Does anybody post pledges thru the "Post to General Ledger process" in Raiser's Edge?

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Karen Blaney
Karen Blaney
Ancient Membership 10 Comments Photogenic Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
I am looking to speak with other Raiser's Edge users that post pledges to a General Ledger. Up until now, we have only posted gifts and payments. We are now looking to post pledges in order to reduce a lot of manual work on the finance side, but there are some challenges with the way Raiser's Edge creates the output for pledges during the Post to GL process.  Just looking to get some input from anyone that has a similar situation as us.  Thanks!
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  • Tatyana Leifman
    Tatyana Leifman
    Tenth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Photogenic
    We post pledges.  We are integrated with FE so after the initial GL mapping was set up for the various funds we use, there is nothing special for me to do on my end.  What are the output challenges that you've encountered?


    Tatyana
  • Michelle Maye 2
    Michelle Maye 2
    Fifth Anniversary First Comment
    Good afternoon,


    I saw your post and hoped one of you could help me.  I have never booked a pledge to FE (post to General ledger) before - I was told this was a huge no no.  However, the job I just recently took, books certain pledges.  I am looking for any information on posting to FE.  Is there a specific way you build your query to post? 


    I contact blackbaud and they told me their best practices is not to book pledges and referred me to the boards.


    any help would be appreciated.  Thanks


    Michelle
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Ancient Membership 2,500 Likes 2500 Comments Photogenic
    What you do is basically decided by what type of accounting you desire, IMO. Do you want/need to track account receivables in accounting?


    First org I worked at with RE & FE, posted all pledges to FE. We ran several multi-year capital campaigns and pledges were posted which helped to provide more accurate accounting and cash flow projections from the finance office vs. pulling all the data from RE. Pledges were looked at by accounting as short-term and long-term account receivables. 


    Org I'm at now posts larger pledges but not all their phone-a-thon type pledges. I'm still not sure what the cut off $ is and why they don't post all. I know one accountant staff who came from the same previous org I did said she does not know why and that when she becomes primary it is likely to change to posting all in the future. 


    I'm assuming the posting is determined by the gift types and post status of the gifts. I'm not the person who posts the gifts. 
  • Tatyana Leifman
    Tatyana Leifman
    Tenth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Photogenic
    We post some pledges to FE.  We have a dollar amount cut off (we don't post pledges smaller than $500) and the pledge has to be written for us to post it.  That is, we need to have some form of written communication from the donor (a letter or an email) that indicates the amount, purpose (which fund/campaign) and estimated date of payment for us to book and post the pledge to FE.  So we wouldn't post pledges made during a phonathon nor do we book matching gift pledges until we receive the actual matching gift.


    Tatyana
  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown Community All-Star
    Ninth Anniversary 2,500 Likes 1000 Comments Photogenic
    We post only pledges from constituents, not matching gift pledges, to FE (through the GL). The process is a bit of shared responsibility, as our CFO maintains the account numbers in Fund records and I take care of posting batches to the GL.  
  • Michelle Maye 2
    Michelle Maye 2
    Fifth Anniversary First Comment
    Thank you Joann, Tatyana and Austen for your reply.  Can any of you share your query and reporting process with me.  I am unable to find the queries or reporst used for this process, so any assistance would be helpful.  Thank you so much.


    Michelle
  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown Community All-Star
    Ninth Anniversary 2,500 Likes 1000 Comments Photogenic
    Hi Michelle Maye‍ - We post by batch to the GL (using the query that is created when the batch is committed to RE), which ultimately aids in reconciliation between the two systems at the end of each month.  After a batch is posted we print off two copies of the Post Report: one goes into the batch documentation, the other is given to Finance for their records along with the batch documentation.  After Finance reviews and confirms the journal entries in FE, they return the batch documentation to Development to be filed. 

     
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Ancient Membership 2,500 Likes 2500 Comments Photogenic
    First org posted all gifts that month.  So I"m assuming there is option in what gifts to post or otherwise they created a query all gifts for the month.


    This org several times a week.  I do know that process picks up any earlier unposted if they exist.


    You may want to post your question on FE forum for more response.  I don't even know if query is required or if it's just like when you create a query that you can say all gifts on or before X/X.
  • Tatyana Leifman
    Tatyana Leifman
    Tenth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Photogenic
    Hi Michelle, 

    We post by gift date and pay method (so we post credit card gifts separately from checks, stock, ACH and wire transfers).  We have our own queries set up based on that criteria that are used in the Post to General Ledger module.  The pledges get included along with checks, stocks, ACH & wire transfers.  Finance identifies them based on the GL mapping, so later when a pledge payment arrives, they can properly apply it.  I also run for them regularly a Pledge status report (usually on a quarterly basis).
  • Graham Getty
    Graham Getty
    Ancient Membership 100 Comments 100 Likes Name Dropper
    Whatever workflow works for your organization is great, but I've typically seen auditors / finance distinguish between pledges with a lowercase "p" like a telephone pledge or annual giving pledge - anything that is going to be paid within the current fiscal year NOT needing to be booked / tracked / written off. However, any pledge with a capital "P" Pledge for multi-year commitment requires booking - something like a $25,000 pledge with 5 installments over 5 years.
  • Karen Blaney
    Karen Blaney
    Ancient Membership 10 Comments Photogenic Name Dropper
    Thanks for all the feedback about posting pledges, but our main concern is how pledge records get created from the "Post to GL" process.  A debit and credit record is created for each installment (from the schedule that is set up in RE), rather than 1 debit and credit record for the whole pledge amount (in detail view).  We don't use FE, so we have a program that reformats the GL file output from RE to be able to go in for our financial system which is Colleague.  The way the pledges recs come out is making it tricky.  So that's more what I was wondering about.

    Looks like a lot of respondents have FE.  We are looking at two different possible solutions:  Posting the Pledge with no schedule, so the output comes out the way our custom reformatting needs to see it, then going back and adjusting it to add the schedule. (testing that now, looks like it might be a feasible solution).  Also, we have been speaking with Omatic software about a product called PostOMatic.  Does anybody use PostOmatic or post pledges to a different software that FE?  We are investigating this because we want to start posting pledges >$5000 electronically.  Right now its a lot of manual work for the controller's office. 


     

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