FundSvcs Community

Deborah, I have been studying this topic and implementing solutions for over two decades. At NC State it took a task force six months to determine how best to handle the assessment and another nine months to program and test the solution. There is no one single - or simple - answer to your questions. I will, however, provide a simplified presentation on this at aasp Summit next Monday during the Executive Workshop. If you are attending Summit perhaps we can spend an hour discussing this over coffee. For a quick and dirty answer to your questions: 1. Do not split the gift. Let the GL feed handle this behind the scenes 2. Do not split the pledge. Just split the payments as noted above 3. Kind of sort of. Your GL feed needs to handle not only the debit/credit aspect but also any gift corrections down the road 4. No. The donor still made a gift to the designation of their choice. You applied a fee after-the-fact. The receipt simply states something like, "Most charitable donations are subject to a 5% administrative fee." John John H. Taylor Principal John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC 2604 Sevier St. Durham, NC 27705 johntaylorconsulting@gmail.com 919.816.5903 (cell/text) Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987 On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 9:22 AM Deborah Brown <browndl@cua.edu> wrote: > Dear Listers: > I would be grateful for your thoughts on the mechanics or charging a > gift assessment. We have board approval to apply a 5% assessment on > restricted gifts and commitments exceeding $10K. We have the written the > policy and so have addressed the issues of eligibility, exceptions etc. > It is now time to create the mechanics of applying it. Here are the > questions I am working through: > > 1. If we apply the assessment on an eligible gift, do we split the entry > in Raiser's Edge: 95% for the donor stated purpose, and 5% unrestricted; > > 2. Pledges are eligible for assessment charge, however, the assessment is > charged when the payments are made. And so, if a donor makes a $100K > commitment, payable over 5 years, we would enter the pledge with $$95K for > the purpose and $5K unrestricted. Then when the $20K payment come in, > $$19K is applied to the purpose and $1K is applied to Unrestricted. > > 3. If we do not apply it at entry, we could tag those gifts with an > attribute and when we feed the file to Finance for upload into Peoplesoft, > they could charge the 5% on tagged gifts as a single transaction. > > 4. Do you show the split on the receipt? > > My goal is the minimize complex entry; not create a mess of > unreconcileable systems, and not create a nightmare for myself in the next > audit. > > Might some of you share you practice and the upsides and downsides of your > practice? > > > Many thanks, > Deborah > -- > Deborah L. Brown > Associate Vice President for Advancement Services and Administration > The Catholic University of America > 620 Michigan Avenue | E208 > O'Connell Hall > Washington, DC 20064 > browndl@cua.edu > Office: 202-319-6915 > >

Dear Listers: I would be grateful for your thoughts on the mechanics or charging a gift assessment. We have board approval to apply a 5% assessment on restricted gifts and commitments exceeding $10K. We have the written the policy and so have addressed the issues of eligibility, exceptions etc. It is now time to create the mechanics of applying it. Here are the questions I am working through: 1. If we apply the assessment on an eligible gift, do we split the entry in Raiser's Edge: 95% for the donor stated purpose, and 5% unrestricted; 2. Pledges are eligible for assessment charge, however, the assessment is charged when the payments are made. And so, if a donor makes a $100K commitment, payable over 5 years, we would enter the pledge with $$95K for the purpose and $5K unrestricted. Then when the $20K payment come in, $$19K is applied to the purpose and $1K is applied to Unrestricted. 3. If we do not apply it at entry, we could tag those gifts with an attribute and when we feed the file to Finance for upload into Peoplesoft, they could charge the 5% on tagged gifts as a single transaction. 4. Do you show the split on the receipt? My goal is the minimize complex entry; not create a mess of unreconcileable systems, and not create a nightmare for myself in the next audit. Might some of you share you practice and the upsides and downsides of your practice? Many thanks, Deborah -- Deborah L. Brown Associate Vice President for Advancement Services and Administration The Catholic University of America 620 Michigan Avenue | E208 O'Connell Hall Washington, DC 20064 browndl@cua.edu Office: 202-319-6915

What you are outlining sounds like a nightmare. We do the gift entry exactly as the gift entry should be. It is an accurate reflection of what the donor intended to give the money to and makes VSE reporting and adjustments so much easier. The 5% assessment is a business transaction. We provide a report from our fundraising software with fund ID and total qualifying gifts (cash and payments) for the month and it is reconciled against the GL to confirm then the spreadsheet has a 5% calculation column for each fund ID. That is then imported into a journal batch and distributed across the funds. Adjustments are reviewed each month to ensure the 5% is moved if need be. Cin Cindy Hicks Director of Advancement Services University Advancement (706) 507-8988 On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deborah Brown <browndl@cua.edu> wrote: > Dear Listers: > I would be grateful for your thoughts on the mechanics or charging a > gift assessment. We have board approval to apply a 5% assessment on > restricted gifts and commitments exceeding $10K. We have the written the > policy and so have addressed the issues of eligibility, exceptions etc. > It is now time to create the mechanics of applying it. Here are the > questions I am working through: > > 1. If we apply the assessment on an eligible gift, do we split the entry > in Raiser's Edge: 95% for the donor stated purpose, and 5% unrestricted; > > 2. Pledges are eligible for assessment charge, however, the assessment is > charged when the payments are made. And so, if a donor makes a $100K > commitment, payable over 5 years, we would enter the pledge with $$95K for > the purpose and $5K unrestricted. Then when the $20K payment come in, > $$19K is applied to the purpose and $1K is applied to Unrestricted. > > 3. If we do not apply it at entry, we could tag those gifts with an > attribute and when we feed the file to Finance for upload into Peoplesoft, > they could charge the 5% on tagged gifts as a single transaction. > > 4. Do you show the split on the receipt? > > My goal is the minimize complex entry; not create a mess of > unreconcileable systems, and not create a nightmare for myself in the next > audit. > > Might some of you share you practice and the upsides and downsides of your > practice? > > > Many thanks, > Deborah > -- > Deborah L. Brown > Associate Vice President for Advancement Services and Administration > The Catholic University of America > 620 Michigan Avenue | E208 > O'Connell Hall > Washington, DC 20064 > browndl@cua.edu > Office: 202-319-6915 > >