Seeking recommendations on how to handle related records when it comes to proposals.  Our biggest donors have multiple records--home, family-owned business (or two or three), family trust. They're linked, of course, but the gift officers seem to forget to look in each record for a possible proposal.  They'll open the home record, for instance, and if there isn't a proposal, will enter one--although a proposal for that exact campaign may already exist in the family trust record or business record.  Then they'll enter loads of actions linked to their new proposal, and want me to consolidate after they've discovered their mistake.  I can't merge solely select actions/proposals--that's an all or nothing, right? 

Do any other organizations have this problem?

Yes - you cannot merge selected actions. 

It sounds like you need to develop a standard procedure for where proposal information is recorded.  Where I used to work whenever we were approaching a trust or foundation, for example Francis Finlay Foundation, all proposals, gifts actions were added to the foundation unless we were approaching Francis Finlay individually.  If you implement a similar rule or if you specify which record for your top donors should always contain proposal and gift information, this will help to avoid confusion for your staff when entering data.

Thank you for your response, Charlotte! The confusion on our end has been when the initial approach has been to one entity, but the payment has come from another--something that I felt Blackbaud had taken care of with the ability to link a gift in one record to a proposal in another. I think I need to do a better job of showing our gift officers how that part of it works.  I really appreciate your taking the time--I will bring up for discussion at the next strategy meeting. This is very helpful.