Collecting Gifts at outside offices and the main office

Brian Miller 2 · July 2015

Our organization has 3 "offices"; our 2 radio stations and the network office where our bookkeeping is done. I mention our bookkeeping is done at our main office because sometimes our outer offices receive donations and then they mail the checks to our main office where they are imputed into the database and then deposited at the bank. As part of that process the office managers at the other buildings type everything into a spreadsheet, save the spreadsheet, email the spreadsheet to accounting, print and mail the spreadsheet with the donations that were received and then accounting goes through and imputs everything into the database.

This seems like a lot of double work.

I was thinking that the outer offices could start a new Cash/Check Gift Batch, save it, print and mail to our main office, and then when accounting receives the mail, see the batch number, they can open the corresponding batch, double check it, and commit it.

Is this a good idea, a horrible accounting practice idea, here is a better idea...?

Brian Miller

New Life Media

JoAnn Strommen · July 2015

It could be a good idea or a not so good idea.

Do your 'outer offices' already have user rights to enter/edit gifts etc? Do you want them to? Do they work in RE at this time? Will it require lots of training? What will your process be if they accidentally commit instead of save? What does your auditor think of giving more people the ability to enter gifts? What controls will there be? Who is responsible for any changes in name/address info? When you say they enter everything in a spreadsheet is that everything that's in batch? Is it necessary that they enter all of that?

It sounds like your main office does the depositing. Our outer offices/branch Y's they do their own bank deposits. The documentation I get for entry into RE is a copy of the bank deposit/checks. Our branch Ys do not have access to RE. Here at main office our receptionist does keep a list in excel of the checks that she receives (just date received, name, amount, and destination - membership, program, donation) for reference and again I get copy of the deposit for donations.

If they use RE and there's no issue with auditor, I think having them create batch and enter data sounds like a pretty good idea. Just my 2 cents...

Brian Miller 2 · July 2015

Our outer office teams have access to RE, and since we are new enough, we are in the training process on everything. Recently, I was training our support team in using Batch to add new people from events that we may have just been at. It was one of those things that clicked that we are trying to work smarter, not harder. So, I have the security set that the support staff can create and edit a "Gift Batch" but they cannot Commit, Delete, Change Projections, Generate Payments, Create EFT Files. According to our auditors this process should be fine since it is still our person in charge of Receivables in Accounting is still the one that is actually processing/committing the gifts.

I was hoping that there might be another organization that is out there that has done something similar and I wasn't heading down a horrible headache of a path.

Brian

Christine Robertson · August 2015

Brian,

I think you're on the right track. I think that the only issues you might have would be security settings, batch settings and the possibly delay for committing the batch (due to USPS). But, those are not big issues by any stretch of the imagination and they are definitely not reason to keep using spreadsheets. With multiple locations, it is even more imperative that you keep everything that you can in RE and not in spreadsheets.

Erin OMeara · August 2015

Hi Brian,

We have one main office and four additional satellite offices. Our policy is to have all satellite offices mail or inter-office mail all donations to the main office. Our main office houses our Fund Development, Finance, and Data Management departments. When the main office receives the gift, Fund Development then writes up the deposit to give to Finance, and Data Management enters the batch in RE and posts to FE.

If your satellite offices are mailing the donations to you anyway, they definitely shouldn't't be using spreadsheets. Is the suggestion of having the satellite employees do data entry in order to cut down on the amount being processed at the main office? Or just to have-them-processed-where-they-land? If it is not a matter of re-organizing work flow, is it possible to have them mail the donations over to the main office? We find this to be the best way - in order to make sure that the main staff has an idea of all of the donations that have come in, and to provide over-site.

If it is to expand where data entry is happening, then I can understand having them do the data entry themselves if your satellite staff have been thoroughly trained. I still view this as a little bit of double duty - as the main office will still have to go in and check, correct, and post the work. I have found that it is faster to have one person doing all of it, than when you split up the work.

Collecting Gifts at outside offices and the main office

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