I'm writing to see how all of you manage your gift entry and acknowledgment letter process.
Here at the Kansas City Symphony, it was determined when we converted to Tess in 2006 that I would do a separate batch for each TYPE of gift "bundle" for each date.....so for example, lockbox checks dated 6/15/09 would be a batch, daily checks for 6/15/09 would be a separate batch, credit cards for 6/15/09 would be a batch, lockbox checks dated 6/16/09 would be a DIFFERENT batch (as I am required to use the date on the lockbox/daily check report/etc. as the contribution date AND posting date, which often requires me to back date batches.) I believe this was decided to somehow help finance keep track of things and make it easier to reconcile.
Besides the obvious issue of having so many batches per day, each batch may have various types of acknowledgment letters. This is a huge issue when running the acknowledgment report since it is based on gift date and letter type. I have to spread out ALL the 6/15/09 batches on my desk and determine which letters are in which batches and how many of each there are (to verify that one was not inadvertently missed). We merge our letters into Word, FYI.
What I think I recall hearing from other Tessitura people is that they will have one batch per day....they open a batch in the morning and anything that comes in THAT DAY will go in it.....credit cards, pledges, lockbox checks, daily checks....everything, and that the contribution date for those gifts will be the current day and the posting date will also be the current day.
Can you all share your process for gift entry/acknowledgment letters? Or any suggestions we might use to make our process more stream-lined? Our process has become unmanageable since I am the only person responsible for this, and our process is no longer efficient and effective, especially with the continually growing number of donors.
Thank you!
Marcy Osburn, Donor Information Specialist, Kansas City Symphony
How wonderful that you have a growing community of donors! It’s the silver lining in your understandable concern about processing.
We handle our processing here in much the same way. I do a separate batch for each lockbox deposit and post it to the lockbox deposit date. I do this primarily to help my friend in Finance, because it is much, much easier to balance the checking account each month when the Tessy batch amounts match the deposits that appear on the bank statement.
However, I do combine daily checks and the credit cards I process into one batch because we have set up separate payment types to distinguish checks from credit cards and the download therefore includes these amounts as entries to different accounts on the same day.
But it’s not clear why you find the ack letter process so cumbersome. I do basically what you do by separating the gifts by type and running each letter type separately – all artist memberships, all regular memberships, etc. I like this because I can quickly match each group of ack letters against the gifts to make sure I don’t miss someone. Are you running some special report that combines all the ack data for all types of letters in one report? I only run one ack letter at a time and find that is the best way to double check my work
_______________
Julie P. Hamre
Development Associate
Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc.
5301 Tuckerman Lane
North Bethesda, MD 20852-3385
301.581.5136; fax 301.581.5201
www.strathmore.org
Become a Strathmore Member!
Support what you love. Members enjoy advance
ticket purchase, discounts in the Shops at
Strathmore and Tea Room and access to special events.
Join now at http://www.strathmore.org/support/membership.asp
or call (301) 581-5135
-----Original Message----- From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Marcy Osburn Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 2:11 PM To: Julie Hamre Subject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Gift entry/thank-you process....help? I'm writing to see how all of you manage your gift entry and acknowledgment letter process. Here at the Kansas City Symphony, it was determined when we converted to Tess in 2006 that I would do a separate batch for each TYPE of gift "bundle" for each date.....so for example, lockbox checks dated 6/15/09 would be a batch, daily checks for 6/15/09 would be a separate batch, credit cards for 6/15/09 would be a batch, lockbox checks dated 6/16/09 would be a DIFFERENT batch (as I am required to use the date on the lockbox/daily check report/etc. as the contribution date AND posting date, which often requires me to back date batches.) I believe this was decided to somehow help finance keep track of things and make it easier to reconcile. Besides the obvious issue of having so many batches per day, each batch may have various types of acknowledgment letters. This is a huge issue when running the acknowledgment report since it is based on gift date and letter type. I have to spread out ALL the 6/15/09 batches on my desk and determine which letters are in which batches and how many of each there are (to verify that one was not inadvertently missed). We merge our letters into Word, FYI. What I think I recall hearing from other Tessitura people is that they will have one batch per day....they open a batch in the morning and anything that comes in THAT DAY will go in it.....credit cards, pledges, lockbox checks, daily checks....everything, and that the contribution date for those gifts will be the current day and the posting date will also be the current day. Can you all share your process for gift entry/acknowledgment letters? Or any suggestions we might use to make our process more stream-lined? Our process has become unmanageable since I am the only person responsible for this, and our process is no longer efficient and effective, especially with the continually growing number of donors. Thank you! Marcy Osburn, Donor Information Specialist, Kansas City Symphony 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!
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!