Practical questions re: RENXT and FENXT integration

David Dines

Hi, my org is in the process of rolling out Financial Edge to replace our former finance software.  We're at the beginning stages of utilizing the "Post to General Ledger" tool in Raiser's Edge database view.  We have a few initial questions for the Blackbaud community about using this function in practice.

Credit Card gifts are the most conceptually weird ones for us: for example, Bob Smith makes an online gift using my Online Express Web Form on 1/1/20. I, as the database manager for RE, go through my normal process of downloading and committing his gift in RE.  No problem there.  The problem comes up for us is knowing that with BBMS as our cc processor, we won't see the cash sent to our bank account for that gift for another 7 days.  (I know I can update to daily disbursements, but lets stick with the 7-day delay)


For those of you using the RE to FE integration, how does this all work for you?  Do you post the CC gifts to FE with the original gift date along with other gifts (checks, cash bills and coins) in your batch process and then tie the credit card gifts to the deposit when it shows on the bank register? 


And further, let's say there's a pledge payment in the batch of credit cards.  


Perhaps I'm making it more complicated that I need to because we haven't done it enough times.  


Thanks for any assistance, and happy to clarify this if I'm not understandable above.

Elaine Tucker

At my previous employer we posted checks and any actual cash "daily".  For credit card processing I had a query with gift date = "ask" and payment method = Credit card" and post status = Not posted.  This query was used for two things - run a crystal report to check totals within credit card type and to post to FE. When we received the disbursement report from BBMS (weekly) I would use said query to run the crystal report.  If the totals matched then I would globally change the post date on those gifts to= the disbursement date and then post from RE to FE using the SAME query and post in Summary.


If the totals did not match, it was usually a timing issue - someone gave a gift late at night and it came over to RE as with one date but did not post in BBMS until the next date.

When that happened I would figure out which gift was the reason and change the gift date &  post date to the next day.  


Once the batch was posted to FE, I would go into FE and in the Journal Reference note the Net Amount of the deposit so when accounting was doing the bank rec it was relatively easy to see which deposit line items were making up the disbursed total.  Accounting would then approve the batch and commit to FE.

We also created a JE batch that would account for the fees for that deposit.  The post date would be the the same as the disbursement date.


Having all the post dates = the disbursement date made the bank recon a little easier because the dates would all be grouped together 


 

David Dines

Thanks for this response, Elaine! I get what you're saying and let me bring something up to see how it might have been handled under the process you describe:

Let's say a very generous person makes a very generous gift online on 6/30 (the last day of the fiscal year).  If the org's audited financials are based on finance's numbers and dates, would you make any effort to have that gift counted in the fiscal year it was made in (if it's a small gift, I can understand not wanting to bother) or do you just keep the system in place and have it counted in the year that the cash is disbursed by BBMS?  Perhaps I could make a pledge in RE, send that to FE to post and then the credit card payment and its disbursement become a pledge payment.  It's a small example, but it's one I think about with these dang credit card gifts.


When you say below that "I would go into FE and in the Journal Reference note the Net Amount of the deposit," could you quickly point me towards how to do that?  I won't be the person in FE approving/posting the Raiser's Edge generated batches, but I'll want to suggest this step to the person who does do it.

 

Elaine Tucker:

At my previous employer we posted checks and any actual cash "daily".  For credit card processing I had a query with gift date = "ask" and payment method = Credit card" and post status = Not posted.  This query was used for two things - run a crystal report to check totals within credit card type and to post to FE. When we received the disbursement report from BBMS (weekly) I would use said query to run the crystal report.  If the totals matched then I would globally change the post date on those gifts to= the disbursement date and then post from RE to FE using the SAME query and post in Summary.


If the totals did not match, it was usually a timing issue - someone gave a gift late at night and it came over to RE as with one date but did not post in BBMS until the next date.

When that happened I would figure out which gift was the reason and change the gift date &  post date to the next day.  


Once the batch was posted to FE, I would go into FE and in the Journal Reference note the Net Amount of the deposit so when accounting was doing the bank rec it was relatively easy to see which deposit line items were making up the disbursed total.  Accounting would then approve the batch and commit to FE.

We also created a JE batch that would account for the fees for that deposit.  The post date would be the the same as the disbursement date.


Having all the post dates = the disbursement date made the bank recon a little easier because the dates would all be grouped together