Monthly statements for donors who pay by credit card.

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We would like to start sending monthly statements to our donors who pay their pledges via credit card.  Several donors have requested these and I am not sure the best way to run them.  

I would like to just get the exported fields to merge into a letter showing their fund description,  pledge amount, amount paid to date(total not each payment) and pledge balance.  Also I would include their installment frequency. It would be nice to bring over their installment amounts too but I always seem to struggle with next installment amount. 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Nicol


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  • Nicol Hudson:

    We would like to start sending monthly statements to our donors who pay their pledges via credit card.  Several donors have requested these and I am not sure the best way to run them.  

    I would like to just get the exported fields to merge into a letter showing their fund description,  pledge amount, amount paid to date(total not each payment) and pledge balance.  Also I would include their installment frequency. It would be nice to bring over their installment amounts too but I always seem to struggle with next installment amount. 

    Any help is appreciated.

     

    Nicol


    Actually I think what we would really like to do is to run a quarterly statement for these folks just showing the pledge amount and any payments made during that quarter.  Running this monthly would be way too time consuming and too much mail to each donor. 

  • Nicol Hudson:

    Actually I think what we would really like to do is to run a quarterly statement for these folks just showing the pledge amount and any payments made during that quarter.  Running this monthly would be way too time consuming and too much mail to each donor. 

    Is this statement going to serve as the acknowledgement for the payments? Are you doing this through donor acknowledgement letters?

    My donor acknowledgement letters for pledge payments include the original pledge amount and current balance. I do not think it includes next payment date or payment schedule but not sure if that is because it can not or we just never tried.

  • Melissa Graves:

    Is this statement going to serve as the acknowledgement for the payments? Are you doing this through donor acknowledgement letters?

    My donor acknowledgement letters for pledge payments include the original pledge amount and current balance. I do not think it includes next payment date or payment schedule but not sure if that is because it can not or we just never tried.

    In quickly looking, it does not look like donor acknowledgement letters can include next payment info or payment schedule. You may want to add a comment to this suggestion in RE discovery to request it.

    http://rediscovery.uservoice.com/forums/137015-raiser-s-edge-discovery-topics/suggestions/2557011-make-all-fields-accessible-in-mail-functions

  • Melissa Graves:

    In quickly looking, it does not look like donor acknowledgement letters can include next payment info or payment schedule. You may want to add a comment to this suggestion in RE discovery to request it.

    http://rediscovery.uservoice.com/forums/137015-raiser-s-edge-discovery-topics/suggestions/2557011-make-all-fields-accessible-in-mail-functions

     Well I am not sure how we do this.  Typically we don't acknowledge payments for people paying thru EFT or Credit card.  So they were looking at a way to get them a statement to send quarterly just to touch base and let them know what their payments were during that quarter and what their balance now is.

     I haven't found a way to do it. I tried using receipts but it generates a receipt per payment and I just really wanted on receipt with all the payments made during that quarter.

    Using the pledge status or gift detail and summary report seemed to give me what I am looking for minus the frequency but it is a canned report and I was hoping to find a way to do this with a merge or an export. 


  • Nicol Hudson:

     Well I am not sure how we do this.  Typically we don't acknowledge payments for people paying thru EFT or Credit card.  So they were looking at a way to get them a statement to send quarterly just to touch base and let them know what their payments were during that quarter and what their balance now is.

     I haven't found a way to do it. I tried using receipts but it generates a receipt per payment and I just really wanted on receipt with all the payments made during that quarter.

    Using the pledge status or gift detail and summary report seemed to give me what I am looking for minus the frequency but it is a canned report and I was hoping to find a way to do this with a merge or an export. 


    These donors need acknowledgements to claim the gifts on their taxes. With monthly donors they can either get them each month or get a consolidated one in January (for the previous calendar year) for their taxes. .This is likely why your donors are requesting them. I would consider institituting annual receipts for anyone paying monthly. I think quarterly is strange.

    We acknowledge the pledge (or recurring gift) immediately and tell the donor they will not get monthly acknowlwedgements but instead one in January for their taxes. We tell them they can contact us at any time for an update on where they are in the meantime. We enter the gifts and then mark them not acknowledged but use a letter code indicating it will be done with an annual receipt. This letter code is excluded in the daily letter runs. so these gifts remain not acknowledged.

    In January, I use an export to export all unacknowledged gifts from the previous calendar year (pledge payments and recurring gift payments) and do a mail merge to get a summary statement for each person. It takes some work to set up but once done it is not hard to do.

  • Melissa Graves:

    These donors need acknowledgements to claim the gifts on their taxes. With monthly donors they can either get them each month or get a consolidated one in January (for the previous calendar year) for their taxes. .This is likely why your donors are requesting them. I would consider institituting annual receipts for anyone paying monthly. I think quarterly is strange.

    We acknowledge the pledge (or recurring gift) immediately and tell the donor they will not get monthly acknowlwedgements but instead one in January for their taxes. We tell them they can contact us at any time for an update on where they are in the meantime. We enter the gifts and then mark them not acknowledged but use a letter code indicating it will be done with an annual receipt. This letter code is excluded in the daily letter runs. so these gifts remain not acknowledged.

    In January, I use an export to export all unacknowledged gifts from the previous calendar year (pledge payments and recurring gift payments) and do a mail merge to get a summary statement for each person. It takes some work to set up but once done it is not hard to do.

     We do send out annual tax receipts to everyone regardless of their payment type..however there is discussion that other than seeing BMS on their credit card statement they are not receiving anything from us from the day the pledge to the time it is paid off. We are running a capital campaign.

    I just want a receipt but I want it consolidated not printing a receipt for every payment but if I can put in a date range a receipt for payments made during a time period. We selected quarterly since we have so many different pledge schedules.

    Our EFT/CC payments are not marked send reminders that is how they are excluded in our data pull.

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Nicol Hudson:

     We do send out annual tax receipts to everyone regardless of their payment type..however there is discussion that other than seeing BMS on their credit card statement they are not receiving anything from us from the day the pledge to the time it is paid off. We are running a capital campaign.

    I just want a receipt but I want it consolidated not printing a receipt for every payment but if I can put in a date range a receipt for payments made during a time period. We selected quarterly since we have so many different pledge schedules.

    Our EFT/CC payments are not marked send reminders that is how they are excluded in our data pull.

    Are you printing your receipts through donor acknowledgement or receipts?  If you use receipts, it's quite easy to send a consolidated receipt for whatever time frame you choose.  Just have the EFT/CC donors marked for 'consolidated recetip' on the Bio 2 tab.  Run your receipts at the end of each quarter.  Any gifts not previously receipted will receipt.

    We receipt annually for EFT/CC donors but we have added a summer letter to them to 'maintain good donor relations'  as they weren't getting the monthly thank you/receipt. As others said in pledge thank you we state they'll get receipt at year end unless otherwise requested.  No one's ever requested differently. 

  • Nicol Hudson:

     We do send out annual tax receipts to everyone regardless of their payment type..however there is discussion that other than seeing BMS on their credit card statement they are not receiving anything from us from the day the pledge to the time it is paid off. We are running a capital campaign.

    I just want a receipt but I want it consolidated not printing a receipt for every payment but if I can put in a date range a receipt for payments made during a time period. We selected quarterly since we have so many different pledge schedules.

    Our EFT/CC payments are not marked send reminders that is how they are excluded in our data pull.

    But that is sometimes the benefit a donor sees in making a pledge. Other than the annual tax receipt you are not bothering them about their giving. Maybe you need to make your annual receipt for these people be more of a stewardship piece than a simple receipt? Do you not send newsletters? Have any stweardship pieces that go to these folks? I would not use a monthly or quarterly statement as a stewardship piece.

    I agree - they should not be gerring reminders. (but payments do not get marked no reminders - pledges do) Frankly, a quarterly statement would seem too much to me like a reminder.

    In my opinion, if you are trying to create a stewardship program for your donors in pledges I would not start with statements. That is a basic and it sounds like you have an annual receipt that is already being done. Why duplicate that? Maybe it needs work to kick it up a notch but I think you need to work on basic touches with these folks that have nothing to do with their pledge. A semi annual letter from your president keeping them up to date on what the organization is doing, newsletters, event invitations, etc.

    Regardless - if you want to do this - you will have to export the data and create a custom mail merge. I use a constituent export and export all of the payments in separate columns of each constituent row. This will allow you to mail merge one letter per person and get each gift detailed. I do not think you can do it from Mail. 

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