Advancement Entry of Donations and Pledges
Updated
Summary of purpose: The following wiki is meant to guide the effort on entering cash donations and pledges, managing transactions, and getting data back out of the system. Cash donations are generally used when the organization physically receives cash or a stock gift. Pledges are generally used when the organization receives a commitment to send a gift at a future time period. Accounting will determine if a pledge becomes a posted transaction or remains unposted according to revenue recognition rules. Whether it is posted or not will not prevent it from being visible on the advancement report. As a general rule, using the communication tab to record back-up information is the best way to ensure a transaction is reviewed properly and avoids future emails and confusion among the administrative staff.
I. Recording Cash Donations:
- Use the "Enter donation" transaction form when we receive cash gifts that will be booked to any of the contributions accounts. The tile looks like the button below. It will navigate you to the Advancement - Cash donations form.
- Once on the form, select your constituent. Note that most constituents are likely already in the system. If you notice duplicate records, you may choose to merge them to keep the database clean (procedure not covered in this wiki). As a technique, you probably want to get in the habit of using the "%" symbol before you type in the name of a constituent in the field and it will pull up any data that is consistent with what you type (e.g. "%Foundation brings up the following:)
- The majority of the form should be self-explanatory. We can build out this wiki as needed. On the blue ribbon in the middle of the page there is an "ITEM" box. Revenue items are linked to income accounts and are pre-set by the accounting staff. Most of the time, you will likely use "Annual Fund Contribution." Typing in %annual will bring up the available items from the pick list. You must have the constituent field defined before the system will allow you to enter an item. See example below with the available items table.
- Complete the Item line using "segment code" and record the $ amount. You will almost always use the advancement segment code - 750010. Segment code will pre-fill the rest of the fields. Move onto the Communications tab.
- Communications tab: Attach files as back-up for the transaction or include user notes to guide the accounting review function using the + button to the right of the attach file field. Idea is to avoid an email looking for additional information. Use standard folders to store information. See second screenshot. You can create your own and we can restrict access upon your request to specific folders.
II. Recording Pledges:
- Use the pledges button to record pledges. Note that these will not necessarily be revenue posting (accounting will determine) but, either way, it will show up in the Advancement Contributions report.
- Note that recording a pledge is very much like recording a cash sale. However, using a pledge form exposes additional fields. More can be added upon request. This is all configurable.
III. Reporting: Click links below
- Advancement Posted Entries Transaction Details (for amounts that hit the general ledger) - this is a financial report
- Advancement Activity Detail (for posting and non-posting transactions - this is a saved search). Best way to make this into a report is to download it into excel and use a pivot table (Jason Grundy or David Whitt can help build you a template if you are unfamiliar with pivot tables). In the fall of 2022, we should have a planning and budgeting tool implemented that will make NetSuite data updatable in Excel models so, you should be able to refresh data (reports) on demand. This should save a few steps and allow you to work dynamically with real time data. We are working on getting this up and running now.
IV. Finding your transactions:
- There are lots of ways to do things in Netsuite. Two ways I'd recommend using as we get started. You can figure out what works for you or how to make things better as you get more familiar with the system.
- First way is to use the saved searches above. Using the filter on top with a "%" symbol can help you locate any information in the dataset. See example below.
- Add a saved search to your dashboard portlet. We have configured the Advancement Activity Detail report for us in finding transactions. It is currently ordered by date but, you can sort it how you prefer. You can also use the "%" in the name field to find what you want.
