Daily Gift Log

Monique Cunningham Sims · April 2018

Greetings,

We are enhancing our gift processing procedure to include some internal controls in which our Receptionist who receives the mail, will now log each check received in a Gift Log which will be transmitted to our gift processor for verification and processing. Does anyone else have a similar procedure where one individual is logging each check received before it is being entered into the database system? If so, would you mind sharing your Gift Log sheet?

Thanks,

Monique Sims

JoAnn Strommen · April 2018

Our CEO does a list like you described. Just snuck a peak at it. The columns include date, name on check, check #, fund, amount. thank you letter, thank you phone call. Don't see much for notations in last 2 columns so I don't think he tracks the letters. He calls those above a certain level and may use last column for that. I don't have access to the file or I could send it. There's also a heading at the top for date range but blank - date sort of covers that detail.

Monique Cunningham Sims · April 2018

JoAnn Strommen:

Our CEO does a list like you described. Just snuck a peak at it. The columns include date, name on check, check #, fund, amount. thank you letter, thank you phone call. Don't see much for notations in last 2 columns so I don't think he tracks the letters. He calls those above a certain level and may use last column for that. I don't have access to the file or I could send it. There's also a heading at the top for date range but blank - date sort of covers that detail.

Thank you so much for your response! Greatly appreciated!

Donna Oleniczak · April 2018

Monique Cunningham Sims:

Greetings,

We are enhancing our gift processing procedure to include some internal controls in which our Receptionist who receives the mail, will now log each check received in a Gift Log which will be transmitted to our gift processor for verification and processing. Does anyone else have a similar procedure where one individual is logging each check received before it is being entered into the database system? If so, would you mind sharing your Gift Log sheet?

Thanks,

Monique Sims

Hi Monique,

I had an excel spreadsheet at my previous job to track this. Since we used it as a control, we also password protected it, so the gift processor could only view the spreadsheet not make any changes. For columns we had Date money received, Payment type (Cash, check, credit card) Donor name (if check listed husband and wife we entered both first names - this way if you received a call asking if their check was received you could search for either) Amount of check. We totaled all payment types, and printed a copy to go with the checks for processing. This printed copy was matched to the deposit spreadsheet to make sure totals matched for that date. (to make sure money wasn't lost going from one person to another)

Hope this make sense. Donna:)

Monique Cunningham Sims · April 2018

Thank you so much for your response Donna! I greatly appreciate your assistance!

Nicole Holt · April 2018

Monique Cunningham Sims:

Greetings,

We are enhancing our gift processing procedure to include some internal controls in which our Receptionist who receives the mail, will now log each check received in a Gift Log which will be transmitted to our gift processor for verification and processing. Does anyone else have a similar procedure where one individual is logging each check received before it is being entered into the database system? If so, would you mind sharing your Gift Log sheet?

Thanks,

Monique Sims

We have the Receptionist (or someone from the Finance department) and Development Assistant (or someone from Development) open the mail together--the Receptionist completes the bank deposit slip, the DA completes a daily cash spreadsheet (date, name, check number/date, amount, restrictions & check source for those that don't match the donor's name--there are more fields that are used for Development, but these are the only ones that Finance sees/cares about). That way reconcilliation happens daily, and there are layers of controls.

Samuel Meinders · April 2018

Our process is different than what some others have mentioned, so I'll throw our routine in here for just another way of doing things.

Every day our receptionist sorts through the mail and separates gifts into their own stack. She then makes copies of each check and anything that came with it (RSVP card, notes, stubs). She makes 3 copies, 1 for me (DBA), 1 for our Major Gifts Officer, and 1 for our Vice President. She stamps each stack of copies with a "Received on (Date)" and then disperses the copies. I get my copies along with all of the gifts. I reconcile the physical checks with the copies as I'm looking up each donor to write down their gift designaiton. If the quantity of gifts is high I'll make a deposit that same day, but most times I will wait 2-3 days to build up 30+ gifts and then make a deposit. I then enter batches every Friday. Our CFO commits/posts gifts on Mondays, and our receptionist receipts on Tuesdays.

Different strategy than what you're mentioning, but I hope this helps!

Gracie Schild · April 2018

At my last job, we had a gift log that served a different purpose. It was actually more of a batch preparation log and gift action tracking device. There were so many different steps around a batch, and we didn't have the volume to run batches every day, so I developed a log to have everything in one place. We had all the payment information, the designation, the name of the donor, any notes we wanted to add to the Reference or things to do for that specific gift ("B" meant add benefit, for example). The last two columns were for the Acknowledgement (Y, N, Do Not, and room for "Pres" if the President would be the signer) and Scanned/Attached. Scanning was done while the log was being filled out so that the check (if there was one) could be put into the safe right away. This was a hand written log, designed to make sure that each record had been researched (what is the designation? who signs the letter? are we splitting it into two gifts?) before Batch entry. I laid out the log in the same order as the master batch, so that once the log was ready, batch entry went very quickly, and the Control Report was printed and attached to the log. If the letters were not being produced immediately, the whole log would be pulled out later and the acknowledgement notes would be there for whoever was running the letters for that batch. The work study student could take the list to another station to attach Media, and mark them off as they went. Only when every gift had a marking to show it had been acknowledged and the media had been attached was the log filed away. We kept them for about a year then shredded them.

The bookkeeper reconciled the bank deposits against the RE gifts, but from a financial best practices point of view, we didn't really have a way of separating the opener from the enterer. There was the possibility of fraud, but in an office that small with everyone knowing what everyone else was doing, it really wasn't very likely, and we had a thoroghly trustworthy person. There were only two or three times a year when we had really high volume with a greater likelihood of something going missing or getting lost. In the six years I worked there, I think one check just plain disappeared - not through fraud, just through the process of being handled and moved and copied. As I recall we found it WAY later, stuck in the copier we had used to scan it, and we let the donor know we had destroyed it. Our biggest problem was actually getting the envelope in our hands - until we dumped the whole business reply mail process!

Gracie Schild

Bluebird Business Services

Santa Fe NM

Keri Barnhart · April 2018

Samuel Meinders:

Our process is different than what some others have mentioned, so I'll throw our routine in here for just another way of doing things.

Every day our receptionist sorts through the mail and separates gifts into their own stack. She then makes copies of each check and anything that came with it (RSVP card, notes, stubs). She makes 3 copies, 1 for me (DBA), 1 for our Major Gifts Officer, and 1 for our Vice President. She stamps each stack of copies with a "Received on (Date)" and then disperses the copies. I get my copies along with all of the gifts. I reconcile the physical checks with the copies as I'm looking up each donor to write down their gift designaiton. If the quantity of gifts is high I'll make a deposit that same day, but most times I will wait 2-3 days to build up 30+ gifts and then make a deposit. I then enter batches every Friday. Our CFO commits/posts gifts on Mondays, and our receptionist receipts on Tuesdays.

Different strategy than what you're mentioning, but I hope this helps!

In my former life, I handled the incoming checks for the university's museum as part of my front desk responsibilities, and later as the membership and giving coordinator. This is very similar to how we did it, but instead of making multiple copies, I would scan the documentation and email the team. Usually my email would have call outs in the text to alert the different people to what they needed to pay attention to. The museum is located downtown, while the university proper and the accounting office are halfway to the beach - a good 30 minutes away, so it was much more efficient and paper-friendly to email than hand-deliver the documents to the gift entry folks!

I would also create a basic batch form to go with the paperwork: REID, name on check, check amount and number, FE project code, FE account name, RE Fund, and RE Appeal. That batch paperwork was used to track each of the checks as I opened the mail, like a log, and you could use it to cross-reference the scans. It included money that wasn't for RE - rental fees, art camp registrations, etc. - and so I maintained a separate page of the batch log that was only FE stuff. (The museum is a separate 501(c)(3) so it has its own FE.)

This worked because I was both the person who reported the incoming gifts and the one who received the mail. I was able to do the logs all at once. If you have different people opening the mail vs recording the checks, a separate log with the basic check information works, and our internal auditing office suggested that for all of the university's departments recently. It doesn't have to be complicated, just enough to make sure you know when the check came in, who it was from and for how much, and who received it/took it away. Extra room for notes about enclosed documentation is useful but not always necessary.

Keeping the log is really useful for tracking your acknowledgments, if you have a general receipting process separate from personal thank yous. I also thought it was helpful to identify new donors, since they wouldn't have REIDs in the log (either their own or a spouse or related organization, if appropriate), and I could plan the number of Welcome packets I would need to prepare each week.

Daily Gift Log

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