Funeral Director Income Processing

Sarah Clarke · April 2015

Hi, I am interesting in finding out how people are processing In Memory donations that come via a Funeral Director. Do you add them to the Funeral Directors record or to the Next of Kins? Also if the FD sends you many cheques do you process them indiviudally or add them as one gift. Finally, if the FD supplies the name and address of some of the Donors do you create a new record for the donor or keep the income on the FD or NOK record?

I am looking for as many opinions as possible! Thanks

Courtney Klein 2 · April 2015

I am not sure what you mean by adding them to
the next of kin. Typically (99% probably) I record gifts under the
donor’s name. If the check came from XYZ but was mailed in by the
funeral director then the checked would be recorded under XYZ’s not
the funeral director or next of kin. In my opinion, best practices
states credit the donor if you know the donor name. As well, I
understand it is extra work, but I think best practices and from
the auditors perspective, recording all donations individually is
best. If you lump 10 checks together that total $500 and the
auditors pull that $500, I don’t think they would be thrilled if
they found out that that was actually 10 different donations.

Hope this helps and sorry if I misinterpreted
a few of your questions.

Courtney

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JoAnn Strommen · April 2015

You may need to research it but I believe funeral home/director who is forwarding on memorial gifts could/would be considered 'legal agent' to do so. In my opinion/experience the money does not belong to the funeral home, they are not the donor. The money is not from the next of kin generally. If gifts are in form of check to me donor is definitely the holder of the account. If gift is cash and given to you by legal agent, gift is credited to donor. If family brings in gifts of cash they've collected from various people, the family (for us) would be the donor. The money was given to them and if they donate to us is at their discretion. They have control.

So, we would enter each gift received from funeral home individually.

You may want to look at fundsvsc.org. Either search archives or post question.

Dawn Lowe · April 2015

In my experience checks from Funeral Directors or Funeral Homes are usually not funds directly donated by them or the next of kin of the deceased. My practice is to list the check/account holder as the donor. However if the check holder includes a note indicating name and address stating that someone else is the donor, then I adhere to the check holder’s request. In this case I use my name on check letter to receipt the donor(check holder’s name is listed in the body of the letter).

I never combine checks, I always enter them separately. If you combine checks and do just one entry you will run into problems if you have to do gift adjustment or if you have to provide individual tax receipt at a later date. Also as someone mentioned in an earlier response you will have a difficult time producing back-up information for auditors or for 990 tax information to your finance department.

Hope this is helpful.

Nicole S · April 2015

Combining checks can also make it hard to find the gifts later. I have had to use check number or amount in a query when someone can't quite remember the donor or anything else or if the business office has a question.

Sarah Clarke · April 2015

Thanks Everyone. Just to clarify most of our income comes via Funeral Directors and the policy is that if they provide the name of the donor and the amount we create a new record and add the gift to it but if the funeral director does not provide the name for part or all of the money then the income is processed on the Next of Kin's record rather than the Funeral Director. My current thinking is that if we do not know the donors detail we should put the income on a Funeral Director record as they have sent the money in. Are you in agreement?

Dawn Lowe · April 2015

You probably already tried this, I would contact the Funeral Director and request the following information, donor's name, address and amount each contributed. If the Funeral Director is unable to provide requested information, I would record the gift from Family of___, instead of just a specific individual. You should create a name on check gift attribute to use when you enter the gift and use the name on check letter when you send letter to the family ( See/Google, Bill Conors "How to Enter This Gift" ? ).

Going forward, I would provide written instruction to the Funeral Director informing him/her on what information I need in order to process donations.

Nicole S · April 2015

This is an interesting thread; I have never gotten money from a funeral director.

JoAnn Strommen · April 2015

Even though the money came from the funeral director, I don't think they would have legal claim to ownership. As Nicole suggested it could be put on a 'family of ..." record or a 'memorial to...". We would not put it on funeral home/funeral direcotor's record. If we did not know who donor was and it does happen with funerals and other places we enter it on our "unknown donor" record and note in reference (or where appropriate for you) it was Memorial-Jane Doe.

Funeral Director Income Processing

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