Raiser's Edge Reporting Tip . . . & Trick?

Marilyn Garvey

Have you ever gotten frustrated pulling month-end or quarterly reports from Raiser’s Edge and because different offices or sources are depositing the gifts you cannot get your totals in your report to match finance?

Never fear, there is a solution!  

We had a similar issue to this about 3 years ago and we decided to add a gift attribute (or custom field, for those NXT users out there): 

1. We started by adding an attribute of Deposit type and then set it up as a drop-down table (no free text fields or you might wind up with: Bank Deposit; Bk Dep.; Bank Dep.; Deposit: Bank; Bank In-Person Deposit; etc. in your list and you will not be able to use the info in a meaningful way (more on that to come)).
2. We then added a table with all of the possible bank processing types we had: Online Express BBMS; Credit Card BBMS; ACH Direct Debit; Bank Deposit; Bank Quick Deposit; etc. (You can also do this by office location if needed Main Office - OLX; Main Office - CC; Main Office – Bank Deposit; Satellite Office 1 – OLX; Satellite Office 1 – Bank Deposit; Satellite Office 2 – Bank Deposit; etc.)
3. Finally, we added Deposit Type; Deposit Type Date; and Deposit Type Comment to our Batch Templates

Now with our “Deposit Type” attribute firmly established and our Gifts Administrator and Data Entry Specialists adding deposit type and date to all gifts (notes in the comments if necessary like Special Deposit – Bake Sale, etc.) reports can be pulled by deposit type so they will align with our Finance Department and we can track all donors associated with monies to a particular account, during a specific time period.  For example:  When month-end reporting is pulled I can pull all Deposits that were made in the previous month as Bank Deposits and Direct Debit, I can also choose from the 23^rd of the month prior to last month to the 22^nd of last month to get all of the Online Express and regular credit cards that hit the bank during last month’s deposit cycle.  (NOTE: The date you add to Deposit Type may vary depending on your organization it could be: the date the deposit was made or CC is charged or you may want the day the deposit was entered and the date the CC deposit will be made, just be consistent and be sure to note your organization's policy regarding this in your Policies and Procedures guide.)
To pull reports by bank deposit type or office location/bank deposit type go to the attributes tab on the report parameters, it is tab 3 or 4 on financial reports; except the General Ledger Audit Report (which only has General, Gift Type, and Format tabs).  On the attribute tab decide if you are including or excluding certain attributes: select include if you only want specific deposit types like BBMS CC and Online Express only or choose to exclude if you want all deposit types except for a certain one, two, or three: if you want every deposit type, except credit card types, choose exclude and then select BBMS CC and Online Express.  Once you have decided if you are including only those types you are selecting or excluding those you select, but including everything else, you will choose the record type (Gift); the category (Deposit Type); and the description (choose the appropriate choice from the drop-down menu).  Then you can run the report; it will now only contain the deposit types you want to show and you can easily reconcile with finance for what was deposited where, the funds the deposited gifts are associated with, and what type of deposit it references.
Be sure to record this in your policies and procedures guide (both for the entry portion, adding the attribute, and the reporting structure/steps)!

Best of luck to all!  I hope this may prove helpful; to at least some of you!

Louisa Cottone

Anxious to start using it

Brittany Czekaj

We have had countless meetings with Finance to simplify the reconciliation process. I will bring these reports to their attention and present them to our team! Thank you!

Janis Worley

Thank you for this idea - this will be a great help to us too!