How to track service fee in proposal

Vicky Nguyen 2

I would like to know how to track Service Fee in proposal? I want to track amount due or late payment of the service fee that we provided. This kind of fee we don't record in Donation tab, it's not like pledge where you can track for outstanding balance. I want to track on Proposal Status, but the director use it for his own purposes

Ryan Hyde

Could you give us an example of exactly what you're talking about? I'm not totally clear on what it is you're trying to track and why you're trying to track it. Also, how is your director using the prospect tab presently? 

Vicky Nguyen 2

Hi Ryan,


We have 2 type of proposals, Grant and Service Fee. When we receive a grant or Service fee, Grant director opens a proposal to track if the grant pending, approve, decline or so on. The different between Grant and Service Fee is that for Grant we record as a pledge in Gift Tab and link the gift to a proposal for tracking payments, but Service Fee (service that we provided to other org) we don't record in gift tab because it's not donation. For example, we provide legal service to Youth Org and on the contract they agree to pay us 2 installments, first installment January 2017 and second installment June 2017. We didn't received any payments in 2017 until 2018. Now I want to track all the pending payment so that way i send a reminder to Youth Org a month before the payment due (similar to pledge reminder). The only option i can think of is tracking status in proposal but grant director use that for his own purposes. What is your recommendation in this case?


Thank you!

Ryan Hyde

I have two ways of approaching this:


1.) Do you have Financial Edge? If you do, that has a whole billing system in it, and there's no need at all to have this info in RE if you have FE to handle that side of your business. It seems strange to me to handle billing in RE, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do it. Every org is different. Still, see if you're just making your life more complicated by trying to track this information in RE.


2.) If you do think it needs to be tracked in RE, then I'm going to counter one of your assumptions here and argue that you should track this stuff in the gift tab as pledges.


Now, these are definitely not gifts, so I'm with you there. But they are a financial transaction, they help to define the relationship you have with other organizations, and they are an important revenue stream. 


What I would do is create a campaign and fund for these types of transactions. At my org (an animal shelter), I have a campaign that is just called "Fee for Service." Anything that is not a gift (think dog training classes and that kind of thing) gets recorded as fee for service. I also give these transactions a type of 'other' (as opposed to 'cash') to help distinguish them from more traditional gits. The goal with both of these distinguishing features is to help make sure people know what they're looking at when they see the gifts tab, and also to make sure non-gift information is not included in any year-end summary tax letter.


In reality, the only thing that comes close to a billing system in RE is the pledge system. So create a pledge, set it up with the 'fee for service' (or whatever) campaign, and any payments that come in call pay-other instead of pay-cash. And since the thing originates as a gift, you can send payment reminders just like you would send pledge reminders. All the tools there - no need to reinvent anything.


I wouldn't mess with the prospect tab at all.

Vicky Nguyen 2

Hi Ryan,


This is really helpful and so appreciated.


We have FE but i also like to track in RE as well. I would take your #2 approach, that's a great idea.

I'm so glad that i posted my question on this page.


Again, thank you so much!


Vicky

 

Ryan Hyde

I'm glad I could help And I hope you'll post more questions here in the future - there are lots of great regulars on here with a lot of diverse points of view.