Writing off old pledges

Yes the pledge should be written off.  Since it hasn’t been written off in your database and you state is old,  I would check with your Finance Dept before going forward.  They may have removed from their books already if it’s quite old.   

Auditors usually require procedures for writing off pledges in a timely fashion.  This might be a good opportunity to discuss write- off policy with your Finance dept.      

Hello Tess Community,

I am wondering what you all think about writing off old pledges that you KNOW will never come in. For example, we have some pledges entered 5+ years ago where people might still owe $5 on a $10,000 pledge. We are not going to nickel and dime them for this, we are considering the pledge fulfilled.

Is there a reason to do this? Not to do this? It seems to me that it would be good to write the pledge off for the cleanliness of our database, but I am curious to hear what others think.

Thank you for the feedback!

Sara Fellman

Studio Theatre, Washington DC 

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Mathew is correct about no adjustments – on the rare occasion this causes a problem by the person actually paying .   The Write-off/Cancel report has a review functions so that helps a lot in keeping down errors.

Yet this year I had it happen a few times and one was a 25K check.   Great getting the money but really wanted to be able have in the system.  So I created a unique fund code “Write Off Reverse”    it is part of my Misc Appeal Campaign.   With it I set a pledge in the amount received restore the amount to the proper receivable and crediting the Bad Debt GL.   Then I pay off the this pledge and produce the proper receipt within Tessitura.   In the past, this all would have been done manually outside of Tessitura – in Tessitura is better.

Hi Sara,

Yes to everything Leslie said. One little warning: after you write off a pledge in Tessitura, you can't make any further adjustments to it, including any part of the pledge that wasn't written off. (I recently learned this the hard way.) So be absolutely certain that's what you want before you do it. :)

We review all of our outstanding pledges around fiscal year-end and write off the ones we feel reasonably certain we won't ever receive.