Dear all
We would like to process a donation through the ticketing module at the same time as processing a ticket order so that there is just one credit card transaction. I know that it is possible to do this through the contributions tab of the ticket module - although I think some organisations might simply put the donation on account and then the development department pick that up and allocate it to the donation campaign.
Is anyone else doing this? Any advice on options and set up would be welcomed.
Many thanks
Rachel Henderson
Glyndebourne Membership - UK
Ticket purchases and donations are generally quite separate here - both from the patron's perspective and on our side in terms of control groups and processing. The exception is subscription add-on gifts (donations made with season ticket renewals). These were processed using the contributions tab of the ticket module for the first time this year (we're still quite new to Tessitura). For the most part it worked very smoothly. A few things to be aware of:
A gift made in this way will go on the system as a new gift, regardless of whether the patron has an open pledge. We had a few cases in which the patron intended it as a pledge payment, and we didn't immediately realize that a duplicate gift had been created. The other issue we had was in cases where the default campaign was not the correct one for the patron - our default was the Community campaign, but a few of the gifts needed to be removed and reentered to a different campaign. (We have a separate campaign for Board gifts, for example.) Depending on your business practices this might not be an issue for you. Also note that corrections need to be made in a ticketing batch since that is how the gift was processed.
Another key thing we realized is that any notes related to the contribution (a corporate match expected, a special acknowledgment requirement, etc.) should be entered in the notes field of the contributions tab so that it ultimately shows up in the contribution detail for the gift. An order note might not be seen by development staff.
So - if your structure is pretty straightforward, I think this will work well and save you time. If you're likely to have a lot of exceptions and special cases, I would go with the on account method to get it right the first time.