offs and adjustments just to make sure I'm reporting out accurate numbers!


Marie - I like the idea of adjustment type write off! I may test that out!

Christine Cooke 2

JoAnn Strommen:

At this point it looks like our org can use either option for changes to gift amounts. I have been using write off for non-payment of a pledge and outstanding balance of former employee. Due to the way RE handles write offs these people still pull on lists of gifts for the year at pledge amount. We have a multiple year capital campaign where a former board member cancelled pledge and with a write off their pledge amount still pulls into most queries and reports when we are using pledge amounts.  I'm considering a change starting in 2018 of using gift adjustments instead. To me it would result in more accurate reports.


Anyone else considered this? Have pros or cons to one or the other?


Thanks

 

You can include the Write Off info in your queries to exclude those folks from your lists and reports.  That would be the most direct way to get what you are looking for. And then you can still keep the same protocols of write-off vs. adjustment -- which depends on the circumstances in regards to the change.


In the example you gave, I would think you would want to include that record even though they cancelled the pledge, because they are capable of that level of commitment.  Although, there are times where having them populate a list is not appropriate, and that is when you would exclude write offs.

John Heizer

JoAnn Strommen:

At this point it looks like our org can use either option for changes to gift amounts. I have been using write off for non-payment of a pledge and outstanding balance of former employee. Due to the way RE handles write offs these people still pull on lists of gifts for the year at pledge amount. We have a multiple year capital campaign where a former board member cancelled pledge and with a write off their pledge amount still pulls into most queries and reports when we are using pledge amounts.  I'm considering a change starting in 2018 of using gift adjustments instead. To me it would result in more accurate reports.


Anyone else considered this? Have pros or cons to one or the other?


Thanks

 

For us it would depend on whether the Pledge was ever reported as income.  If it crosses a fiscal year then it must be a write-off because that Pledge has been shown in our annual report as income.  The write-off then becomes an expense (bad debt) in the new fiscal year.  We only adjust if it is an error on our part and within the same fiscal year.

Jen Claudy

At my last org, I got around the bad design of how Write-Offs work in RE by using Adjustments and also adding Gift Attributes with the amount of the write-off and a Gift Subtype to indicate that there is a write-off on the gift.  It was a complicated system, but worked for us (we used all custom reports, so we could use the data from the Attributes in our reporting calculations).


After we got NXT, I contemplated using a Pay-Other (Gift Type) gift as a pledge payment for the amount that was written off.  Because the way the adjusted gifts were showing in NXT wasn't very clear (at least at that time).  But I didn't get that figured out before changing jobs.