New Campaigns/Funds/Appeals structure: should we "correct" Q1 gifts?

Charles Stokes

We recently overhauled the fields we use for Campaign, Fund, and Appeal. We didn't simply rename them, they are fundamentally different in structure and relationship to one another. Shouldn't we go back and "correct" the 2020 gifts we entered before the big change with the current Campaign, Fund, and Appeal so everything for 2020 is consistent for reporting? If we don't, we'll have the same type of gifts designated for two separate Funds, one of which, in many cases, is now Inactive. It would throw off reporting to the bookkeeper, confuse the board, and make for some ugly query results. But is going back and changing about 70 gifts crazy talk?

 

Rachel Cavalier

Going back and "correcting" those 70 gifts would make everything consistent not just for your reporting etc now, but also probably help in about 5 years time when you can't necessarily remember exactly when your organisation switched over to the new system.

Heidi Saperstein

As long as it doesn't affect any of your other processes in a negative way, I suggest updating them.  I would export those gifts and create an import file for updating and include a "note" on the notes tab to remind anyone of the change that was made and when it was made.  

Charles Stokes

Thanks so much, Heidi Saperstein  and Rachel Cavalier for your responses! 

 Rachel Cavalier, I agree.

 Heidi Saperstein, I hadn't thought about importing the updated fields back in; I imagine that would save me a lot of time (assuming I'm doing it correctly ?). Many thanks!

Elaine Tucker

I concur with everyone else - absolutely update the gifts.  If they are marked posted in RE, I'm not sure you can import the changes in.  You may need to upost, import the update and then mark as posted once you've confirmed the import worked correctly.  Be sure to create a STATIC query of your gifts and DON"T refresh or re-open the query.  Use this as your base to export out - when importing back in create a query of records that you updated and then when all is good to go use the original STATIC query to globally change from not posted to posted.


Good luck,

Elaine