I am just wondering if Adjustments worth while. Why don't you just delete the gift (if it has not been posted to the GL) and reenter it?


Andrea Zepernick
Development Assistant
Wesleyan Senior Living Foundation

--- Edited at 1/14/2008 9:13:07 AM by Andrea Zepernick

We make changes both ways you mentioned. If I just put in the wrong $$ or fund and catch it right away I just make the change. But if we misunderstood the donors wishes, or we are adjusting a gift that is more than a few days old, we use adjustments and especially the reason and notes part. This allows ud to track the changes and why we made the change. It is a great tool to have for your auditors. Nina Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art www.cia.edu Making Art Work

Having a record of changes you made is important. If anything does not match up you have a place to start looking. It does not hurt to do the adjustments so why not use them? Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

We use gift adjustments all the time. It will give you a place to look if something is wrong and to assure accountability for your gift entry staff. We've found that adjustments are also an invaluable tool when we reconcile monthly and yearly with Finance and during our audit. Melissa Brown Abramson Center for Jewish Life 1425 Horsham Rd North Wales, PA 19454 www.abramsoncenter.org

Our biggest problem is you can't adjust the gift type and I can't tell you how many times we have had delete and reenter gift just because they were stock gifts entered as cash gifts or vs versa. It is a suggestion though so please add to the list.

True there are some things you can not adjust but that does not mean that you can not use the adjustment feature. I would not delete the mistaken gift but adjust it down to Zero with a notation that the gift had to be re-entered - then re-enter the gift. I am already on the list for wanting the adjust gift type feature but it has been around a long time and I am not holdimg my breath. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

Also, what if we are entering credit card gifts that have a service fee taken out of them?? For example, we get a credit card gift through our website for $100, but the website we are using to process this is charging $5, so the gift is then only $95. Do we enter in the $100 or $95 in RE? If we add in the $100, do we later make an adjustment to equal the $95??

The service fee is just the cost of doing business that should be absorped by your organization. You need to credit the donor for the full amount of $100.00 as that was their intention, not at minus $5.00. Is your processing company taking the service fee out of every gift automatically? Or does the full $100.00 come through but you are saying that due to $5.00 per transaction that in your mind, the gift then is only $95.00. Either way, every organization i've worked for understands that transaction fees per credit card transaction are just the cost of doing business and does not reflect in the amounted donated or reflected on the donor record itsself. Maryann Snyder Parkland Foundation

The donor gave you $100. Any fees that are taken out should be charged to your "cost of doing Buiness" expense account, just as any bank fees are. The donor believes that they gave you the full $100 and should be credited with that amount. Why is this any different than the fees charged for depositing a check? I just had this discussion the other way -- a donor noticed that there was a fee charged for our web donation and paid it, We gave them credit for a donation of $104.50 then put the fees againts the usual expense fund. Nina Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art www.cia.edu Making Art Work

No - that is not an adjustment issue. You enter the gift as $100 and do nothing else in RE. Your finance office must enter it as a $100 contribution and a $5 bank fee. As with stock gifts you do not penalize the donor for costs associated with their gift - you chalk them up as the "cost of doing business". Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

It is a good way to track changes and who made them. I like for only 2 people in the office an myself to make any adjustments on gifts. If there is a question when doing monthly recon, I can pull the adjusted gifts report. As for a wrong entry and just deleting and starting over, we batch all of our gifts into RE so keeping the original information on when the gift was batched is needed in case we have to pull the paperwork. If there is a type of gift that needs to be changed(stock gift)we $0 the batched gift and enter the stock gift manually and sell it and link the original gift. For us tracked adjusted gifts is new, but so worth it when things don't add up at the end of the month...or when you have new staff. [i]--- Edited at 1/28/2008 3:58:18 PM by Shanna Chandler[/i]

I have not been an advocate of adjusting a gift to $0.00.  Would this gift not count as a gift when considering total number of gifts for reporting purposes?  How do you sort this gift out when trying to run lists for your annual giving report without reviewing each record?  We have gifts in kind entered with $0.00 amount, so auction years would be a nightmare.

thanks

Deb Fox

Operations Manager

Culver Educational Foundation

Melissa, I have not been an advocate of adjusting a gift to $0.00.  Would this gift not count as a gift when considering total number of gifts for reporting purposes?  How do you sort this gift out when trying to run lists for your annual giving report without reviewing each record?  We have gifts in kind entered with $0.00 amount, so auction years would be a nightmare.

thanks

Deb Fox

Operations Manager

Culver Educational Foundation

Deb,

I can understand your reluctance to use $0.00 gifts or adjust gifts to $0.00.  To maintain accurate records, we do use this function (cancelled pledges/corrections to data that was entered and posted incorrectly/etc). 

On many of the report set up options, there is check box for include/exclude $0.00 gifts.  When querying reporting for an annual giving list, you can use that option or include a criteria of 'gift is greater than $0.00'.  Depending on what report you're running, you may also have the option to exclude the gift type of gifts in kind.