Does anyone share this problem with us?  At the end of each fiscal year we write off approximately 800 pledges from our phonathons.  When we do giving reports these written-off pledges show up.  I can't seem to be able to easily get these pledges off the reports.  And I have tried for DAYS...... I did finally come up with an output query based on a Written-off Report, and then subtract those gifts from an 'all gifts' query.  That's fine, but then......

There is the problem of those who make partial payment on their pledge before the pledge is written off.  If I exclude the pledges from above, these partially paid pledges are taken out.  And I need to recognize those donors for what ends up being their pledge payment amount.

What I would like to do is to tag those pledges written off with a gift attribute so we can exclude them from giving reports.  I think that will work, however, I can't seem to exclude those pledges with partial payments.  I noticed from the Knowledgebase that this type of problem is in the 'thnking about it' stage within Blackbaud and I added my name to the list.  But for now, can anyone out there help me? 

Kathy,

Yes, we have had this problem  

This is how I worked around it:

For my annual giving reports, I set up constituent query using criteria in "Summary Information" >> "Summary for Gift" >> "Total Amount of Gifts".  Seems to pull what I need - constitutents with part of pledge written off listed at $ level that they had paid.  I set a criteria for gift amount greater than $0.00.  I actually created several queries - with criteria defining total amount of gifts in ranges for each of the different giving levels we recognize. 

Hope that helps.

This does help, thanks!

Kathy ...

Are you using the Gift Detail and Summary reports?  You should be able to select the Gift Types you want to include ... I just make sure all pledge write-offs are excluded when I run my giving reports ... that works for me. 

The probem is not that it includes the write off.  The problem is that if you want to include pledges it includes pledges even if the donor never paid a cent and it was written off.  I am not sure the previous suggestion solves the problem as it seems to suggest not including pledge amounts only payments.  If you WANT to include full pledge amounts this is still a problem.

For this reason, we do not use the recommended RE write off option. Instead, our write off procedures are to amend the original Pledge Amount to zero & indicate in the Reference field what was written off. That way our totals are correct!

Like Tracie, we do not use write-off.  I adjust the pledge instead.  This allow us to retain the history (original pledged amount, date of decision to let go, etc) without creating reporting issue.

Do either of you who adjust rather than write off use Financial Edge or electronically feed to Finance?  How does your finance office feel about not using write offs?

We interface with Financial Edge for everything but for pledges.  Mainly for this very reason.  Finances did not want to have anything to do with something that unstable. Projected cash flow reports for pledges are done through RE.

Melissa - No, we do not use FE or an automated feed. We provide an excel report to Finance containing the "write offs" for the month. No problems, that I'm aware of!