Hi all, I'm curious if anyone else out there charges a gift fee percentage off gifts coming in, and how they do it FE. We are implementing this, and I'm looking for ideas for ways and means. An example would be: John Doe gives $100 to a fund to benefit Music in our Schools. In FE, $95 goes to the fund, and $5 would go to an administrative pooled fund. I am especially interested if you have managed to automate the process. Thanks to anyone that has some info! Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

We have FE and are converting to RE. We would like to do this, but need to do it on the RE side because we have so many exceptions to the gift that actually receive a charge %. So if anyone has any ideas to do this on RE, we'd appreciate that.

I would strongly suggest that you take another look at this... Of course, every organization is different, but if we were to attempt doing this in RE, all of our giving reports would no longer be correct, our receipts would not print correctly, acknowledging donors at the end of the year would be a complete mess, and several other processes would no longer function correctly. This was the first thing presented to me by my executives and for the reasons given above we are determined to find another way to do this. And do this in RE, you could potentially use the VBA module and write code to take every gift entry in batch, and automatically enter a new line on the batch for the gift percentages, and reduce the gift amount by the percentage. It wouldn't quite be that simple and straightforward, but it would be doable. If you would like to discuss these issues off the forums, please feel free to contact me at [Email Removed]. Thanks, Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

Thanks for pointing out an ommision in my message. We would not change the gift credit given to a donor at all. They would still receive full credit. The % taken would apply on the FE side only and would be reflected in the balance of the project. So we have to some how code the gifts that need to be charged, and come up with a total that would probably be imported into FE.

So you are going to be in the same boat we are :) We are just starting to work out all the possible scenarios and solutions for those scenarios... The hardest part is the automation. It would be easy to export from RE, change it around programatically, and then import back into FE, but we really don't want to do that... I'm going to investigate the VBA module for FE and see what events you can tag for it... If you'd like, send me a quick email so I have your email, and I can keep you updated as to our progress. Thanks Doug Doug Creek University of Alaska Database Administrator [Email Removed]

We have the same issue. Right now we are changing it by journal voucher at the end of the month (in total) by project for the month. Not a good soultion, but all I could come up with.

Assuming you are interfaced between RE & FE, you could set the RE funds to allocate gifts on a percentage basis to multiple GL accounts and/or multiple projects. So if all cash gifts were "taxed" 5% and it went to a different GL revenue account and project, you could distribute 95% to the gift revenue account and project to the intended fund and still get the 5% calculated amount distributed to the correct account. Since you can do this by gift type, if cash is taxed, but pledges are not you would have the flexibility. The donor gift record and receipts would show 100% of the gift given so your year end donr records would be accurate. The obvious advantage here is RE is doing the split for you, and again, if interfaced, you can maintain the audit trail from RE to FE without having to resort to outside programming or spreadsheets, etc. Envision For Non-Profits Consultant for Blackbaud products [Email Removed] 727/442-1996 www.EnvisionFNP.com