MG Cash

Leslie Arrington · December 2017

We are receiving matching gifts from matching gift companies through other organizations, like Benevity and YourCause. We are receiving no prior information regarding the matching gift so as to be able to post a mg pledge and are not permitted by our auditors to post a mg pledge without MG company documentation. We are currently posting the money to the mg company with a not mentioning for who the match is given and a note in the donor company stating that the match was made along with the amount, date and company. Is anyone having this issue? How do you post the cash received so that you can identify that money as matching a gift? How are you reflecting that this is a match to a gift made by a donor in that donor's record?

Jen Claudy · December 2017

Do your auditors not consider the check itself as documentation of a match? At my last 2 orgs, we didn't enter MG pledges until we knew for sure that the match was coming, based on a letter or email from the company (or the service they use for matching gifts). And even then, it was never booked in Finance, just entered in RE. Finance recorded the MG Pay-Cash entry as a cash gift. Although, our auditors never really cared what we did or didn't put in RE so long as we could produce the reports they requested...we did reconcile monthly with the Finance team and in general followed the same guidelines as far as gift entry to make that reconciliation as easy as possible.

John Heizer · December 2017

Leslie Arrington:
We are receiving matching gifts from matching gift companies through other organizations, like Benevity and YourCause. We are receiving no prior information regarding the matching gift so as to be able to post a mg pledge and are not permitted by our auditors to post a mg pledge without MG company documentation. We are currently posting the money to the mg company with a not mentioning for who the match is given and a note in the donor company stating that the match was made along with the amount, date and company. Is anyone having this issue? How do you post the cash received so that you can identify that money as matching a gift? How are you reflecting that this is a match to a gift made by a donor in that donor's record?

Your auditors need to be made to understand that this is just a limitation of the software. Receiving the funds should be more than enough documentation to show an intent to give! Just make sure the date on the MG pledge is the date you received the funds and if that doesn't satisfy them then you need to get different auditors. I've worked with dozens of organizations and have NEVER had that come up as an issue with auditors. Yes, there are some strange limitations with MG pledges in RE (my biggest problem is not being able to set a payment schedule when we've got documentation of a MG pledge today but know it won't be received for several month which can screw up our cash flow projections), but that doesn't mean that auditors shouldn't recognize and accept that it's just a simple software issue doesn't have a substantial impact on the fiscal reliability of the organization.

Christine Cooke 2 · December 2017

Leslie Arrington:
We are receiving matching gifts from matching gift companies through other organizations, like Benevity and YourCause. We are receiving no prior information regarding the matching gift so as to be able to post a mg pledge and are not permitted by our auditors to post a mg pledge without MG company documentation. We are currently posting the money to the mg company with a not mentioning for who the match is given and a note in the donor company stating that the match was made along with the amount, date and company. Is anyone having this issue? How do you post the cash received so that you can identify that money as matching a gift? How are you reflecting that this is a match to a gift made by a donor in that donor's record?

The matching gift funds are recorded on the Matching Gift Company's record and the individual that requested the match is Soft Credited for the gift. We have a policy of not entering MG Pledges because of the likliehood of fulfillment and the whacky disbursement schedules, which make for a lot of end of FY cleanup. So they are always entered with a a SC to the individual and the Appeal is also marked as MatchingGift. Easy to pull reports.

Leslie Arrington · January 2018

Jen Claudy:

Do your auditors not consider the check itself as documentation of a match? At my last 2 orgs, we didn't enter MG pledges until we knew for sure that the match was coming, based on a letter or email from the company (or the service they use for matching gifts). And even then, it was never booked in Finance, just entered in RE. Finance recorded the MG Pay-Cash entry as a cash gift. Although, our auditors never really cared what we did or didn't put in RE so long as we could produce the reports they requested...we did reconcile monthly with the Finance team and in general followed the same guidelines as far as gift entry to make that reconciliation as easy as possible.

Actually the problem is not with our auditors. It is with our development staff. They want to be able to see that a matching gift, though not tied to a matching gift pledge, was actually a match for another gift. Currently I make a note in the reference field of the gift, but they want to know if other organizations have any problem identifying those gifts.

Leslie Arrington · January 2018

Christine Cooke:

Leslie Arrington:
We are receiving matching gifts from matching gift companies through other organizations, like Benevity and YourCause. We are receiving no prior information regarding the matching gift so as to be able to post a mg pledge and are not permitted by our auditors to post a mg pledge without MG company documentation. We are currently posting the money to the mg company with a not mentioning for who the match is given and a note in the donor company stating that the match was made along with the amount, date and company. Is anyone having this issue? How do you post the cash received so that you can identify that money as matching a gift? How are you reflecting that this is a match to a gift made by a donor in that donor's record?

The matching gift funds are recorded on the Matching Gift Company's record and the individual that requested the match is Soft Credited for the gift. We have a policy of not entering MG Pledges because of the likliehood of fulfillment and the whacky disbursement schedules, which make for a lot of end of FY cleanup. So they are always entered with a a SC to the individual and the Appeal is also marked as MatchingGift. Easy to pull reports.

Do you ever have a problem with staff confusing the soft-credited matching gift with a gift from the person? We have development staff that I'm afraid will not consider that difference.

Melissa S Graves · January 2018

You can enter a MG pledge and not post it - that is what we do. Essentially this is why MG pledges are separated out from regular pledges because most places do not post the MG pledge (most agree with your auditors). We then apply the payment to the pledge and post the MG Pay Cash to the same GL string as if it was a cash gift and not a receivable. Your auditors can't stop you from using the MG pledge feature - only from posting it.

MG Cash

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