Registration fee should not be logged as a gift

Jolynn Uyehara

Sorry, it's me again. As mentioned in a prior post, I am the interim events person so really learning as I go. I set up an event. I added the registration fees. We tested the link. All looked good until I got to the gift batch and realized that the registration fee is listed under the constituent's gift record as a gift! I do not want this registration to be on their giving statement at the end of the year. Besides manually changing each gift in the batch to “do not receipt” is there any other way to do this? Or do you suggest we not use BBMS to process registration fees in general? It seems like the best way to go to keep track of participants, have everything/everyone in one place (housed under the event), but I'm starting to rethink this before we post the live link. Thoughts?

Sunshine Reinken Watson

@Jolynn Uyehara
This is where other gift coding can help. You can use appeal, package, fund, and other codes to omit gifts that aren't necessarily donation.

If you add the benefits to the gift and there is no contribution component to a registration, the “Receipt Amount” will be zero. That is an easy thing to omit from annual statements. Some organizations choose to include these things on their statements with gift amount and the receipt/contribution amount so the donor can see a complete picture of their contributions to their organization.

Alex Wong

@Jolynn Uyehara
For all intent and purpose of a “gift” record, they are supposed to be coded as gift. I don't think Blackbaud is making a mistake in the handling.

I know many is going to argue against what I'm about to say, but you have to look at it from a “financial” pov as well. Regardless of if the donor is making a fully deductible donation or paying a registration that is not fully deductible, the full amount of the gift is what is being “received” by your organization. From a bank reconciliation perspective, if you receive $100K in 100% donation, and $20K in event registration, there is a $120K that needs to be reconciled (minus the fees). B/c of that, in RE NXT, the $120K should be accounted for.

However, $120K is not all “real donation”. I understand that. However, unless your event is only charging the “cost” of registration/attending event, there are part of the registration fee is consider donation (this will depend on how detailed your org gets with “true donation”). I will give you an example of an event from my org:

• An annual gala dinner (over 1000 donor will attend).
• A single ticket to attend is $1000
• There are different level of “sponsorship” that has a higher price tag and comes with additional tickets to attend and perks, such as Major Sponsorship ($25K comes with 20 tickets, meaning 2 tables of 10), or President Sponsorship ($100K comes with 20 tickets also, but primere seating).
• The goods and services received (dinner, goodie bag, etc) is $300 per person.
  • For a single ticket of $1K, $700 is consider “donation” and is tax deductible
  • For Major Sponsorship ($25K), assuming donor who paid did bring 20 guests, that's $6000 being goods and services (non-deductible) and $19K is tax deductible donation

How report should be run to account for what is truly donation and what isn't should be the focus, and Sunshine has mentioned a few good points on tracking that you can follow.