Get set up for Year-End Giving in Online Express
Published
Let’s put on our thinking caps and imagine the following scenario:
Hi! My name is Miranda and I want to donate to your organization. I’ll stop by your office next week. Please leave your Raiser’s Edge up on a computer so I can enter my information. I’ll add myself as a new constituent, process my credit card, and commit the gift batch that I entered to your system.
Sounds silly, right? But when gifts are downloaded from new donors in Online Express without reviewing the data carefully, that scenario is not so far-fetched: New donors enter their information on the Online Express form on your website. Gifts are charged in the form via Blackbaud Merchant Services. And the personal information and gift information entered by your donors is downloaded to a batch to be committed to your constituent records.
With year-end giving, the end of the year is an exciting time when you’re sure to see more new donors. It’s important to add them right the first time to help maintain the integrity and accuracy of your records. That little bit of time invested in downloading properly can save time with gift processing (batch, subsequent acknowledgements, etc.) and with future use of that information (reports, annual donor lists, letters, exports, etc.).
Set up Online Express for new records
New individual and organization record defaults can be set up in Online Express to help standardize how new records are created using Default Sets. And those are just how they sound: a set of default values in specific fields to apply as a group on a new record.
Some standard values to add to a default set are constituent codes, addressee/salutation formats, and attributes. Keep in mind, however, that a default value will only populate empty fields. When a default set is applied, it will not overwrite/edit a value already existing in a field.
A default set for individual records and a default set for organization records will be needed. Keep the settings as general to cover the most records as possible. Specifics can always be added later, such as when reviewing the gifts in Batch.
To take advantage of this feature:
Thank new and returning donors with Online Express Receipts
Online Express can issue a receipt via email right away to thank your donors and registrants in the Donation and Event forms. This can be great timesaver for year-end giving and events. And you can always follow up with these donors early next year with an acknowledgement or other touch.
Here’s how to set up eReceipts in Online Express: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/97366
Review each transaction carefully using Process Transactions
You’re busy and Bulk Processing is just so quick. But as we just discussed, investing that little time in the download process will really save time later. And to give you that control over those fields coming in, use the Process Transactions option.
Before the end of year rush, take a moment to brush up on processing transactions from Online Express:
And before you say “Process Transaction creates a batch for each gift,” check out this Knowledgebase solution with step by step on how to avoid that: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/97312
Make your year-end donors count next year!
Nearly all organizations see an uptick in donations at year’s end. Some organizations can receive nearly 50% of their annual revenue (and in some cases, even more) in the last three months of the year. With the tools in Online Express, take time now to set up timely receipting and accurate processing of their data. That way, you can concentrate on analyzing their information and building on those relationships – and not cleaning up data.
Hi! My name is Miranda and I want to donate to your organization. I’ll stop by your office next week. Please leave your Raiser’s Edge up on a computer so I can enter my information. I’ll add myself as a new constituent, process my credit card, and commit the gift batch that I entered to your system.
Sounds silly, right? But when gifts are downloaded from new donors in Online Express without reviewing the data carefully, that scenario is not so far-fetched: New donors enter their information on the Online Express form on your website. Gifts are charged in the form via Blackbaud Merchant Services. And the personal information and gift information entered by your donors is downloaded to a batch to be committed to your constituent records.
With year-end giving, the end of the year is an exciting time when you’re sure to see more new donors. It’s important to add them right the first time to help maintain the integrity and accuracy of your records. That little bit of time invested in downloading properly can save time with gift processing (batch, subsequent acknowledgements, etc.) and with future use of that information (reports, annual donor lists, letters, exports, etc.).
Set up Online Express for new records
New individual and organization record defaults can be set up in Online Express to help standardize how new records are created using Default Sets. And those are just how they sound: a set of default values in specific fields to apply as a group on a new record.
Some standard values to add to a default set are constituent codes, addressee/salutation formats, and attributes. Keep in mind, however, that a default value will only populate empty fields. When a default set is applied, it will not overwrite/edit a value already existing in a field.
A default set for individual records and a default set for organization records will be needed. Keep the settings as general to cover the most records as possible. Specifics can always be added later, such as when reviewing the gifts in Batch.
To take advantage of this feature:
- Create the default set for individual and organization records
- Specify the default set in the integration options of Online Express
- To view constituent fields of a record in batch, add fields to the constituent window
Thank new and returning donors with Online Express Receipts
Online Express can issue a receipt via email right away to thank your donors and registrants in the Donation and Event forms. This can be great timesaver for year-end giving and events. And you can always follow up with these donors early next year with an acknowledgement or other touch.
Here’s how to set up eReceipts in Online Express: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/97366
Review each transaction carefully using Process Transactions
You’re busy and Bulk Processing is just so quick. But as we just discussed, investing that little time in the download process will really save time later. And to give you that control over those fields coming in, use the Process Transactions option.
Before the end of year rush, take a moment to brush up on processing transactions from Online Express:
And before you say “Process Transaction creates a batch for each gift,” check out this Knowledgebase solution with step by step on how to avoid that: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/97312
Make your year-end donors count next year!
Nearly all organizations see an uptick in donations at year’s end. Some organizations can receive nearly 50% of their annual revenue (and in some cases, even more) in the last three months of the year. With the tools in Online Express, take time now to set up timely receipting and accurate processing of their data. That way, you can concentrate on analyzing their information and building on those relationships – and not cleaning up data.
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Raiser's Edge® Blog
12/08/2015 1:27pm EST
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