Donations: Add Gift

Donations: Add Gift

1. This tutorial will cover the way to add a gift/donation to a contact’s record.
2. Gifts are monetary contributions made by contacts to support either your organization as a whole, or else a specific aspect of its operations. If you want to record a donation of goods or services (an In-Kind donation), please refer to our tutorial on Adding In-Kind Gifts.
3. There are two ways to enter a gift: 1) from the quick add menu (add Gift), from the Gifts Index screen (add gift), and from the contact record (Quick Actions) Add Gift or 2) From invoices area: create invoice. The two differences between these methods is that when using Create Invoice there is an additional step to select the Invoice Date (when using Add Gift, the invoice date is automatically entered as the date you are adding the donation/the data entry date) and also recording payment is a separate/second step that is done after the donation is recorded.

Adding Donations via Add Gift:

4. The fastest and easiest way to enter a gift is through "Add Gift." To do this, select Add New on the Main Menu to open the Quick Add Menu and then select Add Gift OR go to the donor's record, click on the Quick Action tab and click Add Gift under Fundraising OR click on Fundraising on the Main Menu to open the fundraising sub-menu and then select Gifts and at the bottom of the Gifts Index Screen, select Add Gift. All three methods will take you to the same place/screen. There is no difference in which flow/method you use.

   

   

   

   

5. All of these options will take you to the Add Gifts screen.

   

6. Start by entering the donor name in the Contact Name field (if the person is not already in your system, you can add them "on the fly" by typing the name and hitting enter. The system will bring up a pop up box asking if you want to create and individual or organization contact record and then will bring up the quick add contact box. Enter whatever information you know about the contact and then click save to return to your in progress donation entry).

   

   

7. Gift Date, Fund, and Source are required fields (Source will pre-populate with "Mail" to help save you time). Program, Campaign, and Event are optional fields.

   

8. Please Note: the Chart of Account and/or Account Class are assigned to the donation based on the chart of account and/or account class assigned to the Fund, Program, Campaign or Default Setting (in that order/according to that hierarchy). Chart of Accounts and Account Class are not configurable/manual input fields on the add gifts screen. You can manually adjust the chart of account or account class assigned to a donation on the Financials screen if needed. See our tutorial on configuring Chart of Accounts and on the Financials screen for more information.
9. Please Also Note: The donation acknowledgement template that will be assigned to your donation will be based on the donation acknowledgement template (if any) assigned to the Program, Campaign, Fund, and Default Settings (in that order/according to that hierarchy). Please see our tutorial on configuring acknowledgement settings for more information.
10. In the Solicited By field, select the name of a contact (perhaps a staff member, board member, or fundraising committee member) who asked the donor for the donation. If the "solicited by" contact is not already in your system, you can add them "on the fly" by typing the name and hitting enter.

    

11. Select the donation amount from the list of available amounts (this list populates from the Ask Array connected to the Fund. For more information on configuring funds, programs, campaigns, and ask arrays, see those tutorials in the fundraising section of our support library).

    

12. The Tax Deductible Amount field will be pre-filled and auto calculated after selecting the Gift Amount.

    

13. The "This is an anonymous donation" check box allows you to indicate that the donor does not want to be acknowledged/the donor doesn't want any recognition for their donation.

    

14. The "I would like to make this donation on a recurring basis" checkbox allows you to set up an automatically charging recurring donation

    

15. Checking the box will expand the section so that you can indicate whether the donation is to be monthly, quarterly or yearly, and the number of total installments that will be paid.

    

    

16. Only the Credit Card option is available as a payment mode for recurring donations; for any other mode of recurring payment, use Pledges.
17. The Tribute section allows you to indicate someone whom the donor has asked that their donation be made On Behalf Of, In Memory Of, or In Honor Of.

    

18. Select which type of tribute gift this is, if any (if this is not a tribute gift, select none and skip to step #24). If the contact exists within your system (or you wish to add the contact to your system as a contact record), use the Contact Name field to select them. Begin by typing the name into the field and then select from the matching names.

    

19. If the contact does not exist in your system and you do not wish to add them as a contact record, simply type the tributee's into the Name field.

    

20. If you wish to send a Tribute Card for the donation (a card that will go to the person being honored or a related person, such as the surviving spouse or parents to notify them that a commemorative donation was made), indicate this with the “Send Tribute Card” check-box, which will further expand the section.

    

21. When sending a tribute card, start by selecting the Template you wish to use for the card, or create a new one.

    

    

22. Next, either choose an existing contact as the recipient by typing the name and selecting from matching contacts in the Select Recipient field, or, if the tribute card recipient isn't in your database as a contact and you don't want to add them to your database as a contact, type the name in the Recipient First Name and Recipient Last Name fields and their email address in the Recipient Email field.

    

23. Lastly, enter a personal message to the tribute card recipient.

    

24. In the Acknowledgement field at the top of the screen, select whether you wish to send the Donation Acknowledgment Letter to the donor(s) Later, Now, or never (Skip). Even if you skip the donation acknowledgement letter now, you will be able to generate it later by selecting it in the generate acknowledgement area and using the "Change Template" function to assign a letter template. See our tutorial on working with donation acknowledgement letters for more information.

    

25. Enter the payment details: Mode of Payment, Date of Payment, Reference Number. The Amount field will pre-populate based on the amount chosen in the Ask Array in step #11.

    

26. In the Assign Soft Credit field, you may select any other contacts (both individuals and organizations) who should receive soft credit for this donation.

    

27. A Soft Credit donor is a contact whom you wish to acknowledge along with the primary donor as a contributor to your organization, but whom cannot receive tax credit for the gift or who is not the primary donor. This could be a spouse or partner, or, in the case of an organizational donation, the person at the organization who approved the donation.
28. Select the name of the soft credit donor you wish to add and click the (+) button to add them (if you select a household member, check the box next to their name in the drop down and click the plus button to add them, checking the box is not enough. More than one soft credit donor can be added.

    

29. If you wish to record a note along with the donation, do so in the Gift Memo field on the right.

    

30. If you have a file you wish to attach to the donation - such as an image of the check or a copy of the letter that accompanied the donation, you may do so using the File Upload area.

    

31. The Gift Additional Information section is a Custom Data Set area. You can create your own fields to capture additional data that there is no other place for here. Add the fields by going to Main Menu: Custom Data Sets and editing the Gifts Additional Information custom data set. Examples of fields you might create are "fiscal agent" (for tracking fiscal agent/entity that wrote a donation check for a third party but which is not the donor or someone who should receive an acknowledgement (such as Network for Good or United Way Employee Giving Program)), fields for employer matching gifts, and/or a field for "solicitation method" if you want to track responses to a particular appeal (such as a Facebook ad or your fall newsletter, etc.). The fields you see below are ones that we created in our demo system and do not exist in your system.

    

32. Finally, click Save and Close to save and navigate away from Add Gift. Select Save and Add New to add another donation via Add Gift (if you have selected to send Acknowledgements Now you'll first be taken to the donation acknowledgment letter to send it and then as soon as you finish sending the letter, you'll be brought back to a new/blank Add Gift screen). Or select Save to save the donation and stay on this screen.

    

33. If you entered mode of payment as Credit Card and the card issuer requires "Strong Customer Authentication" (referred to as SCA or PSD2 authentication), a box will pop up asking you to initiate the authentication process. SCA is a new requirement for credit cards issued by European banks or for credit card transactions taking place on European websites for the card holder to authenticate an online purchase by indicating they are the ones who has initiated/authorized the transaction (see this explanation of SCA from Stripe for more information).

    

    • Click the authenticate button and then you will have to wait until the card holder completes the validation process on their end. Once they do (and authentication is completed successfully), the transaction will finish saving automatically.
    • If the card holder fails to authenticate the transaction within the specified time frame or denies the transaction, an authentication failed message will appear on the screen.

      

Adding a Donation via Create Invoice:

34. If you opt to add a donation by using the Create Invoice function (from the Financials > Create Invoice area OR from Main Menu > Add New > Create Invoice), you will taken to the Create Invoice screen.

    

    

35. Select the contact's name in the Create Invoice For Field, enter the Invoice (transaction) Date, and Currency For Process Invoice Payment (If Multi currency processing is enabled). Click Create.

    

    

36. On the Gifts tab, select the Fund the donation should be recorded against.

    

37. From here, the steps for entering the donation are the same as for Add Gift except for entering the payment information. That will appear on the next screen/step.

    

38. When you have finished entering all data, click Save.

    

39. The Receive Payment button will activate/become available in the lower right hand corner. Click it to record payment. Enter the Payment Mode, Payment Date, and Reference Number (if applicable), and then click Receive Payment to save or Receive Payment and Send Receipt to save and also send a receipt to do the donor via email.

    

40. If you "Receive Payment" and enter payment via Credit Card and if that credit card requires Strong Customer Authentication then you will need to complete the authentication steps (see step #32 above)

Split Gifts

41. In cases when a single donation is to be spread across several funds, programs, campaigns, and/or events, the user can create a split gift. The split gift function is available for gifts entered via both Add Gift and Create Invoice. Just Split Gift Slider.

    

    

42. This will modify the layout of the gift screen, and create a new section at the top called Split Gift. The Gift Amount and Miscellaneous Details sections will be removed.

    

    

43. In the new section you may specify the fund(s), program(s), campaign(s), and/or event(s) to which a specific amount of the donation is to be allocated. For example, a donor may make one $100 donation and wish 50% of that to be allocated to your youth program and 50% to your adult program. Or internally, you may wish to allocated part of it to your General Fund and part of it to a different fund (such as a Credit Card Fee fund to track credit card fees paid on donations as a separate line item).

    

44. To add another allocation, click on the (+) button on the bottom right of this section.

    

45. To delete an allocation entry, click on the Delete button to the right of that entry.