Automating Gift Batching

@Diana Bronsema How are you receiving your gift data?

If you are receiving it in spreadsheet from outside platform you can consider importing or using plug-in like Importacular or Omatic.

If you are working with checks that come in the mail, for us that's a manual entry into a batch.
If you have a response piece with the checks, include the constituent ID number on the piece and in your batch. Much faster IMO to key in a few #s vs. searching for a name (depends on your ID format I suppose).

For your batch use defaults whenever possible: date, campaign, fund, appeal, post, receipt, etc. If you have a significant # of gifts, sorting checks by some of these values helps too. Even using separate batches can expedite.

I also find business rules helpful for things like ‘this constituent has a pledge - do you want to apply’ and record has ‘pledge SC’. This helps get funds where they should go more quickly.

If possible sort checks by those who already have records and those who don't. I would then create the new needed records (use a template batch for adding constituents with all the needed fields), create a query of those in that constituent batch and globally add them to my gift batch.

I have not worked with lockboxes or scanned check batches personally. Others may have thoughts on those methods.