Revising Gift Entry Process in Hybrid/Remote Situation

Lanetta Gilder

Currently working on revising gift entry process at my organization for hybrid/remote situations and I’m looking for input/suggestions from other organizations that have a similar situation.

Finance has always controlled how things were managed and recorded at the organization I’m working for. I started remotely at the organization during the height of the pandemic, so I have no concept of how things was done when everyone was in the office.

During my time at the organization, members from the finance department would scan all checks and upload them to the bank, send us copies of the upload to the bank with the reply devices, handwritten notes and check stubs from donor advised organizations in one pdf document which is in a secured drive. Most of the time the reply devices wouldn’t be in the same order or in separate pdf files which makes gift entry slightly challenging. The finance department would do this twice a month for gift entry.

Since giving has increased slightly, the process has slowed. After the development office addressed concern, finance asked members of the facilities department (staff that’s in the building daily), to scan the reply devices and checks and email them to both departments.

If your organization is working in a hybrid/remote situation, please share how your organization is handling mail as it comes into your organization and what role (if any) finance has in the process?
Thanks in advance. Take care, be safe and have a good day!

Barbara Kunkel

@Lanetta Gilder
Our Finance Department handles deposit coding, gift entry, acknowledgment letters, and reconciliation. The finance department works remotely except for the Cash Specialist for Accounts Receivable and Contributions deposits. I go into the office once a week with another coworker to scan all checks and backup materials to the finance department and hand the checks to the Cash Specialist. All donations are entered and acknowledged within 3 days. I am looking forward to hearing from others on this subject.

Billy Fenyes

@Lanetta Gilder We currently have a similar deal in that we are hybrid/remote and are working to figure it out. Right now, we have a single person in the office that scans the checks to both development and finance. Both are entering the checks separately into the respective systems and then we run a reconciliation process monthly to ensure that all the money is accounted for and in the correct funds.

So:

1. Money in the door. Scanned by in office staff to Fundraising/Finance.
2. Fundraising/Finance Batch and process
3. Month end reconciliation.

It sounds like most of your problem is people putting together bad scans. Setting a policy for exactly how the PDFs need to be put together might be helpful. A service like ILovePDF can help your staff organize everything a little better if you don't have an Adobe account or, more likely, the Adobe account is giving you trouble.

Hope this helps.