Best Practices on organizing paper backup for donations

Sharon Sevransky:

We recently converted from eTapestry to Raiser’s Edge.  And we’re struggling to figure out the most efficient way to organize our hard copy documentation.  In eTapestry, we ran gift reports approximately weekly, and had all the paper backup (copies of checks, donation envelopes, letters and cards from donors, etc.) filed alphabetically together with the gift report.  This made it easy to find the paper copy of something when we needed to refer to it later for a donor question or processing discrepancy.

With RE, we often have multiple batches for each gift report, and we’re not sure how to organize the paper copies so that we can find it later. We’re curious how other organizations handle this.  I’ve spent some time looking through other entries in this forum, and can’t seem to find any mention of this process, other than it gets stored with the batch report for those that keep paper copies. Our struggle is that we may have dozens of pieces of paper for each gift report (or, during busy times of year, hundreds), so having to flip through them all to find one donation’s information seems cumbersome. Do you organize this paper backup in any particular way that you find helpful?

 

When we kept paper files, we used to use attach everything for each batch posted to a batch cover sheet. The cover sheet gave Batch number, date, and amount of deposit.  We filed numerically by batch and grouped all  files by month/year. When the auditors requested documentation for a particular gift during an annual audit, we could locate it easily by batch number. We have transitioned to PaperSave  several years ago and attach electronic documentation to each gift posted. I also attach electronic copies of thank you letters to each gift. All of the posting reports are saved as they are generated as .PDF documents and kept on our computer in appropriate files that are shared with our Business Office. We also save electronic copies of credit card reports downloaded  from the web  for each batch. All of our computer files are backed up regularly by IT, so we do not worry about losing electronic documents.

Sharon Sevransky:

We recently converted from eTapestry to Raiser’s Edge.  And we’re struggling to figure out the most efficient way to organize our hard copy documentation.  In eTapestry, we ran gift reports approximately weekly, and had all the paper backup (copies of checks, donation envelopes, letters and cards from donors, etc.) filed alphabetically together with the gift report.  This made it easy to find the paper copy of something when we needed to refer to it later for a donor question or processing discrepancy.

With RE, we often have multiple batches for each gift report, and we’re not sure how to organize the paper copies so that we can find it later. We’re curious how other organizations handle this.  I’ve spent some time looking through other entries in this forum, and can’t seem to find any mention of this process, other than it gets stored with the batch report for those that keep paper copies. Our struggle is that we may have dozens of pieces of paper for each gift report (or, during busy times of year, hundreds), so having to flip through them all to find one donation’s information seems cumbersome. Do you organize this paper backup in any particular way that you find helpful?

 

Our paper backup is filed by gift date and we keep copies of the gift documentation (copies of check, any cards/letters that came with it and the envelope it came in), the acknowledgment letter, the batch report, our validation reports and the deposit sheet.  It's not in any particular order once it's in there other than the top page is the mail opening sheet (which shows the date the gifts were received and total amount of the donation(s)) followed by the deposit sheet, acknowledgment letters and any gift documentation.  We don't have hundreds of gifts a day, the most we'll get in is at year end and it is usually less than 20/day, unless there is a large memorial dropped off in which case those can be closer to 100 gifts.  Regardless, it's fairly easy to look in RE for the name of the donor and when the gift was processed and then go to that particular date in the file to find whatever documentation is required.  My fingers are crossed that we'll be moving to elelctronic filing after the first of the year, in hopes that our paper files can go away. 

Sharon Sevransky:

Melissa Steinbach:

We keep our paper back up filed by gift date.  Makes it really easy to go back and find it.  

 

Thanks, this is helpful. Within date, do you organize it any particular way?

 

Just by the means in which it came in (on-line, credit cards, etc.)



Sharon Sevransky:

Melissa Steinbach:

We keep our paper back up filed by gift date.  Makes it really easy to go back and find it.  

 

Thanks, this is helpful. Within date, do you organize it any particular way?

 

Sharon Sevransky:

We recently converted from eTapestry to Raiser’s Edge.  And we’re struggling to figure out the most efficient way to organize our hard copy documentation.  In eTapestry, we ran gift reports approximately weekly, and had all the paper backup (copies of checks, donation envelopes, letters and cards from donors, etc.) filed alphabetically together with the gift report.  This made it easy to find the paper copy of something when we needed to refer to it later for a donor question or processing discrepancy.

With RE, we often have multiple batches for each gift report, and we’re not sure how to organize the paper copies so that we can find it later. We’re curious how other organizations handle this.  I’ve spent some time looking through other entries in this forum, and can’t seem to find any mention of this process, other than it gets stored with the batch report for those that keep paper copies. Our struggle is that we may have dozens of pieces of paper for each gift report (or, during busy times of year, hundreds), so having to flip through them all to find one donation’s information seems cumbersome. Do you organize this paper backup in any particular way that you find helpful?

 

At my organization, where we also have a busy times of the year, we recently converted to keeping the bare minimum of paper and converted to storing our batch reports as PDFs and check copies as scans. One way we process gifts is through a lockbox at a local bank and they scan everything as it comes in, checks and direct mail together, and it is stored on a secure server and we have a log-in to the system to review those daily while reconciling. They keep those for 7 years so we have access to them the entire time if we ever need to go back and print a check copy for reference. We enter up to 5 lockbox batches every day based on what avenue of direct mail it was received, but we do receive a hard copy breakdown daily of what was received that we verify with the bank's deposit and those are filed by date for up to a year. Once the annual audit is done, we shred them. We also receive checks/cash/credit cards through the regular mail and Finance scans those check copies/credit card transaction approvals, etc. as a PDF and Accounting processes the checks remotely and then keeps them for a short amount of time. After the audit is complete, they're shredded. For our bigger donations, $500+ for organizations and $1,000+ for individuals, we store PDF scans of those checks and letters on the media tab/attachments in RE NXT, so they're easily viewable by our gift officers.


Our processes provide back-up documentation pretty well, where if ever questioned, we can go back and find anything we'd need. Our organization went green in the past few years, so paper back-up was cut out as much as it could be, and honestly it was cumbersome and unnecessary as well. Since you're having to implement new processes due to your conversion, maybe you should step back and take a look at what it is you absolutely need vs. what you don't. I think you'll find a lot of it, you don't actually need and can access another way. Good luck!