Appeal Performance Report less write offs

Diane Zempel · July 2017

I'm pulling an Appeal Performance Report with package detail and it's pulling in a pledge that we had to write off. I tried to filter it out by including a gift query with the criteria Appeal ID = xyz appeal and Gift Type not one of Write Off. I added this to the report as a filter and the pledge amount is still pulling in. The write off is already posted so don't think I can change from a write off to adjust down to $0. Any thoughts?

Claudia Marmorowski · July 2017

Diane Zempel:

I'm pulling an Appeal Performance Report with package detail and it's pulling in a pledge that we had to write off. I tried to filter it out by including a gift query with the criteria Appeal ID = xyz appeal and Gift Type not one of Write Off. I added this to the report as a filter and the pledge amount is still pulling in. The write off is already posted so don't think I can change from a write off to adjust down to $0. Any thoughts?

I might not be following correctly so bare with me, does your finance department count write offs? Our department only tracks pledges for capital campaigns so they do not care about write offs in most cases. So if you are in a similar boat, you can remove the write off in the gift, adjust the gift down to $0 and just put a note in the gift as to why that was done.

JoAnn Strommen · July 2017

If it's posted you may need to check with your finance dept especially if your integrated what the implications of changing it would be if any. But to be able to change it you'll need to 'unpost' the gift. There is a plug in to do so, use it carefully with a gift query containing only that gift. Once it's not posted, you could do as suggested and adjust gift amount to $0. How RE pulls amounts that have been written off into reports is frustrating at times.

Diane Zempel · July 2017

Unposting would not be a good option. Any ideas on how to filter out the written off gift so the total doesn't get pulled in to the appeal report?

JoAnn Strommen · July 2017

?? On the report for 'records to include' use a query of donors or gifts to the appeal with that donor excluded (specific record not one of XXX). Should work in theory.

Jen Claudy · July 2017

I think the problem is that RE sort of views Write Offs as a separate Gift Type. Although you can't view them or use them like other Gift Types. I always like to use a Gift Subtype (or Gift Code) to indicate that this Pledge includes a Write Off (in full or partial) because then I could see that on the Gift Tab in a column. If you do that, or a Gift Attribute, you should then be able to exclude from your report.

Or as JoAnn suggested, exclude that Constituent ID or Gift ID from the Query you are basing your report on.

Diane Zempel · July 2017

I completely agree. Write off is a Gift Type, but not really.......In this particular instance, I can't elliminate the Const ID, but will try the gift ID and then look into the subtype/attributes. Thanks you!

Aaron Rothberg · July 2017

Hi Diane-

Because of this exact issue I'm slowly moving into the camp of Adjusting everything down as opposed to writing gifts off. We are not posting to FE or any other financial application so this decision has less impact for us that it might at other organizations.

When I'm working with thousands of gifts and therefore don't have the time to find and exclude a few Write Offs by ConsId or GiftId, I (used to at a previous org) deal with this by using the Gift Detail and Summary report instead of Campaigns and Appeals report and I would include a column for Write Offs. By doing so when I see a Pledge in the Pledge column that's been Written Off, I'll see the Write Off just below it in the Write Off column and can then manually subtract that Pledge amount from my total committments in Excel. This is a big pain in the butt not only because of the manual work, but I need to be sure to only remove Write Offs for pledges made this fiscal year. If, for example, a pledge was made in FY16 and Written Off in FY17, that pledge is NOT counting against FY17 commitments so I would not want to back that pledge out of our FY17 commitments just because I see it's been Written Off. That means when I see a pledge has been written off the next step is to research which fiscal year it was made so I know if I need to back it out of current fiscal year commitments or not. Clear as mud?

Is anyone else considering moving solely to Adjusting gifts to zero and no longer using Write Offs?

JoAnn Strommen · July 2017

I've definitely been considering it. We have been integrated with FE but that is changing. I haven't had a chance to bring it up with CFO but plan to with change in accounting as we go into next year. Makes reporting so much cleaner.

Jen Claudy · July 2017

Be aware that if you plan to move to NXT anytime soon, using Gift Adjustments instead of Write Offs can cause problems. I was in this situation at my last org, and working on converting back to Adjustments before I left, but I don't recall exactly what the problems were. The real fix is that BB needs to change how Write Offs work. I would prefer that they be a true Gift Type and show as a negative Gift Amount. Linked like a Pay-Cash gift to the Pledge, but with the full (and queriable) Gift Record to work with.

Diane Zempel · July 2017

Well amen to that! Maybe if we all added your suggestion to make Write Off's true gift types, BB would 'fix' it. Thanks for the NXT heads up. We'll be hosted by September 1 so will keep an eye on write off's

Aaron Rothberg · July 2017

I ran a couple of tests to see how Adjustments view in NXT and I'm not seeing any problems. I entered a $30,000 pledge, made a $5,000 pledge payment, and then Adjusted the pledge down to $5,000 leaving the pledge balance zero dollars and that displayed properly in NXT. I also entered a $30,000 cash gift and Adjusted that to zero which didn't work out. The gift still displays as $30,000 in NXT after the Adjustment, but I don't find that alarming since it would never make sense to Adjust the dollar amount of a cash gift. Let me know if you figure out what the issue was because as of right now I'm not seeing any obstacles to adopting an all Adjustment/No Write Off practice for our organization.

Jen Claudy · July 2017

I think it had to do with Analyze Dashboards, Aaron. It was probably 9 months ago, and maybe things have changed in NXT since then. If I was still at that org, I had several test scenarios because I was playing with using the Other gift type as a work around. I'll have to see if I still have any notes about what I was encountering, because I don't have access to both NXT & 7 to be able to try and figure it out.

Melissa S Graves · July 2017

Aaron Rothberg:

Hi Diane-

Because of this exact issue I'm slowly moving into the camp of Adjusting everything down as opposed to writing gifts off. We are not posting to FE or any other financial application so this decision has less impact for us that it might at other organizations.

When I'm working with thousands of gifts and therefore don't have the time to find and exclude a few Write Offs by ConsId or GiftId, I (used to at a previous org) deal with this by using the Gift Detail and Summary report instead of Campaigns and Appeals report and I would include a column for Write Offs. By doing so when I see a Pledge in the Pledge column that's been Written Off, I'll see the Write Off just below it in the Write Off column and can then manually subtract that Pledge amount from my total committments in Excel. This is a big pain in the butt not only because of the manual work, but I need to be sure to only remove Write Offs for pledges made this fiscal year. If, for example, a pledge was made in FY16 and Written Off in FY17, that pledge is NOT counting against FY17 commitments so I would not want to back that pledge out of our FY17 commitments just because I see it's been Written Off. That means when I see a pledge has been written off the next step is to research which fiscal year it was made so I know if I need to back it out of current fiscal year commitments or not. Clear as mud?

Is anyone else considering moving solely to Adjusting gifts to zero and no longer using Write Offs?

I have switched to adjustments for as much as I can as I have been required to not show written off pledges in reports. I do this easily for one time payment pledges but multi year gets complicated. If I am writing off due to a DAF payment I actually can't adjust the pledge amount down because on future pledge reminders the total pledge amount the donor sees on the reminder needs to remain the same so I can't adjust the pledge. I now have to do most of my reporting outside of RE as I have to maintain a list of write offs I need to account for and manually correct. I REALLY need RE to handle write offs differently!!! What is so frustrating is that FE handles it all fine so either an adjustment or write off does the same thing - but not so in RE.

I am working on a system of coding DAF gifts that are causing writeoffs so I can actually exclude the DAF gift from my reports so as not to double count it with the pledge. Wish me luck.

Diane Zempel · July 2017

Aaron, you are just the best! I’m out of the office this week but
just checking emails quick before I start my day. We should have
NXT up and running by Sept 1^st and this is one of the
first things I’m going to try. Happy Wednesday!

Aaron Rothberg · July 2017

Hi Diane-

Glad I could help in some way. Until I see someone make an open and shut case on why an organization like mine should continue to use Raiser's Edge Write Offs, I'm not doing it anymore. Everything will be adjusted from now on. If the finance office ever questions what I'm doing, I will tell them I am Writing Off the gift because that's the language they want to hear and then I'll Adjust the gift to zero in the Raiser's Edge. The Finance department does not need to know the technical name of the Raiser's Edge function I invoke to deal with the gift. Write Offs are way more trouble than they're worth and using them simply so we can say "Write Off" in our gift discussions is silly. Gift Adjustments FTW!

Faith Murray · July 2017

Aaron, there are instances when one has to adjust a cash gift to zero. Such as when a check, already posted and deposited, bounces at the bank and you find out a week later. Or, if you are integrated with FE, and you need to delete a gift from a previous fiscal year because somebody posted it to the wrong donor record -- deleting uses the current date, but adjusting allows you to make the reversal using a last fiscal year date. Just an fyi.

Aaron Rothberg · July 2017

Good to know. Thanks Faith.

Judy Spigarelli · July 2017

Diane Zempel:

I'm pulling an Appeal Performance Report with package detail and it's pulling in a pledge that we had to write off. I tried to filter it out by including a gift query with the criteria Appeal ID = xyz appeal and Gift Type not one of Write Off. I added this to the report as a filter and the pledge amount is still pulling in. The write off is already posted so don't think I can change from a write off to adjust down to $0. Any thoughts?

Would using Gift Balance instead of Gift Amount on the gift types tab solve this?

As for write offs vs adjustments, if the pledge will not be paid - we use write offs. If the gift amount is different than expected, we use adjustments. We are not integrated with Finance.

Diane Zempel · July 2017

I tried that but then it doesn't pull in all of the pledges that have been paid in full, which for the event were all except for the write off. .

Melissa S Graves · July 2017

Excluding write offs does not do what you think it does. In fact, including write offs is even worse. Including them actually adds the write off amount to the total or adds it as it's own gift (in the positive amount) for some strange reason Blackbaud can't explain. So excluding is always necessary - unless doing a report specifically about write offs.

You can do the pledge balance and add in pledge payments but this MAY not be what you actually need if your report is based on dates. For example if you have a multi year pledge that you booked in 2015 and was partially paid in 2016 and the balance written off in 2017 and you do a report just on 2015 you get $0 and for 2016 you get the part that was paid and for 2017 you get $0 again. If that is what you want - then great. If not, then there are few options.

Appeal Performance Report less write offs

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