Deleting Gifts

Patti Hommes, bCRE-PRO · June 2015

Does anyone have a best practices written policy on gift deletion they could share? I ran a financial report today that was thousands less than it was last week. After some extensive sleuthing I found out that a couple of gifts had been deleted, with no documentation as to why. "Pledges were verbal and donors changed their mind." (smoke is still coming out of my ears) First of all I have already instituted the policy that verbal pledges are NOT to be entered. Secondly, I have now removed gift deletion rights from my Data Entry Group in Security. I do, however, want a Best Practices Policy to share with the Team. Thanks!

Jenny Norton · June 2015

We do not delete pledges. We use the Write-Off feature and put a note in the W/O Notes section and also I usually put a note in the Gift Reference to see those notes. But we also do not count pledges as gifts. They're not gifts until we actually receive the payment.

Jenny

JoAnn Strommen · June 2015

I would be steaming also. Think you've got first steps of policy/procedures with limited rights to ability to delete gifts and verbal pledges are not entered. Have heard of several orgs that have special fund that is used to record verbals for info and then info is moved when realized. Sort of a temp fund.

Other suggestion would be policy is gifts are not deleted but rather adjusted or written off based on circumstance to leave a trail for others and auditor.

Leslie Parker · June 2015

Only supervisors have rights to delete gifts in our organization. I have two user names and the one I use normally does not have delete rights so I have to be very deliberate when I delete a gift. It is rare that we do so, but there have been some very odd gifts added in the past that weren't really gifts which I come across occasionally and need to remove. We generally will adjust a gift to zero rather than delete it to leave an accounting trail.

Mary Maiden Mueller · June 2015

The only gifts we delete are the few that are accidentally entered on the wrong record. This action and any other gift adjustments can only be made by supervisors. Pledges are written off if not paid and other gifts are adjusted to zero when needed, always with an explanation for the change.

Patti Hommes, bCRE-PRO · June 2015

Thanks, all, for the great responses! In my past life I also either wrote off pledges or made an adjustment with explanations for both. Right now I am dealing with the "But this is what we've always done" mentality - which is why the database is in the shape it's in. This, too, shall pass!

Dawn Lee · June 2015

We had a committed and posted to FE gift that was deleted----how and why or by whom, we don't know (but we're changing the rights so only the supervisor can do it from here on!!!). How do we re-enter that gift, without having it repost to the GL?

Patti Hommes, bCRE-PRO · June 2015

Change the GL post status on the Miscellaneous tab to Do Not Post.

Jenny Norton · June 2015

If you enter the gift right from the constituent record and mark it posted on the miscellaneous tab, would that stop it from pulling over to FE? Just a thought.

Jenny

Dawn Lee · June 2015

Thanks, Jenny and Patty-----that's what I needed, I think. I don't do the actual gift posting, so I'm not as familiar with that side, but we had never had this happen before, so our gift entry person was stumped. I'll run this by her, but I think this sounds like it will work.

Christine Cooke 2 · June 2015

Any kind of financial transaction should never be Deleted -- why is that even an option I do not know.

All transactions that get entered and need to go away for whatever reason -- either Write Off or Adjust the gift/transaction. And for everyone's sake record why you are making the change.

I would also make it policy - which I think you will now -- that only the DM has deletion rights. I never give the rest of the department rights to delete. They have to tell me what it is and I do it myself. That goes for all areas, not just gifts.

As far as Verbal Pledges -- they are always a problem to track. Or remember to add to reports. I have made a policy of NOT calling them Verbal PLEDGES, but instead change the vocabulary to Verbal Commitment -- they are added to RE -- but with a Gift SubType of Verbal Commitment. They are NEVER reported to the Finance/Business Office unless they become a real Pledge with a signed pledge form. Works great.

Deleting Gifts

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