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Internal Reporting

  • 1.  Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago

    Good morning,

     

    I hope all that were in the path of Hurricane Helene are ok.  It was quite the storm here in Sarasota.

     

    My question is regarding donations that have a benefit portion related to it and how you internally count that in reports.  The way our system is set up I manually have to change the receipt amount on split gifts when running reports and this is causing me to take a lot of time to do this and I am in fear of errors. I don't mind doing this once a year when I have to report to VSE or any other survey that we participate in but on a weekly basis it is getting too much.  Do you think it is ok if for internal purposes we can include benefits and maybe put a footer that the numbers include benefits or do I need to manually adjust my reports on a weekly basis?

     

    Thanks

     

    Dina

     

    Dina Sorrentino, bCRE-Pro image001.png@01D496D4.8F606780, bcRE-NXT image001.png@01D496D4.8F606780
    Sr. Director for Advancement Services and Research
    Office: 941-359-7593 | Cell: 941-266-1227
    dsorrent@ringling.edu | www.ringling.edu

    f_jqs6a2pd1
    Turning passion into profession

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  • 2.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    I am not sure why you would want to keep two sets of books. Further, CASE does not want us to include in fundraising totals anything that is not charitable, so why would you do so for one audience and not another? Sure, there are a handful of exceptions (like athletics). But there are no exceptions for other tangible benefits.

    At NC State, all of our reporting was tied to VSE standards. We prepared monthly progress reports based strictly on what is counted for VSE purposes so that there were never any "footnotes" or fine print to explain to the board.

    If you set up your reporting to look ONLY at the charitable component, there isn't any receipt manipulation. It seems to me that you should look at changing the way your systems handle split gifts so all reporting is fully automated and follows CASE standards.

    John

    John H. Taylor, Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier Street
    Durham, NC     27705

    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987






  • 3.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    Good morning, Dina - 

    I don't disagree with anything John has shared. What I'm wondering is if you would share which database tool your school uses. There are lots of colleagues out here and it is likely more than a few use the same tool and might be able to share how they address your concerns from a data entry pov specific to whichever tech tool you folks use. 

    Good luck and best regards - Amy





  • 4.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago

    Hi Amy

     

    We use Raiser's Edge. The issue is really when we have a split gift.  For example Donor A gives $10000 and $1000 is for a membership where the donation portion is $900 and then gives $5000 for an event sponsorship where the donation portion is $4500 and the remaining $4000 is for their paddle raise donation at the event which is 100% donation. We book the gift with a gift amount of $10000 breaking out the split among the different funds and then receipt amount is $9400.  When I have to report on the gift I use fund split amount so I know how much was raised for each fund but the receipt amount for all 3 funds is showing the full $9400. 

     

    Does that make sense?

     






  • 5.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    Hey there, Dina - 

    This kind of outlier is never going to be a simple solve. For starters, though, I recommend breaking it out into 3 separate transactions as a way to most accurately reflect the detail of each purpose. My hope is that you've already figured out the "packages" your organization needs to apply for quid scenarios that can then be applied as appropriate to each of the transactions. Once you apply the package to the transaction then your receipt value should be appropriately reduced. 

    Depending on how the donor has made their payment, it might take some additional coding - as well as negotiating ideas with your Finance colleagues - to determine how to best reconcile that you're recording three transactions in RE which Finance will only see as a singular financial transaction. 

    All for now - Amy





  • 6.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    We are a Raiser's Edge institution as well.  We do record the full amount the donor gives in these situations and split the gift into the various funds.  However, our funds are marked as charitable or non-charitable (in Fund Category) so that all downstream acknowledgements or reports display the correct amount for each of the respective groups.

    Joel
     
      Joel Clasemann (He/Him)
    Director of Advancement Services
    jclasema@css.edu | (218) 723-6479
    css.edu

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  • 7.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    I think you should consider reengineering the recording process and using the QPQ/premium features differently rather than "splitting" gifts. At each site I have had some involvement with during an RE implementation, we did not have the problem you described-but I was not into the weeds. I think they all handled the "split" in the background.

    I'd be curious to hear how other RE sites accommodate these issues.

    John

    John H. Taylor, Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier Street
    Durham, NC     27705

    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987







  • 8.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    Cool - this sounds like a good learning opportunity for me, too. It seems as though I might have been creating more work than needed when faced with similar scenarios where RE was the tool. It is entirely possible that I haven't learned the best strategies, but bottom line I haven't figured out how to easily have multiple 'packages' be applied to a singular transaction with split purposes which then translates to an ability to properly receipt without a great deal of manual intervention. My experience is that there is either extra work on getting the transaction posted or more manual intervention in the receipting process. ��

    Calling all RE experts - maybe you would be willing to take the floor here and explain how to use RE to better address Dina's scenario than I have proposed. I would sincerely appreciate feedback to learn a bit more about what RE can do in a similar situation. 

    With best regards - Amy





  • 9.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago

    If someone designates more than one fund online, it comes into Net Community as a split gift. We add a new gift row for each designation/fund, which works best for our reporting.

     

    The university uses the gift and receipt amount fields in the gift record to reflect the transaction amount and the charitable portion of the gift.

    For example, society membership is $2,500, and the quid pro quo is $350. The gift amount field is 2,500, and the receipt amount field is 2,150.

     

    If the total amount is not a gift, we use a non-charitable campaign (the campaign, fund, and appeal fields are required).

     

    Best regards,

     

    Tracy

     






  • 10.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    A recent poll on the Facebook RE Support group found that a large majority of users don't use split gifts because of reporting issues.  Getting clean numbers is much easier when a "split gift" is just entered as multiple gifts. 

    Dave Woodley 
    Chief Data Officer
    Unlock * Share * Connect
    Office of Data Services
    University of Alaska Foundation
    907-786-1373
    make a gift! engage.alaska.edu
    Join us for Alaska: universityforalaska.com








  • 11.  RE: Internal Reporting

    Posted 9 days ago
    My thanks to both Tracy and David for your feedback. I don't believe there is any right or wrong answer here - just whatever we can make work within the construct offered by our database tool.  

    So far, and if any of you RE experts offer a different perspective then please share those details, it still seems that adding split gifts where a transaction has multiple purposes where one or more have a related quid is a common practice. It would be great if there were an option in RE to have a split purpose gift that allowed two (or more) quids to be applied but that doesn't seem to be the case right now. Still, there are always work-arounds and we make work what we can...

     Cheers - Amy