When we converted to Tessitura, our conversion consultants instructed us to build a set of payment methods for Development and another set for Ticketing. So far we have yet to see what the advantage is to doing it this way. Are there organizations that have ticketing and donations paid with the same payment methods? Did you experience any issues with reporting or finance reconciliation?
We use separate payment methods, but the reason this is necessary is that we have the funds from these departments going into different bank accounts. We also have separate credit card processing accounts for each, so even if we had them all going to the same accounts, having separate payment types would help to reconcile the deposits from the credit cards at the end of the month. We find this is a HUGE timesaver when there are credit card issues and we have to go and research why our deposits are different than what is recorded in Tessitura. It's much easier to narrow it down to find the issue than it would be if we had to go through both development and ticketing transactions.
Hey Jesse,
I've worked at many different Tessitura clients. Some have multiple payment methods some don't. I would suggest going with the two separate payment methods for each department for your first Live fiscal year. After that, you can reassess if this is needed and simply change the label of one of the payment methods so that it's all encompassing and then make the other set inactive. As Danette says, the primary reason many organizations use two sets is either because they have money going to different bank accounts or it's a Finance request to make reconciliation easier.
We implemented with 3 sets of payment methods actually: Ticketing, Development, and Web. Our Web and Ticketing transactions go to the same bank account but it was a request by Finance during implementation that we have these three.
- Chris