Currently when checks come in we give the check to the gift officer or special event manager to designate for RE data entry. The gift is entered into RE and then deposited. We are now going to a procedure where the check is deposited same day and then entry will follow. We are currently trying to figure out how to keep track of the volumn of checks being deposited and making sure that they get deisgnatd properly and timely for entry into RE. Any suggestions??

It might make sense to have the batch number dated similarly to the date received. Also, while entering information into a new batch, the date column in the batch can be similar to the date received. Just a thought.
Lucile Barbati
Donor Services Coordinator
West Valley Fine Arts
525 N. Central Ave.
Avondale, AZ 85323

At my former place of employment (a college) we had one person open the mail. She would make a copy of the checks (3-4 on a page). The copies, along with the envelopes and any paperwork, would come to me to process. The checks would go to our accounting department to deposit. I would work from the paperwork and the copy of the check. Katie Kupiecki Membership Services and Development Support Air Zoo

That's what we do as well. Mary Ellen Keranen North Shore Senior Center [Email Removed]

Do you designate the campaign and appeal? In our case the gift officer or special event managers designate what campaign and appeal the gift goes into. Our concern is that once we copy the check and get it into the bank, how do we keep track of the checks that came in and that we are getting the paperwork back from the MGO or SEM on a timely basis.

Do you designate the campaign and appeal? In our case the gift officer or special event managers designate what campaign and appeal the gift goes into. Our concern is that once we copy the check and get it into the bank, how do we keep track of the checks that came in and that we are getting the paperwork back from the MGO or SEM on a timely basis.

When gifts come in to our organizaion, we copy the checks and batch into RE the same day and use the batch that the check was entered with after it is commited to create the deposit slip for the bank. This procedure is fairly new, but works well. In the past checks that came in went to our accounting dept. and were deposited into the bank. The Development Dept would then get a copy of the check and any other materials that came with the check to enter into RE. This caused delay in the acknowledgment process and seemed to be duplicate efforts in processing between the 2 departments. Now Development batches the checks into RE, creates a daily deposit and sends reports and copies of the deposits to Accounting for their entries in lumps based on funds, not individual gifts unless they are special restricted gifts and in those cases copies of designation paperwork and the specific amounts are sent as well. We have also utilized the media function in RE to keep copies of batched checks and "special" gifts. This allows easy access to the gift information. For general gifts the checks are all on one linked media file. For special or restricted gifts an individual file is scanned and created and saved in the constituent record. As for entry...if you are using the deposit feature in RE based on the batched in gifts, you should be able to pull reports that track the fund designation including the number of gifts and the total to each fund that can be created in financial reports.

After someone opens the mail and does the first verification total of the amounts, the whole stack is put into an envelope. Each day is kept in a separate group (batch) and is given to the development department for entry.
The date the gift was received in the mail is the same number we use for our batch number(s). IE: if it came in on December 12, 2006 the first batch number is 12120601 the second batch of the day (if there is one) is 12120602. This way we can file our batches by number and if our accounting department is looking for a certain date, we can find it.

Once it's batched and committed, we run the live cheques through our scanner (we used to photocopy but this was easier) and save the scans just in case we need to look something up. Then we give the cheques and a copy of the batch report back to our accounting department for deposit.

FYI we are hoping to move to the PaperSave process that Blackbaud just introduced. Apparently you can do all of your data entry off of pre-scanned cheques so that we don't actually need to have our hands on the live cheques. The demo was pretty slick.

I would HIGHLY recommend that if you are going to use dates in text fields that you use some variation of the format YYYY-MM-DD. This preserves the correct sort order. Any other system will sort them by whichever date part is listed first. Drew J. Drew Allen Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [Email Removed] Check out the user run RE Forum at http://reusers.server-planet.com/

Sorry about that. I should have picked a better demo date. We use MM-DD-YYYY-batch number. This is the date format we use consistently throughout the organization.

Hello Deborah, I hope you find this information helpful. I am a one person shop and I deposit to 4 banks depending on where the money is going. I open the mail. Make a copy of the check and attach it to any back up that came with it. Make 4 piles of back up and 4 piles of checks. Now I run a calculator tape of each pile of checks and it's corresponding back up pile. Once I know that the Checks and the pile are the same I attach the calculator tape and I prepare my deposit. I send the deposit to the accounting department. Accounting is responsible for making the deposit copies. Now for the pile of back up. I leave the calculator tape attached to the pile, I write the date of deposit and I start a batch header record. I note the batch number on the calculator tape. (we use computer assigned numbers) I include the deposit date in the batch description. Now it goes in a pile for when I can enter it. Sometimes I am 2 months behind in entering gifts. But I have yet to not reconcile with Finance. An additional option is to buy a rubber stamp have it include everything you need the officer to code on it, when you make a copy of the check stamp it in say Red. and then still keep everything together, while the copy of the check is "Coded" I hope this helps. Lianne

Yes, but this still sorts by the month first rather than the year. So if you have a report on gifts going back five years sorted by batch number, you'll get something like the following. 12-30-01-01 12-30-02-01 12-30-03-01 12-30-04-01 12-30-05-01 12-31-01-01 12-31-02-01 12-31-03-01 12-31-04-01 12-31-05-01 You're grouping by the Month, then the Day, then the Year. You run into even more problems if you're data goes back to the 1900's. Using YYYY-MM-DD-BB will sort by the Century, then the Year, then the Month, then the day. Now for batches, it may not be that critical, but I still recommend doing it by YYYY-MM-DD if you are just starting to implement a procedure using dates in text fields. Drew J. Drew Allen Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [Email Removed] Check out the user run RE Forum at http://reusers.server-planet.com/

All deposits here are written on a "Batch Sheet". The Batch Sheet consists of six columns: check number, donor name, fund, appeal, initials (of those two who are opening the checks), and amount. The form comes to me from our finance department after the checks are all written and a deposit is made. A carbon copy of the deposit slip is also attached along with copies of all the checks and cash that was deposited. All this information gets entered into Raiser's Edge Batch. Our batch numbers are as follows: Date and Batch Type. Our Batch Types are 1=deposit of Cash/Checks, 2=Pledges, 3=Gift In-Kind, 4=Stock, 5=Credit Cards (VISA/MC), 6=Payroll deduction, 7=Direct Mail, and 8=Credit Cards (American Express). For example, a cash and check deposit made today would be 1217061. If another cash and check deposit was made today, it would be 12170612. If it was a stock batch, it would be 1217064. I hope it isn't too hard to understand. Kamong Riddick Data Coordinator Easter Seals Arkansas [Email Removed]

We have a policy in place that one person will open the mail for the foundation and another person will enter the gifts in RE. We have a document that is used when the person opens the gifts. On this document we have: Date, Batch Number, Nbr of Checks received, Checks Amount, Nbr Credit Card transactions, Credit Card Amount, Cash Amount, Total Amount of Bank Deposit(Does not include Credit Cards), Deposit Bag#, Initials of person opening the mail, initials of person entering data into RE, initials of person accepting cash, and column to verify that batch totals agree or disagree. If we get cash, credit cards and checks in one mail, then we put each on its own line. After this document is filled up then it gets sent to Accounting. We also send copies of the Cash Receipts Journal as well. This policy was put into place by our Internal Auditing department. Don Sabo
Forum Health
Youngstown, Ohio
330-884-4814
[Email Removed]