We do not have separate accounts for spouses we utilize the spouse tab on bio1 for this information. I would like to get a consensus of who is using separate accounts and who is using the spouse tab and any problems that have arisen from either choice.

We add spouses to Bio 1 "spouse" as well. This eleviates the worry of mailings, tax receipting, addressee/salutations, etc. Also, if one of the couple becomes deceased, the living spouse is considered the primary constituent, and the giving/profile/attribute histories are not lost. St. Joseph's Healthcare Foundation Hamilton, Ontario

We add the spouse to the Bio 1 "spouse" tab as well. Generally the husband is the primary constituent, unless the wife has the relationship with our organization, then we list her under Bio 1 and him as the spouse

Hi, We orginally used the spouse button on the BIO 1 tab for the spouse as well. We decided about a year ago that we should make them seperate records - BIG MISTAKE....All it created for us was headaches trying to get accurate reporting information. So we undid the damage and went back to the old way. I would not recommend making a seperate record for spouses. Heather Flynn Blind Children's Learning Center Santa Ana, CA

For us as well, the primary constituent tends to be the husband. If the wife is the one with the main relationship with us, she is the primary constituent. In the first instance, if the husband passes away, we also change the wife to the primary constituent, move the husband to the spouse tab and that way even though he is tagged as deceased, the mail will still go to her.
When we went from RE6 to RE7, we did set up a business rule to create a new record for the surviving spouse, but we decided we did not like that process. It was time intensive and just much simpler to set the surviving spouse as the primary record holder.
That all being said, we do create separate records for spouses if one of them is a current board member. We do that because we consider board member to be one of our constituencies for reporting. When they go off the board, their constituency is changed to former board (at the turn of the fiscal year) and spouse records are merged into one record again.

We have MANY instances where we have a record for both husband and wife. If they are members, each member has his/her own record. We have the Volunteer module, so track vol. info. for each one separately. We have the Tribute module and track tributes on each separately. One is designated as the primary record (usually the husband but could be the wife if she was a constituent first). The primary record contains the gifts (soft-credited to the spouse), mailing info., solicitor, and any other info. common to both. If one person dies, we transfer that info. to the other record. If we just have one record we decide whether to create a record for the surviving spouse based on whether we want to continue having contact with him/her. Seems to work pretty well -- not too many glitches. Mary Ellen Keranen North Shore Senior Center [Email Removed]

We are a college, and it is amaising howw many alumni are married to another alum. We have separate records for all alumni. If married, we of course link them,enter the gifts on which ever person signed the check and soft credit the spouse. All reports pull soft credit, so we have recognition names on both records, any notes on both records etc. I came into it with that practice and have been unable to get PTB to change. It works but there is a lot of dupilicate entry. Any primary that dies the surviving spouse gets a record. Again, I can't get them to change. If the record is for a friend we make the primary ehich ever person has the interest in us, and put the spiuse on the Bio 1 tab window. Nina Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art www.cia.edu Making Art Work