Is there a downside to deleting old gift batches?

Michele Thompson

I tried to create annual folders to move all the gift batches into the appropriate year, but apparently you can't next folders inside of folders. So now I'm thinking about just deleting all the old batches from prior years that are just cluttering up the folder. Is there a downside to this that I'm not thinking of? We don't use Financial Edge and we have hard copies of all the batches.

 

Crystal Bruce

Hi Michele,


Is this a Raiser's Edge question? If so, I can move it over to that forum. Thanks!

La Donna Borth

Hi Michele,

My opinion is to delete away on those old batches! The batch number is saved on the gift record when committed. I delete batches that are more than a year old when I think of it. 

 

Dennis Ladnier

we delete old gift batches as well - think we only keep the most recent 18 months and delete all of the rest.

Christine Cooke 2

devil's advocate - what purpose does it serve to delete the batches?  just curious on POVs.

La Donna Borth

Christine Cooke bCREPro:

devil's advocate - what purpose does it serve to delete the batches?  just curious on POVs.

For me, it's to clean up the batch screen. A batch is just a place holder until the data is committed to the constituent records, then, imho, it becomes obsolete within a month as far as seeing what a user entered (which is reflected in the gift record anyway). Do you have a reason to keep old batches? I would like to know if there's a reason that I'm missing. ??

Michelle Geange

We only keep a few day's worth of batches.  We have never had a need to go back to anything older than that.  Others may have a need, but we never have.  Its just clutter and takes up space on our server (we're self hosted).  I haven't come across a downside to deleting batches.

Karen Hartt

Christine,

I delete old batches every month. I only keep the previous months batches. We scan all our incoming checks a paperwork, and through the batch process record the batch number as a gift attribute so I can re-create any batches that I've deleted.

Wendy Cason

Good to know!  I didn't think that we are supposed to delete anything.  I have probably at least 15 years saved!  

Michele Thompson

Thank you everybody for your feedback! I think you've all answered my question, no need to save old batches!