DID YOU KNOW? FIMS Tips Article Six

Did you know that FIMS has the ability to track soft credits?
 
Soft Credits address the following gift tracking needs:
 

• Husband and wife, or other family members, donate separately
• A gift that is a memorial gift
• A Financial Advisor refers a donor to the foundation
• An employee donates through a payroll deduction and employer  sends the check
• A gift is received from a managed fund

On the Donor tab there is a field called Auto Credit that will display a Y if the auto credit is populated. Populating the Auto Credit record will automatically create a soft credit record with this information for each future gift for this donor


Below is an example of an auto credit record. Elizabeth Bass is the spouse of Harold Bass but also has a separate profile as she donates separately as well as jointly with her spouse. The joint profile will receive a soft credit each time a gift is posted to Elizabeth Bass as the  donor.

• Id Code column - Profile id for the organization or individual receiving the soft credit 
• Credit Name - Name associated with that id code.
• Amt/Pct - indicates whether soft credit amount is a dollar amount or percentage. If you enter a percentage in the amount field and save, Amt/Pct column will show Amt and the amount field will display the calculated dollar amount.
• Amount - $ Amount of soft credit.
• GiftNum - current gift being processed.
• Partner - Indicates whether the name on the Profile 2 tab receives credit for the soft credit. If a profile does not have a partner it defaults to Exclude
• Type - code from the new soft credit type table such as family, payroll deduction, financial advisor etc.
• Xref – Links to another gift record in database such as matching gift

 
When a gift is created for Elizabeth Bass the Soft Credit tab/record displays the auto-populated information from the Auto Credit record. Note: the soft credit amount needs to be entered. It does not auto-populate.

Once the gift is posted the soft credits will be reflected in the Gift History tab on the profile record for the profile receiving the soft credit. In this case it is the joint profile for Elizabeth and Harold M. Bass.

Soft credits may be entered for posted gifts as there is no impact on General Ledger for these transactions.
 
There is a Soft Credit Import utility in the File Maintenance menu of the Gifts module to import soft credit records into FIMS.

Soft credits may be entered for posted gifts as there is no impact on General Ledger for these transactions.
 
 There is a Soft Credit Import utility in the File Maintenance menu of the Gifts module to import soft credit records into FIMS.

In the Gifts module reports menu there are 3 standard Soft Credit reports available:
 

1. Gift History with Soft Credits
2. Soft Credit History
3. Soft Credit Acknowledgement Export

 
Soft credit information may also be included in gift history data grids by including the Soft Credit table.