Recurring Gift Template versus Using Prior Batch Entry

Jennifer Charpentier · October 2017

We're relatively new to Raiser's Edge and Financial Edge. Our data entry staff member started a recurring gift for an employee donor earlier in the year. (Data entry staff member departed in June. Now, I'm covering while we are in the hiring process).We seem to have two processes for the ongoing employee giving. We have a batch that we use for employee donors and update the batch with changes before committing the batch. And then we have this recurring gift that was started. In our processes, we run the pre-post report prior to posting to Financial Edge and double check with our bookkeeper for any discrepancies before doing the final posting.

I now understand that the recurring gifts do not show up in the pre-posting report.

We're relatively new. What is the best practice to follow?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Jennifer

JoAnn Strommen · October 2017

Jennifer,

I'm going to start with some questions to clarify, as you said you're new to RE/FE, and figure out exactly what you're asking. Terminology can be tricky. You said you have a "recurring gift for an employee donor," so you have a recurring gift entered on that employee's record? Assuming you have other donating employees are they set up with pledges or recurring gifts?

Post title seems to present one question (best way to batch) and text another question (how to see recurring gifts before commiting/posting).

Sounds like you have a recurring batch (different than recurring gift) that you use with updates each pay period. If it's not a recurring batch (essentially a template) I'm not sure how you have the records in the batch to update.

There are various options for batching employee gifts:

have a recurring batch populated with names/amounts that you edit each pay period
create a new batch each pay period and use the Tools>Automatically generate transactions. For records to use you would have a query of all staff with deductions, pledge and recurring gift. This will populate your batch with all records with a due amount - this does require that you've set up payment schedules for the pledges/recurring gifts. (I switched to this a number of years ago from using a recurring batch - much less editing needed.)
have a batch template that you use Tools > Group add all the names from a query and manually put in the amounts - Lots of work
employers with hundreds of employees may also opt to import the gifts, rather than enter by batch.

We do not utilize the pre-posting report for employee gifts. I receive the list from HR of deductions for the pay period and just make sure my batch matches the list I'm given. If recurring gifts do not show in the pre-post report, you may need to generate the list another way. You could try in batch File > Preview or Print the Validation report. This does include recurring gift payments as well as pledge payments.

I know fillig in can be greatly confusing. Hope this helps a bit.

Cathleen Mai · October 2017

JoAnn explained it well.

Maybe this link helps clarify recurring gifts and why you would not see them (but only their applied payments) in a post report?

http://www.blackbaudknowhow.com/the-raisers-edge/recurring-gifts-in-the-raisers-edge-you-know-you-want-them.htm

Jennifer Charpentier · October 2017

JoAnn Strommen:

Jennifer,

I'm going to start with some questions to clarify, as you said you're new to RE/FE, and figure out exactly what you're asking. Terminology can be tricky. You said you have a "recurring gift for an employee donor," so you have a recurring gift entered on that employee's record? Assuming you have other donating employees are they set up with pledges or recurring gifts?

Post title seems to present one question (best way to batch) and text another question (how to see recurring gifts before commiting/posting).

Sounds like you have a recurring batch (different than recurring gift) that you use with updates each pay period. If it's not a recurring batch (essentially a template) I'm not sure how you have the records in the batch to update.

There are various options for batching employee gifts:

have a recurring batch populated with names/amounts that you edit each pay period

create a new batch each pay period and use the Tools>Automatically generate transactions. For records to use you would have a query of all staff with deductions, pledge and recurring gift. This will populate your batch with all records with a due amount - this does require that you've set up payment schedules for the pledges/recurring gifts. (I switched to this a number of years ago from using a recurring batch - much less editing needed.)

have a batch template that you use Tools > Group add all the names from a query and manually put in the amounts - Lots of work

employers with hundreds of employees may also opt to import the gifts, rather than enter by batch.
We do not utilize the pre-posting report for employee gifts. I receive the list from HR of deductions for the pay period and just make sure my batch matches the list I'm given. If recurring gifts do not show in the pre-post report, you may need to generate the list another way. You could try in batch File > Preview or Print the Validation report. This does include recurring gift payments as well as pledge payments.

I know fillig in can be greatly confusing. Hope this helps a bit.

JoAnn,

Thanks so much for the questions. They're very helpful. And they suggest several ways to approach the problem(s) I'm having.

I think we do have two separate issues.

It looks like to me that we do have a recurring batch for employee gifts. And then, for this employee, a recurring gift was set up. I'm not sure why both were done. Based on your and Cathleen's link below, it looks like to me we have two different ways of using the system to process the employee payroll. But, on the back end of bringing the data over to Financial Edge, we're having to again do two processes (and it's unnecessary if we just stuck with one).

If we're going with the recurring batch, how do I delete the recurring gift?

Thanks again for your help!

Jennifer

Jennifer Charpentier · October 2017

Cathleen Mai:

JoAnn explained it well.

Maybe this link helps clarify recurring gifts and why you would not see them (but only their applied payments) in a post report?

http://www.blackbaudknowhow.com/the-raisers-edge/recurring-gifts-in-the-raisers-edge-you-know-you-want-them.htm

Thanks, Cathleen.

The link was helpful.

Best,

Jennifer

Cathleen Mai · October 2017

If there are no transactions applied you could just delete the recurring gift record. But if there are any transactions applied- this would cause any applied gifts to disappear with it. So please be careful here. In this case you would have to rather mark them as completed or terminated.

Also, would it not be better to keep the recurring gifts and use JoAnnes favorite route, please see below?

If you are not sure, I would stay consistent and keep both until the new person is hired. Just apply every gift in the batch to the related recurring gift. This is the button in the batch where you can do this:

47ceada628a981557f6818b2c3284550-huge-ca

Then the actual payments (recurring gift pay cash) should show up in the pre post report. I do see them, we are fully integrated with Financial Edge.

It does not seem too much of double work here, but maybe I am missing a point.

JoAnns suggestion: ..create a new batch each pay period and use the Tools>Automatically generate transactions. For records to use you would have a query of all staff with deductions, pledge and recurring gift. This will populate your batch with all records with a due amount - this does require that you've set up payment schedules for the pledges/recurring gifts. (I switched to this a number of years ago from using a recurring batch - much less editing needed.)

JoAnn Strommen · October 2017

Many questions can be answered by searching the knowledgebase. Then if you have further questions these forums are a great place to post.

These should help you end someones recurring gift payments.

How to cancel recurring gift
https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/97915

I don't find the above solution covers it all as the gift still shows as having future payments. I also do a gift amendment to change amount to $0 and put in an ending date.

How to set or change end date
https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/47127

Faith Murray · October 2017

Ultimately, the cleanest solution is to use recurring gifts for all your employees -- the process of automatically generating transactions is so much cleaner and more efficient -- however, not something you'd really want to tackle as a fill-in. Since you don't have the recurring gifts set up for most your workers, this is probably something your next hire would be repsonsible for implementing. (Possibly, your last employee had made the decision to begin converting the process, which is why she set up the one employee as a recurring gift.)

The only time I would advocate using a batch template and updating, as your permanent practice, is if you experience very heavy turnover at your org, and are constantly having to terminate your recurring gifts as employees resign.

JoAnn Strommen · October 2017

I concur with what Faith said with one exception - if employees have committed a specific amount, pledges work just as clean and efficiient as recurring gifts. We use both depending if gift is for a set amount or open ended. The auto generate feature can include both in one 'generating'. Even if pay periods are skipped they will pull into batch if they have a balance where recurring installments would be based on an end date that would require amending for missed payrolls. Just my opinion.

Recurring Gift Template versus Using Prior Batch Entry

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