Best Practices - Event Money Data Entry to make reconciliation easy

Gina Smith:

I've had the same issue with registratio units - here is how I worked around it.  I'd be interested to hear others comments here!!


We set up an appeal for the event itself.  Our event is called "StyleWorks" and the appeal = SW 15-16.   I create a new appeal each year to ease comparisons from year to year.


We have almost 10 different reigstration options that people can choose.  Very complicated  So - i created Packages under the appeal for each type.  This year, I even decided to add packages called "Comp Table," "Comp Ticket" "GIK Table" "GIK Ticket" so that I can get a good count of how many tables we gave away or exchanged for GIK.  


Then when i am running post-event reports - i use Financial Gift Detail and Summary AND Appeals Analysis.  
Financial Gift Detail and Summary - I set this up to show summary of fund.  And use columsns CASH, PLEDGE, INKIND, TOTAL to give me a good picture of the entire $ amounts raised/sold for each fund. (We have a fund for sales and one for donations).  If everything goes to one fund - you might choose a different summary report to give you a better picture.  The problem with using this to determine different package levels (registration types) is that it DOES NOT let you summarize by package - only campaign, fund, appeal.  SO - to find that - i use......
Appeals Analysis - I use this to specifically see how much we made on each package (reservation type) for the event.  The totals should always match the Financial Gift Detail & Summary report. (If they don't - then i do some research to find out where the inconsistancey is)  HERE IS THE CATCH - on this report - there is a donors column.  You would think this might show the number of "individual tickets" package items you sold - but it isn't accurate b/c it is reading off the donor - not the units.  (However, i've had your same experience trying to get a report that shows # of units purchased using the reg fee tab from the participant record)


So - When i compile the reports to show # of each package level bought - i set up an excel sheet to take the appeal analysis package $ amount and set up a formula to divide it by the cost of the package.  It's a good estimate - but i know its not an exact "count" from the database.


I have to use both of these reports in order to get my fund summary AND my package analysis.  


Long way around - but we've been working this way for a few years now and it seems to be giving us a good indication of where we are in post-event analysis.


Hope to hear from some other users on how they make this happen.


Gina

Cathleen Mai:

We use the registration tab in the event module. In addition every gift gets a gift attribute like Event Unit ("Dinner & Show Ticket") and Event Unit quantity ("2"). Once a month and closer to the event every week, I reconcile both (using a Crystal report based on a participant export and a gift export). Almost every item has its own appeal. But for instance all the different types of ads are grouped under Appeal "Gala Ads", the Event unit (Half Page Ad, Full page colored, b/w etc.) shows what type it is. Same goes for the different types of Registrations. I think appeal packages might work for you as well.


For the aftermath - we pull the information by Appeal, by Fund (tied to Financial Edge), and also Appeal groups. For more detailed reports the Attributes come in handy again. 


I have the Crystal and the export attached. Crystal has a formula for the reservations to count a "Table" as 10, "Minitable" as 6, and normal reservations as 1:

If {PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_Unit} = "Mini Table" then 6*{PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_No_Units} else

(If {PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_Unit} = "Shooting Star Level - Table Sponsor" or {PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_Unit} = "Mega Star Level - Table Sponsor" or {PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_Unit} = "Super Star Level- Table Sponsor"

then 10*{PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_No_Units} Else 1*{PrtFee_1.PrtFee_1_No_Units})


Hope this helps.