“Keep everything in one place.” This is a piece of wisdom one of our team members received recently. He had work ideas written down in a journal, some thoughts developed in a word processing document, and others were jotted down in Evernote. Do you see the problem? Ideas fell through the cracks and there was no way to easily keep track of all the information. So, while the advice is quite simple, it is also very important, especially when we have more data to keep track of than ever and more tools to use to keep track of it!
The same applies for donation methods. There are lots of ways for your donors to donate to your organization and there are lots of ways to track those donations. At GivingFire, we want to help you to “keep everything in one place.” Our goal is to make life easier for your administrators who are working with donor records and to simplify your donor’s ability to access and review their donation history.
To this end, we offer the “Offline Batch” entry feature. Rather than track your donor’s online donations in one place and their offline donations (i.e. physical donation methods like cash or check) in another, GivingFire allows you to track both of these in one place. This becomes increasingly helpful when producing year-end tax statements. All the data is in one place and can be generated in one report at the click of a button! In reducing the complexity around reporting, our goal is to save your administrators time and help to improve communication with your donors.
Creating an Offline Batch
GivingFire’s offline donation tracking allows your organization to track cash and check donations made in-person, enter them into the system, integrate them into your donor database, and track batch deposits in the bank. Batches are bundles of checks & cash that you deposit into your bank at the same time. For example, you might create a single batch for a non-profit fundraising event, a single service on Sunday, or even an entire Sunday's worth of donations. This article will show you how to create an offline batch in GivingFire.
1) Go to the Offline Batch Entry
Click Donations > New Offline Batch from your admin dashboard.
2) Enter in your Offline Donations
Enter in your offline donations using the form with five columns. When you first load the screen, the form only has enough one line for one donation entry, but you can add more by clicking the + symbol to the left of the first line. This form is built for quick data entry, and multiple lines can be entered by pressing Tab after each entry. Pressing Tab at the end of the Amount field will automatically add a new line. You can also add a Fund Split, in case a donor writes one check but wants money from that check to go to multiple funds. To add an additional Fund Split, press the + symbol by the fund, or press Enter at the end of the Amount field.
Here’s an explanation of the data you’ll need to enter:
- Type: This is the type of donation. Options are cash, check, stock, or other/in-kind.
- Ref. #: Optional. This is usually the check number, although some organizations may want to use another ID.
- Donor Name: Start entering the donor’s name, and donors already in the system will appear below for you to select. If a donor is not explicitly selected, a new donor record will be created.
- Fund: Which fund to place the donation into.
- Amount: Amount of the transaction. The “$” is not needed.
3) Enter batch name and deposit time
Under “Batch Information,” enter a descriptive name for this batch that will help you identify it later - “2/2/2019 5PM Service”, etc. Finally, set a deposit time for this batch when you expect to deposit it in the bank. This can be backdated. If you don’t set a deposit time, you can go in later and mark it as deposited, which will change the batch status from “pending” to “deposited”.
After you're done, click "Submit Batch" to enter the batch into the system, and you're all set! If you created new donors, you may want to go into the Donor List and update their addresses and emails, if available.
Our goal is to serve you by doing what we do best: accepting and tracking donations for your organization. Are you feeling overwhelmed by the work involved with managing all of your donor’s information? Drop us a line and let us know, we would love to talk about how GivingFire can help you better track and manage your donation data so you can have more time to pursue your mission. Email us at hello@givingfire.com.
New to GivingFire?
We're passionate about solid donation management for churches and non-profits, and we're trying to bring honesty and transparency to a murky industry. If you need help figuring out donations, we'd love to talk.
Contact us HERE or take a look at our main site at givingfire.com.