Proposed Tax Receipt workflow

Hi everyone! I think we have a final workflow outlined for tax receipts, but I wanted to run it past you all one more time for your feedback. Please keep in mind that none of this is set in stone (or code), and therefore subject to change.

1. A gift is processed by a staff member, or entered online by a customer.
2. When the gift is saved, a thank you note can be queued up to be emailed immediately, or mailed whenever you choose, that includes configurable text to thank the donor for their gift.
   1. The thank you note can be as detailed or as generic as you choose - for example
      1. Thank you for your gift of $100 to our 2022 Annual Fund. Your support at the Bronze level helps us do lots of great things. Your tax receipt will be emailed/mailed to you in January, but if you would like to receive it earlier, please contact us.
      2. Thank you for your gift! Tax receipts will be sent out in January.
3. If the donor reaches out and wants their tax receipt before January, that can be emailed/mailed at any time by a staff member.
   1. They would receive a cover letter and a PDF tax receipt. The layout and content of both are configurable by you.
4. If the donor does not reach out, then their cover letter/tax receipt will be generated in the big annual pull, and emailed/mailed.
   1. This annual tax receipt would include a summary of qualifying gifts, based on parameters you set - for example
      1. All receipt-eligible gifts received in the calendar year, that have not already been receipted, would be listed on a single tax receipt under a single tax receipt #.
      2. Receipt eligible gifts could be filtered and grouped, based on the parameters you set, to do something like - one time gifts, donated tickets and round-up donations grouped together on one receipt, under one tax receipt #, and recurring gifts/pledge payments grouped on another receipt, under one tax receipt #.

So...our recommended process is to real-time recognize or acknowledge any gift or pledge payment, but delay the creation of most tax receipts, and issue those in January for the prior calendar year. You could still issue tax receipts at any time for individual constituents, or for all donors to something specific - a gala for example. If you really wanted to issue receipts on a more regular basis (monthly, quarterly) you could do that as well.

The thank you note that is queued up at the time the gift is made would use Tessitura's native HTML template and Acknowledgements functionality, for those of you who are familiar with that. In v16, we have enabled real-time email capability for these, so you can real-time email, for those constituents who have/want emails, or the thank you notes can be printed and mailed on whatever schedule you choose. Acknowledgement Rule functionality would allow you to set-up rules to trigger a variety of thank you note formats based on the transaction that's being processed.

Tax Receipts would also be formatted using HTML templates, and creation/generation would happen through a new interface where you could limit to a list of constituents, or maybe only 1 constituent, and set additional parameters to curate a list of gifts/pledge payments that you want to group together under a single tax receipt number.

We are also planning to add new pages to the constituent record where you can see all the thank you notes (acknowledgements) and tax receipts that have been created. From there, we also anticipate that you could review the document, make minor edits (change the name, the document format, or the delivery email or address), and also re-send an acknowledgement or tax receipt if needed.

Does that sound like it gives you the flexibility you need?

Thanks again for your time and assistance with this project!

Meaghan