One of our satellite sites just held an event where all attendees had to purchase a ticket. We are keeping track of the ticket purchases made in RE, but we just realized that we cannot record those amounts as Cash. I am thinking of entering those amounts as OTHER with an attribute of Tickets so that I can enter how many tickets were purchased by that donor. I am wondering if any of you have any experience with recording tickets sales in RE without using the Events module. Any input would be appreciated!!
Thanks so much

Becki Allen

LYDIA Home Association

I believe there are a few posts out there on this if you do a search. I guess I am unsure as to why you would not record these as CASH gifts? Were these events unrelated business income events that you have to pay taxes on? If that is the case, you shouldn't enter them in RE at all.

If these events are part of your business, you should enter them as a normal gift and make sure you follow IRS regulations on listing any benefits received. You can use the benefits section of gift entry in addition to receipt amount without having the events module for this. Here's an example as to what prints on our receipts for ticket purchase type things:

Thank you for your reply Laurel- I did look for a search feature before I posted, but I didn't see anything. I'm sorry if I'm being redundant!

 We are capturing this information to keep track of how many tickets were purchased & by whom, and anyone who purchased 10 tickets paid for a table, so they are Table Sponsors as well. We would like to keep track of this information so that we can contact those people next year. We don't want to enter them as CASH b/c they aren't actually donations, they did recieve the ticket & dinner for the money that they gave us, so technically it's not tax-deductible for our donor.

 Thank you for alerting me to the benfits portion of a gift! I am unfamiliar with it & love learning something new about RE

The tickets may not be completely tax deductible for your donor but it IS revenue for your organization that occured as part of your job as a fundraiser correct? We absolutely count ticket sales to our events as revenue raised. We actually charge more than the FMV (Fair Market Value) in order to make part of a ticket purchase a donation and therefore that portion may be tax deductible for a donor. It is our intent to do this and to raise money using cultivation events. When you're calculating dollars raised vs spent - I bet they want that revenue in there.

Sometimes we get caught up in what the donor can or can't do as opposed to what we as an organization legallly have to do.They are 2 separate things when it comes to the IRS. We should never be in the position of telling a donor what is or isn't tax deductible - and you should make sure any language on anything you publish follows that rule. (What I mean is that nothing you publish should say 'your tax-deductible contribution' it should always advise them that their contribution may be tax deductible and to consult their tax advisor.

Hope this helps.

Oh - and I would put the Table sponsor information on the Notes area of Benefits and check the include notes on receipt so it prints on the receipt. You can also pull or display this information in a query that way.

Laurel,

Thank you again for your replies. What you've said makes a lot of sense & I have looked into the benefits tab on the Gifts record & I think you're right, that seems like the best area to keep that information. I have contacted the director of our satellite site to see what they value the ticket at vs. the actual amount paid to see if there are any donations there.

 Would you also use the benefits tab for the cost of a dinner that is free?? Our main location holds a Benefit Gala every year and we value the dinners at about $30 and we do make mention on the receipt for this event that the cost of their dinner is not tax-deductible, but that any of their donation over and above that amount (our actual wording: Your gift is tax deductible to the extent provided by law, excluding the cost of the dinner.) And now I am wondering if we should use the Benefits tab for that as well. Any thoughts or advice regarding our Gala?

We do Gala's annually as well. You need to make sure you are putting the dollar value (good faith estimate of FMV) of the benefits received and a description of those benefits on every receipt. I would suggest any activity you are involved on that takes money for a goods and service be receipted this way regardless of wheter it meets the dollar threshold (unless you don't give any receipts under $75 for goods & services and under $250 single gift as standard practice - we receipt every gift and because we do that we make sure all goods and services are recorded as benefits properly).

 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1771.pdf may help explain a bit better. I can give you excat examples if you need some of prices and benefit values and how they print, etc. for our Gala.

Laurel, I can't find Benefit information in the batch, how do I quickly enter this info? Do you enter all the gifts & then go back & enter Benefit information?

 Thanks! I would appreciate any info you have regarding your Gala. I'm glad we have time to implement these changes before ours in Nov!

I don't see the benefits tab on the gift record.  Do you have to have a psecial module to have a benefits tab?  We're on 7.91.

Chris

I never use batch for gifts that have goods and services on them - I only use batch for recurring gifts and massive direct mail responses where everything is exactly the same.

The benefits button is to the right of the Letter button on the right hand side of the Gift tab.

Hi Becki,

In addition to what Laurel has stated.  I would like to add that we set up an Appeal (for instance:  2009 Gala) Then set up packages(Table Sponsor, Gold Sponsor, Silver Sponsor, etc.) under that specific appeal.  Each "package" allows you to set the default benefits.  Using Load From.  The notes section on this tab can be added directly to your receipt, make sure the checkmark is placed on the "include notes on receipt.   We use two different types of receipts.  One is for donations and the other is called quid pro quo "qpq". 

When entering gifts/tickets, etc. into a batch - we have included the fields of appeal, package and in the reference field we note how many tickets or how many anglers, etc..  We have setup a query in RE to look for gifts with these specific appeals, packages, etc. (qpq).  This query is then run.  This allows us to click on each constituent record and go directly into the gift, and load the benefits. 

We have two receipt templates in RE.  If we know we have received gifts with a qpq then thru the Mail feature we run the qpq receipt.  After running the qpq receipts,we then run the "daily" receipts.   The "templates" we have setup in RE were used using the "custom" feature in RE. 

I would be happy to discuss this further with you via phone 727-816-3410.  Typing this out makes it seem confusing and intense.  But actually once you get it all set up it is user friendly.

Shelley

We have two receipt templates in RE.  If we know we have received gifts with a qpq then thru the Mail feature we run the qpq receipt.  After running the qpq receipts,we then run the "daily" receipts.   The "templates" we have setup in RE were used using the "custom" feature in RE. 

I have a  separate Campaign for all of our qpq items so that daily receipts can be run without being affected by qpq's

 I've been researching how we can set up our CFAs without the Events module and have read your posts here. Most of our revenue is from admissions, so we have few actual campaigns. We do, however, have several events throughout the year and I'd like to configure the events and their relative activity using campaigns, funds and appeals.

 Has anyone out here in Forum Land done this? I'd certainly appreciat your guidance if you have!