Best Practices - Event Money Data Entry to make reconciliation easy

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Hi -

We are trying to revamp how we use RE for events to make it a simpler and more accurate process.

We're curious how you handle data entry for events & pull your reports after an event to see how much money was raised by each individual piece of the event.


For example, if you do 6 different types of Reservations, 50/50, silent auction, live auction, 4 different types of journal ads,etc. Do you have very specific appeals for each item type and run reports off your split gift amounts or do you put in a more generic "Journal" appeal and use the registration units to capture the differen types of journal ads sold? We were using the registration units to capture the more specific details, but we're running in to issues on our reports where the numbers just don't make sense because we're getting duplicates.
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  • 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
  • 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

    THANK YOU for such a thoughtful reply! What an awesome community!

  • 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.

     
  • Our set-up is a little different. We don't post revenue form auctions or raffle - only "pure" donations are recorded in RE (in-kind gifts, registrations, and ads which are tax-deductible). So for us, it's a simple matter of creating one Appeal for the event, and we use Gift reference and/or gift attributes to separate donations revenue from ads revenue and track in-kind fair market gift values. Although we do record fees in the Events module, we rely on Financial reports (for overall revenue) and Gift Queries (for segmented breakdowns) for tracking actual revenue, to avoid duplication.


     
  • Oh, yes, been down this road.  It may seem complicated or it may make sense depending on your org and the amount of detail you want to capture.  You do mention wanting to be able to pull reporting on the different areas of income from an event.  I have always structured that through Funds.  Example:

    Gala Tickets

    Gala Sponsor

    Gala Auction Live

    Gala Auction Silent

    Gala Advertising

    Gala InKind

    and so on for each event that your org may hold for fundraising purposes.  Reporting and reconciliation is straightforward and clean - and if you have different account numbers for different areas of the event in regards to the relationship with your business/finance office, it is easy enought to assign each Fund the correct account number so there is no mistaking between departments where the funds should land.


    that way you can pull on all or one area of the event and see the income and reconcile.
  • 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.

     

    Thank you so much! This sounds the closest to what we're already doing.

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