Gift Entry - to batch or not to batch

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Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 
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  • The three orgs I've worked for do mostly manual gift entry directly on the records.  Only when there are large numbers of similar gifts did we use Batch.  The last job, I did all of the gift entry myself, and all of the reporting, etc.  I often found other data that needed to be updated at the same time and it was generally more efficient to just open the record directly rather than opening from within a Batch.  I did use Default Sets quite a bit, on Constituent and Gift records, which helped speed data entry.  In some cases, I referenced previous gifts to ensure that this year's was consistent.  (This is also what I recommended when training an admin to take over gift entry when I left.)  Also, at my last job, I used the Receipt Date field to store the Deposit Date, so it was easy to locate transactions when looking at finance records, which were always entered by deposit date (not FE, not integrated).
  • Peggy Vidya:
    Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

    We use batch, mainly because we use a fair number of attributes and the gift code, and it is easier to just zip across the row (and it is less likely that something will be missed/forgotten). We don't save our batches, so there isn't a lot of going back to review them, but the batch is used to create a separate deposit report for Finance (to which we add receivables--and that report is saved). Having previously entered each gift individually, I find the batch simpler and more accurate. 

  • 95% of the time we use gift batches


    The exception is usually setting up a pledge gift
  • Jen, thank you for your response. I figured someone had to be doing it this way. Except when one is batching several of the same type of gifts with the same campaign, fund and appeal - my experience is that to be in the record is the better option for exactly the reasons you've stated. So you only track the manual gift entry via the date in the receipt date field, not through gift attributes or some other field? Also, once you lost that field to the deposit date, have you ever needed to refer to the actual date a receipt was generated?
  • Peggy Vidya:

    Jen, thank you for your response. I figured someone had to be doing it this way. Except when one is batching several of the same type of gifts with the same campaign, fund and appeal - my experience is that to be in the record is the better option for exactly the reasons you've stated. So you only track the manual gift entry via the date in the receipt date field, not through gift attributes or some other field? Also, once you lost that field to the deposit date, have you ever needed to refer to the actual date a receipt was generated?

    The receipt of the gift is included in the acknowledgement letter, which is tracked with the Ack fields, so there's no need to duplicate that data.  You could use an Attribute, but you can't see an Attribute as a column on the Gifts Tab.  I do highly recommend using Gift Default Sets to speed entry, even if it's just which Attributes you need to include.  And if you link your CFA records and mark defaults there, you can skip right to the Appeal Field, enter the Appeal, and it will fill in Cpgn and Fund defaults (which can be edited when necessary).


    It really does depend on the volume of gifts being entered and the number of people doing gift entry.  I can see the benefits of Batch entry, and managed some of that at a previous org for membership gifts.

  • We use batches for almost all gifts - it makes it easier to locate the gift records later down the road, and to reoncile with FE. I suppose if your Development department did not keep paper copies (leaving that to Finance) it might not matter so much. But I find that it speeds things up considerably.


    We do enter individual gifts for things like pledges, recurring gift pledges, gift corrections that require deleting and re-entering, and occasionally in-kind gifts since Finance doesn't track those the same anyway.
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Peggy Vidya:

    Jen, thank you for your response. I figured someone had to be doing it this way. Except when one is batching several of the same type of gifts with the same campaign, fund and appeal - my experience is that to be in the record is the better option for exactly the reasons you've stated. So you only track the manual gift entry via the date in the receipt date field, not through gift attributes or some other field? Also, once you lost that field to the deposit date, have you ever needed to refer to the actual date a receipt was generated?

    Peggy, I'm still curious why you obviously see individually as better option. You probably have very valid reasons.  The need to open and update other info doesn't happen very often for me.  I have the constituent info at the side of the batch so can quickly see if there were a change in address etc.  Yes, we're a smaller org - I'd be even more hesitant to do individual at a large org with multiple users.  Mistakes can happen. 


    While batches with defaults work well for entering like gifts/pledges I can honestly say I pretty much pile all the gifts/pledges needing entry that day in one batch.  Not hard to enter appeal/fund individually or change the default.  My batches often have gifts/pledges to at least 3 or 4 funds.


    So, try it individually and if it doesn't work well, no harm, no foul.  Just go back to batch entry.

  • My office has to batch in order to mesh with how our Accounting team works.  However, I think we would enter via batch regardless.  There's less chance for errors.  We do enter recurring gift setups and initial pledges through the gift tab, but even in that small amount of data entry, fields get missed or incorrectly filled in.  We also find it takes less time entering gifts through the batch since we have templates set up and then can use defaults as well.


    So, I'm with Joann, (I think) in asking what do you see as a benefit to entering gifts through the gift tab of the record?  I don't see that got answered anywhere yet, and I too am curious.

  • I'm curious too about why you wouldn't use batch. It makes entering gifts easy and so much easier to balance with bank deposits. I also use constituent batch frequently. I have templates set up for different constituencies and it works really well.
  • Karen Stuhlfeier:

    I'm curious too about why you wouldn't use batch. It makes entering gifts easy and so much easier to balance with bank deposits. I also use constituent batch frequently. I have templates set up for different constituencies and it works really well.

    We still have to input the membership info for each constituent record that is renewing or adding a membership. Am I missing something in the batch system? Also, we have to individually correct addresses when the field needing corrected is not on the address panel.  Is there a way to add fields to that address/bio panel?

     
  • Joan Maske:

     

    Karen Stuhlfeier:

    I'm curious too about why you wouldn't use batch. It makes entering gifts easy and so much easier to balance with bank deposits. I also use constituent batch frequently. I have templates set up for different constituencies and it works really well.

    We still have to input the membership info for each constituent record that is renewing or adding a membership. Am I missing something in the batch system? Also, we have to individually correct addresses when the field needing corrected is not on the address panel.  Is there a way to add fields to that address/bio panel?

     

     

    One of the buttons up in the toolbar, when you're in batch, allows for applying that gift to memberships, and opens up everything I've ever needed for my memberships.  Check it out.  I don't have RE open at the moment, but memory says the button looks like blue chain links?  For your second question, yes there is because I have done alterations to mine.  Go back to your View menu, choose Constituent Window and see what pops up for your options.

  • Hi - I just read back down this thread and saw that no one spent much time talking about Membership entry in Batch. We couldn't live without that because a different office (at our museum rather than on campus) produces the acknowledgement letters, labels for the oversized envelopes, and Membership Cards. All that is done by pulling the batch into various Mail functions.A trick I learned off the Community was to have gifts turn pink in the Batch when they have been linked to Memberships. That way the gift entry person can see at a glance if she forgot to link the gift. The tricky part is to remember that there are two things going on - entering a gift and updating (or adding) a Membership. 


    The ability to use Batch in other areas, especially Mail, is one of the main reasons we use it. It's just faster, more efficient, makes other processes work better, and is more accountable. I'm a huge fan, even taught a quicky seminar for the local RE Users Group on Batch. If the tool is there, why not use it?


    Gracie
  • In case you might have time to share –

    Apparently I am missing something.  When
    I input in batch, I am not seeing how to link to a
    membership.  Also, I often have additional bio information to
    add or correct that is not on the side bar panel so there is no
    where to input.  This all means I still have to go back and
    pull up each record individually to fix membership and Bio info
    anyway, so why bother to batch?  From your note, I must be
    missing some functionality. Any info you care to share will be
    greatly appreciated.

    Thanks for your thoughtful note on the
    string.

    Joan
    Maske

    Administrative
    Assistant

    Hoover Presidential 
    Foundation

    319-643-5327
    JMaske@hooverpf.org

     

  • Hi there - the two things you're missing are both in the little icon tool bar at the top. The hand holding a ticket is the link to membership. I advise you to put the dollar amount in the batch before linking, and if you have a business rule that pops up a message "Constituent has a Membership - do you want to link?" (something like that...) say no and continue to add your data. I always did the link after I'd entered all the gift info (amount, payment info). The master batch I "load" already has the Membership fund and campaign as defaults. The "turn it pink" trick that I learned here in the Community, involves right-clicking in the white space of the batch and changing the color in Ledgend. 

    The other question about changing more than what appears in the right-hand column is even simpler. When you've got the constituent filled in, you can access the full record by hitting the little blue (looks black to me) arrow to the right of the hand with the ticket. That takes you to the constituent record. When you Save and Close, you are right back in the Batch. When adding a new constituent through batch, you can't add the spouse until the record has been saved. I usually go right back to it with the little arrow. I also don't do any changes in the constituent panel in Batch - I always go to the full record because there are so many other things to do (end date for old address and uncheck send mail, etc.). We don't change any addresses from Bio1 anyway - always from Addresses.


    Hope that helps!


    Gracie
  • Hey Gracie

    That little idea about changing the colour is gold! Unfortunately, I cannot see the 'linked to recurring gift' option. As that is more important for us, do you know a way to change it if it's linked to a recurring gift?

    -Andrew

  • Good morning, Gracie!

    Thank you SO MUCH for your detailed response
    to my batch questions!! I have had a chance to try them out and it
    makes all the difference to follow your protocol for inputting by
    batch!!

    Thanks again, and have a great day!!

     

    Joan
    Maske

    Administrative
    Assistant

    Hoover Presidential 
    Foundation

    319-643-5327
    JMaske@hooverpf.org

     

     

     

     

     

  • Peggy Vidya:
    Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

    When I started this job they did gift entry directly into the record. I did that for the first 6 months and then after going to a training at Blackbaud, I started batching. I find it much quicker in batch. I have templates set up and I can set certain fields so it is much quicker. You can set up the constituent fields to display on the side so you can quickly scan address, etc based on what you want to see.  I save so much time now that I batch.

  • A question related to batching - just a few weeks ago I was able to right click on any of the RE lists/grids screens (the batch list, for instance) and have a choice of "Export to Excel" show up that I could left click and get an excel spreadsheet of the list/grid to copy easily into my excel on my desktop.  Now I get a message "Error opening export: External table is not in the expected format."  This is causing me to have to retype these lists/grids for other uses.  It saved SO MUCH TIME from having to run a query and go through the File Transfer steps.  Anyone have any ideas?  Is it a

     Blackbaud change or perhaps our cloud/server providers?
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Had similar areas taking other data from RE. Issue was caused by Microsoft update. Work around for us was to change export type to csv file instead of excel.
  • Thanks, JoAnn.  We are hosted by
    Blackbaud and for some reason the only choice I get is to save it
    as a csv to the BB Transfer file which actually, literally takes
    3-4 minutes to open each time. Hence, my extreme disappointment at
    not being able to use the Export to Excel choice.

     

    Joan
    Maske

    Administrative
    Assistant

    Hoover Presidential 
    Foundation

    319-643-5327
    JMaske@hooverpf.org

     

     

     

     

     

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    You may find a post on this very similar thread from earlier this week helpful.
    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/157/37813
  • Peggy Vidya:
    Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

    I only use Batch for large gifts for the same appeal.  I almost always use the individual record because I may only receive 3-5 gifts a day.  I have found using the "Load Defaults from" on the Gift tab is the quickest way to go for these miscellaneous donations.  I can setup as many defaults as I want.  Choose New Gift, Gift Tab, Load Defaults from...., at this point you can choose the default or setup a new one.  Just make sure "Load Default Values now" is checked off on the bottom of the screen or they won't load.  It's like doing a gift batch....only you are doing it on the individual record.  Hope that helps....dstavalo@donovancatholic.org

     

  • Joanne Felci:

    95% of the time we use gift batches


    The exception is usually setting up a pledge gift

    We use batch for pledges and all gift entry and manual only for setting up recurring gifts.

  • Peggy Vidya:
    Does anyone out there enter gifts through the gift tab of the record itself? We do go through RE Batch for every gift at this point, but I'm thinking to limit that to only when we have a large number of similar gifts (e.g. Direct Mail responses) and to use a manual tracking system for other items like a Major Gift pledge payment for example. If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks. 

    I have a question....I enter gifts through the gift tab on each record. Honestly, its just the way I've always done it and it didn't occur to me to change. I would be open to batching after reading this post as it seems that is more of the norm, but what does everyone do about acknowledgement letters. When I enter a gift in individual gift record, I pull a letter to print, but I also usually make an edit or two in the letter. So since I feel this has to be individualized,  I am not sure I could acheive that through batch. Suggestions?

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