I have worked at two organizations where, due to the large amount of soft crediting involved, the Microsoft Matching Gift checks were the bane of my existence (or whoever happened to be entering them into the database.) Tessitura makes it particularly stressful, because if you accidentally assign the wrong fund on a credited transaction involving membership, you cannot undo it without wiping out all the other contributions for that creditor.
I initially wrote off the Contribution Import Utility (CIU) as an option, since it cannot handle pledge payments, but now that I am thinking about it, all the payroll donations on these checks and their accompanying matches are new contributions (as opposed to the non-payroll matches that we confirm on the Microsoft admin site.) So I'm thinking it may be possible to at least import the payroll donations with their matches, thus saving a lot of time and potential for error.
My apprehension and uncertainty is with the soft credit piece. I see that creditee is part of the import set, but I'd like to confirm if other organizations are doing this and if there are any pitfalls to be wary of. Also, if you have other tips for entering these kind of contributions in an efficient manner, I'd appreciate them.
Thanks,
Michael Lee Moore
Financial Services Coordinator | Seattle Opera
1020 John Street | Seattle, WA 98109
(p) 206.676.5578 | (f) 206. 389.7651
www.seattleopera.org
Hi Michael,
We have used the contribution import utility often, and have recently implemented using it for importing telefunding pledges. We have on occasion in the past used the import for matching gifts and it worked well. However, with V12, which we installed in June, there is something that was not updating the memberships associated with the matching gift. Our support team contacted the network and got a work around, but that would be the one thing you should check on, if you use memberships. And also in the beginning, TEST, TEST, TEST to make sure the data looks the way you expect it to. It took us some time to set up and figure out how to get a smooth process in place, but now with our telefunding, in 5-10 minutes we can set up an import file and have all the pledges entered with a small push of button. It’s a great time saver!
Hope that helps.
T.C. Brown
Database Administrator
412.392.4834
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Michael Moore Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 6:53 PM To: TC Brown Subject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Microsoft Matching Gift checks-Contribution Upload Utility
This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Development Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Development forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!
Thanks T.C.!
Yeah, we are in the process of ironing out some issues with matching gifts causing batches to fail when closing, which appear to implicate membership. (That seemed to start with v.12, so I wonder if it's related to the issue you were having.) That said, I will explore using the Cont. Import Utility once the batch failure is resolved.
I'm assuming you are using an external telefunding contractor, correct? We have an internal telefunding department, so I'm not sure how beneficial it would be for them, but I can inquire. We've mostly only used the utility during our subrenewal season, where we know there will be a high volume of contributions with the same fund, source, etc. It's very helpful to know that you have used it with matching gifts successfully in the past though, so thank you!