Hi All,
Happy Monday!
I’m about to carry out a review of our Gift Aid processes, including how we store members’ declarations. When we first implemented Tessitura we were recommended not upload our declarations on the system and to save them on a special secure drive. However, this is no longer fit purpose as it is really difficult to manage as well as impossible to check for those people who do not have access to it.
I was wondering what the recommended best practice is and whether it is possible to upload these documents without affecting the running of the system. Any insight/ suggestions would be much appreciated.
All the best,
Anna
Hi, Anna Maria - happy Monday to you too!
In previous organisations, I’ve always held digital copies of physical documents stored on Tessitura using the documents section on the consitituent record, and that’s never been too much of an issue. We even had an HMRC audit during my time there and they didn’t bat an eyelid at it… Mostly this is beomcing a non-issue as declarations made online are also acceptable, but I’d still use that documents screen as the place to store anything relevant like that.
I wonder if Karen McCarthy might have any wisdom or insight here? This is an area of expertise for her, I’m sure!
C.//
X.
Hello
We do have the physical scans of the paper declarations stored on a seperate secure drive. On Tessitura we just have the declaration line in the transaction tab with the details and contact method written to show that there is a stored document existing. We find that the information in Tessitura is sufficient for most users and only those staff involved in the auditing and claiming process need access to the drive with the stored documents.
The only issue this system causes us that we haven't found a resolution to yet is data retention and how to identify where we no longer need to store the documents when sufficient time has passed after they have died or cancencelled the declaration and it has been more than seven years since our last claim.
Hope that helps!
Karen