Soft Credit Amount

Bryan Horz

Hi

Having trouble figuring out how to query on and export true soft credit amounts.  We are about to go live on RE NXT and there is the situation I have.  We had a donor (Bob) who matched the first 40,050 in gifts that alumni made in a month.  So when I gave $10 I received another $10 soft credit on my record from Bob's $40,050 gift.  However when I run a query the gift amount for my soft credit shows as $40,050.  When I include the field soft credit amount and choose the Both option on the Tools-User Options-Gift Processing tab it ends up showing me every soft credit gift distributed from that $40,050 gift, including my $10 gift.  How do I just show my $10 soft credit gift?


I want to get an export of my true Hard$ and Soft$ gifts.  I also want to be able to set criteria to exclude Soft$ gifts that = $1


Thanks

Bryan

JoAnn Strommen

When you say 'go live on RE NXT' does that mean you are currently using RE and just adding NXT?  This has been the way you have been currently entering these "SC" gifts?


I've read your post twice and struggling with what you are pulling in your query and how you entered the SC.  Are you running a constituent query with just your record? Or a gift query? 


I will say seeing that you are SC $40K+ each month on donor records raises red flags for me in your use of SC. Please be aware that using SC for matching gifts could cause some very inaccurate reporting down the road when you look at giving levels, life time giving etc. and you do want to include SC for say spouse giving or constituent owned business giving.  I know each org creates their own definition of soft credits. How does your org define SC?If this is actually a monthly MG gift, I would think about creating an org record for Bob and look at possibly entering these as MG. At least this would allow for cleaner reporting, IMO.

Bryan Horz

Thank you JoAnn. Sorry I wasn't clear.  We are completely new to Raisers Edge. We are converting from Banner

I was just testing out how to pull a list of my Hard$ and Soft$ Gifts.into an RE export.  

When I tried that my one soft$ gift came over as $40,050 instead of $10.


The $40,050 represents the gift a donor made on behalf of about 200 alumni who gave gifts.


Hope this clarifies

 

Mark Guncheon 2

Don't forget in query and Export to set your soft credits using the tools tab:


In a query:

Tools, Query options, Gift processing - Credit soft credits to donor, recipients, both (Use amount in grid, full credit to all, split evenly)


And in an Export in the Gift criteria:


Soft credit gifts to same as above.


I'd also recommend having a column to show soft credit amounts.



 

Bryan Horz

Bryan Soft Credit.docx

JoAnn Strommen

As Mark Guncheon‍ said, tools and gift processing options are your best bet.


I have never used Banner but I have quite a few years of experience with RE with a YMCA and now a university. Before converting over those $10 soft credits, I would really look at how you will want to define your use of soft credits. As I said it is defined by each org but most fall along the lines of SC for funds that the constituent has some ownership or control of in determining the gift. In running donor recognition lists, I want to include funds given by spouses as part of their giving. I would not want to include gifts from "Bob" as it was not their money.


I have also seen posts from users who suggested using "Bob" as a solicitor/fundraiser for the gifts to help track the amount. Pros and cons.


I say this to encourage your org to give this some thought now while you have the opportunity.


________________________

What is the difference between a Matching Gift and a Soft Credit gift

Article Number: 49099

Products:

• Raiser's Edge RE

A Matching Gift pledge represents a matching gift company's promise to make a donation based on a gift donated by another constituent.

A Soft Credit allows more than one constituent to share credit for a single gift without adding duplicate gift records in the database.

Bryan Horz

Thanks JoAnn. So it sounds like in this unusual case Bob should have been setup as a matching gift company and the individual donors should have received a matching gift instead of a soft credit.

Dariel Dixon 2

I think this is along the right way of thinking, but I think it also has the possibility to create some problems. In this uncommon case, I think that you can create a Bob as a gift match. I don't know if only organizations can match gifts or not, but if not, I don't know if I would create a whole new record for it. If you have to create a record, I'd look at soft crediting Bob's individual account for these gifts as well. I think there's something wrong in your gift processing options that's allowing you to see that figure like that. I'd take Mark Guncheon‍'s suggestion and use the amount in the grid.


However, I think that there's probably a better way to get the data that you are looking for. At least, it feels that way.


I'd also be careful with creating an organization matching gift record for these as well. I honestly think it's not worth the trouble at all, as this sounds like it is a one off, and you can accidentally create a lot of confusion with creating marching gifts. If you are not careful, you can have gifts automatically matched, which is not what we would want in this case.

Bryan Horz

Thanks Dariel- Even when I select Use amount in Grid my query record shows the $40,050 amount and not the $10

JoAnn Strommen

Bryan HorzDariel Dixon‍ something is wrong somewhere in processing options or somewhere.


No, I'd don't know that creating an org record for "Bob" is the best option (yes, has to be org record to MG) but IMO there has got to be a better way to track $40K+ every month than SC. I just envision reporting nightmares down the road. It would create chaos on the list I have to pull for the university foundation's annual report.


I might be best to actually track the gifts that will be matched outside of RE with reports listing the gifts. We had a match for day of giving for gifts over $100 and we just ran reports of gifts received throughout the day to see where we were at with ones counting toward the match. We did not enter SC/MG or anything on each gift record.

Bryan Horz

Thanks Joann. No matter what option I select (Use Amount in Grid, split evenly, full amount) it still shows the Gift Amount as 40,050 even though in my RE record it shows as $10. If I have to start processing gifts outside of RE, that is disappointing. We paid a lot for RE. Am I using the wrong field (Gift Amount). The Soft Credit Amount field shows the correct amount but with that field I get everybody who was soft credit for that initial$40,050 gift

Mark Guncheon 2

Don't give up, Bryan. We'll figure this out. Can you click on your gift and upload a screenshot of your actual gift and each tab that has data on it and then a screenshot of your query criteria?


Thanks.

Bryan Horz

Thank you so much Mark. First off I wan to thank you and everyone else on this forum that takes the time to analyze and answer users that post on this forum. You are an invaluable asset, especially to a newbie to RE like me . One day I hope that I am an RE reporting export and can return the favor to others. I have been developing lists for the University for over 15 years using MS Access on Banner Oracle tables and have never had an issue creating a list that someone needs and some of the requests were extremely complex and involved me creating an access database to manipulate data I needed.. I am extremely concerned that this will not be the case using RE but I am hopeful that I will get there with experience, because RE offers so much more for our fundraising users than our Banner system


I have attached the screenshots that you requested.


Thank you again

Bryan Bryan Horz Soft Credit Issue_012621.docx

Mark Guncheon 2

In your criteria, try adding:

under gifts, soft credits, soft credit recipient last name equals Horz


This should show all soft credits on your record.

Bryan Horz

Thanks Mark. I actually did that yesterday. Attached is the result. It shows the 2 soft credits on my record both with the incorrect gift amount. The $40,050 should be $10 and the $75 should be $1Bryan Horz Soft Credit Issue2_012621.docx

Mark Guncheon 2

One last thing before I reach out to our gift processor to see if he's ever had this problem.


In the query output under gifts, there is:

Amount to credit to constituent


Add that and see what happens.


And keep smiling.

Bryan Horz

It worked !!! Thank you sooo much Mark!!!. At first it didn't work. It gave me some odd $164.14 number, so then I changed the user option in the gift processing tab to Use amount in grid and that gave me the $10 and $1 respectively for the 2 soft credits and gave me the correct amount for the Hard$ gifts. So now I know that I need to use the Gift Amount to Credit to constituent field (not the Gift Amount field)


Thank you so much again. This was really worrying me. Now I can sleep tonight


Bryan

Mark Guncheon 2

Yahoo!!!!


Team effort here. Glad we could solve this for you. Grab some Zzzzzzzzs tonight.