What is the best way to set up campaigns, funds and appeals when reconciling with Finance?

Marilyn Garvey

We have expressed several times that RE is a donor database, but one of our Finance Departments (we have 2 one for our main organization and then one for our subsidiary organization that falls under the main) would like RE reports that correspond directly with their accounting codes for fund, appeal, and package in FE.  Because we have 2 different Finance Departments and one is not on FE we do not have RE and FE integrated. 

It is also difficult to run reports that rely on package for reporting purposes.  Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Daniel Bayer

I've worked at several orgs where the Fund ID was the accounting code and the Description was whatever we in Development wanted it to be, which worked just fine. Honestly, i don't know why your Finance Department(s) would care about appeal and packages, though - those are just the solicitation mechanisms... or they should be. I've never had a Finance Department really care about Appeals/Packages. Those have always been for internal Dev. Dept. tracking.

Marilyn Garvey

Thank
you! 

 

I agree, not
quite sure why they track appeal and packages either, but they
do.  Our parent Organization does not, just a sub-organization
does.

 

I appreciate
you taking the time to respond! J

Petra Hall

Hello Marilyn!


TL;DR: RE should be treated as a sub-ledger. All reports on appeals, giving levels, or anything to do with donors (constituents) should be pulled from RE. Gifts posted to the GL should take advantage of projects, so Finance can pull reports on all transactions (including donations) by project.


This is a familiar issue that our organization had to wrestle with. Finance wanted accounts to track things that should be tracked in RE: donor type and giving level. Then they started wanting to track specific projects as different accounts. Suddenly there were several funds in RE where it logically made sense post any one donation. Additionally, if somone made a small donation in Q1 and a medium donation in Q3, their donations went to different accounts in the GL - whcih made it pointless. Adjustments were getting out of hand and reporting was a nightmare.


It turned out that Finance didn't have a good understanding of how RE funds link accounts and projects to the GL. (Part of that was a terminology issue: "fund" means something different if you're an accountant.) They wanted RE to act as a sub-ledger, but didn't get the results they were expecting unless they set it up as an accounting package - which is only a small part of how the data in RE needs to be reported on.


Luckly, we are both a school and a separate foundation, and only the school was affected by this chaos. The foundation was set up extremely cleanly decades ago, so we had an excellent (if a little simplistic) example of how the school should be arranged.


The two of us admins put together a presentation to explain funds in RE and how they relate to the GL. I prepped a spreadsheet of doooom that showed current allocations and what things would look like in a cleaner, brighter world. It was a ton of work but totally worth it. We're in the second year of the new scheme and day-to-day operations are much smoother. The biggest bonus is that Finance has a much better understanding of how RE works and this has vastly increased their confidence in what is posted to the GL.


I've attached an edited version of the rules we came up with for creating new funds in RE. It doesn't cover the presentation on how the GL is for reporting on accounting matters (for example, all the transactions belonging to specific projects) and RE is for reporting on fundraising (appeals, giving levels, and anything related to donor information.)


Feel free to PM me if you'd like a copy of the presentation. Good luck.

Christine Cooke 2

Marilyn Garvey:

We have expressed several times that RE is a donor database, but one of our Finance Departments (we have 2 one for our main organization and then one for our subsidiary organization that falls under the main) would like RE reports that correspond directly with their accounting codes for fund, appeal, and package in FE.  Because we have 2 different Finance Departments and one is not on FE we do not have RE and FE integrated. 

It is also difficult to run reports that rely on package for reporting purposes.  Any suggestions?

Thank you!

and to back up what you are saying to your finance department -- a few years ago at a different org, I got into the weeds with the auditors and the finance department over reporting.  They expect RE to be finance AR/AP software -- it is NOT - I had to go to the extent of a long phone call with Blackbaud and coax them into putting into writing the words "Raiser's Edge is not accounting software, it is for fundraising" before the auditors would back down.  So you, and all of in RE are correct and finance needs to accept that -- and that is only part of the reason why we keep separate data in a separate piece of software.  <sigh>

Christine Cooke 2

Christine Cooke:

Marilyn Garvey:

We have expressed several times that RE is a donor database, but one of our Finance Departments (we have 2 one for our main organization and then one for our subsidiary organization that falls under the main) would like RE reports that correspond directly with their accounting codes for fund, appeal, and package in FE.  Because we have 2 different Finance Departments and one is not on FE we do not have RE and FE integrated. 

It is also difficult to run reports that rely on package for reporting purposes.  Any suggestions?

Thank you!

and to back up what you are saying to your finance department -- a few years ago at a different org, I got into the weeds with the auditors and the finance department over reporting.  They expect RE to be finance AR/AP software -- it is NOT - I had to go to the extent of a long phone call with Blackbaud and coax them into putting into writing the words "Raiser's Edge is not accounting software, it is for fundraising" before the auditors would back down.  So you, and all of in RE are correct and finance needs to accept that -- and that is only part of the reason why we keep separate data in a separate piece of software.  <sigh>

 

Oh -- and yes -- have always used the Fund ID to include the Account Number that corresponds with finance.  And the Fund Description also has the Account Number along with the Name of the Fund that Development uses on the daily.  Works beautifully.  Don't understand why they want Appeal and Package, as someone else mentioned.  Sometimes appeal can be a  hint as to how the funds go to your door.  But the Gift Type and Pay Methods should be of more interest to finance in regards to reconciliation.

Marilyn Garvey

 

Thank you so much for this amazing assistance!  It is very greatly appreciated!