Recurring Batches

Emily Rubino · November 2015

Hi all. I am brand new to batches in RE, and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction! Our organization is starting a monthly giving program, which are being processed through an outside payment processor. I've been reading through the help documents, and if I am understanding correctly, the best way to enter these gifts in RE is to use a recurring batch. I'm still not sure if I am completely understanding the process, so I am hoping someone could give me some guidence.

1. I would create the gift batch and mark it as recurring.

2. I would choose the data fields, then go to the data entry grid to enter the constituent information.

3. Once the entry is complete, I would commit the batch to the records.

When it's time to enter the gifts for next month, however, I am not sure what I would do next. Would I open the same batch and have to manually change the gift date for each record? Or is there a way to import the data into a new batch with updated dates? Is it best to use the same gift date for everyone, even if their payments are being processed on different days each month? Thanks!

JoAnn Strommen · November 2015

Yes, you would open same batch. You can add/delete records as needed. When you go to commit the batch you get a pop up where you enter/update gift date and GL post dates. If you need to you can also choose a field while in batch and do a global change. But easist way to change dates is when commiting.

What date to use would be up to you and your finance office. We tend to use same date but all are easily identified by a gift-subtype.

Emily Rubino · November 2015

JoAnn Strommen:

Yes, you would open same batch. You can add/delete records as needed. When you go to commit the batch you get a pop up where you enter/update gift date and GL post dates. If you need to you can also choose a field while in batch and do a global change. But easist way to change dates is when commiting.

What date to use would be up to you and your finance office. We tend to use same date but all are easily identified by a gift-subtype.

Thanks for your reply, JoAnn! I appreciate the clarification - that makes sense. Just out of curiousity, does your organization use a particular gift-subtype for your monthly givers? We are trying to find the best way to identify those donors. Thanks!

Faith Murray · November 2015

We don't use recurring batches. Rather, we enter the gift template/pledge in the donor's record as a Recurring Gift right from the start (EFT or credit card), which generates a payment schedule. Each month, we create a new gift batch, importing gift fields from our original EFT batch, and then in Tools, "Automatically Generate Transactions/Payments". It automatically pulls any recurring payment that is due in the timeframe you set, along with their fund, payment information, etc. This allows us to process recurring gifts and pledge payments in one batch, without worrying about forgetting to delete someone who has already finished their pledge.

JoAnn Strommen · November 2015

Emily,

No and Yes. For just 'regular monthly donors' who are paying by EFT (bank draft or credit card) we do not use a gift sub-type. The pay method could be used to report on these donors. For monthly payments that are actually received through another process internally with YMCA membership payments, we do use a gift sub-type to identify that the $ is coming from an internal fund transfer.

(Note recurring gift and recurring batch are two different things.)

As F posted you also have the option to to automatically generate payments for monthly donors. It can be for pledges and/or recurring gifts (each org needs to define what they classify as pledge vs. recurring gift). I actually used to use recurring batches for several different monthly and bi-weekly gifts. In the last couple of years I've switched over to using the option found under Tools to automatically generate payments. I found it a bit cleaner than recurring batch as I didn't have to go back in and add records for employees who had skipped the payroll before and been removed from the recurring batch. I just have to remove those not on the list I get from HR - good tracking tool also to compare to HR of who's no longer employed vs. just didn't turn in time sheet. For our monthly EFTs I can easily include all records and just look for payments due by 5th of month with EFT status. (Having one due date/month allows this to work for us.) Works very well I think.

There's nothing really right or wrong to use one method over the other. Both should process the gifts, which works best for an org just depends on their data entry and needs. I used the recurring batch for years with no problem and one by one have changed my recurring batches to just batches utilizing the auto generate feature.

Be glad to answer any other questions you have.

Emily Rubino · November 2015

F Murray:

We don't use recurring batches. Rather, we enter the gift template/pledge in the donor's record as a Recurring Gift right from the start (EFT or credit card), which generates a payment schedule. Each month, we create a new gift batch, importing gift fields from our original EFT batch, and then in Tools, "Automatically Generate Transactions/Payments". It automatically pulls any recurring payment that is due in the timeframe you set, along with their fund, payment information, etc. This allows us to process recurring gifts and pledge payments in one batch, without worrying about forgetting to delete someone who has already finished their pledge.

Thank you for the suggestion, F! I appreciate it!

Emily Rubino · November 2015

JoAnn Strommen:

Emily,

No and Yes. For just 'regular monthly donors' who are paying by EFT (bank draft or credit card) we do not use a gift sub-type. The pay method could be used to report on these donors. For monthly payments that are actually received through another process internally with YMCA membership payments, we do use a gift sub-type to identify that the $ is coming from an internal fund transfer.

(Note recurring gift and recurring batch are two different things.)

As F posted you also have the option to to automatically generate payments for monthly donors. It can be for pledges and/or recurring gifts (each org needs to define what they classify as pledge vs. recurring gift). I actually used to use recurring batches for several different monthly and bi-weekly gifts. In the last couple of years I've switched over to using the option found under Tools to automatically generate payments. I found it a bit cleaner than recurring batch as I didn't have to go back in and add records for employees who had skipped the payroll before and been removed from the recurring batch. I just have to remove those not on the list I get from HR - good tracking tool also to compare to HR of who's no longer employed vs. just didn't turn in time sheet. For our monthly EFTs I can easily include all records and just look for payments due by 5th of month with EFT status. (Having one due date/month allows this to work for us.) Works very well I think.

There's nothing really right or wrong to use one method over the other. Both should process the gifts, which works best for an org just depends on their data entry and needs. I used the recurring batch for years with no problem and one by one have changed my recurring batches to just batches utilizing the auto generate feature.

Be glad to answer any other questions you have.

Thanks, JoAnn! I appreciate you sharing your organization's process with me! I am going to check into the suggestions you posted above.

Gracie Schild · November 2015

Hi - I'm probably slightly off topic here, but we use the Recurring Batch for our Payroll Deductions. Every other week, a list is generated from the Finance office and we have the recurring batch already set up, adding and deleting people as they start or finish pledges or cancel a recurring gift. We simply change the default date on the set-up tab, save it and "F2" down the column (we're a small organization and have never had more than about 10 payroll deduction recurring gifts at a time). We do use a gift sub-type of Payroll Deduction which is helpful in pulling those gifts out in queries.

As far as monthly pledge payments or recurring gifts, we only have a handful and run the CCs by hand each month. The gifts go into regular gift batches with other gifts that have come in by other means. As we get larger, we'll probably move to BBMS or Online Express and I'll have to rethink that, but that should only make it easier...I hope...

John Heizer · November 2015

Gracie Schild:

Hi - I'm probably slightly off topic here, but we use the Recurring Batch for our Payroll Deductions. Every other week, a list is generated from the Finance office and we have the recurring batch already set up, adding and deleting people as they start or finish pledges or cancel a recurring gift. We simply change the default date on the set-up tab, save it and "F2" down the column (we're a small organization and have never had more than about 10 payroll deduction recurring gifts at a time). We do use a gift sub-type of Payroll Deduction which is helpful in pulling those gifts out in queries.

As far as monthly pledge payments or recurring gifts, we only have a handful and run the CCs by hand each month. The gifts go into regular gift batches with other gifts that have come in by other means. As we get larger, we'll probably move to BBMS or Online Express and I'll have to rethink that, but that should only make it easier...I hope...

You can save all the "F2" work by going to Tools > Global Change Date ...

JoAnn Strommen · November 2015

My suggestion instead of the F2 (posting as John's came through) is when you commit a recurring batch, go to tab 3 of the commit pop-up: Recurring batch. Whatever dates are entered here will be applied to all gifts in the batch. I've always used these fields to change/update gift date and GL post date when I'm using recurring batches.

(Was told to do it that way somewhere in an RE training.)

Recurring Batches

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