Procesing onetime Cash gifts

Suja Joseph

I've been using RE for quite a while and had always processed one-time gifts as “cash” gifts and if it's a pledge we record it as a pledge and applied the payments as “pay cash” gifts against the pledge. Now our business office is wanting us to create a pledge for all the gifts - every gift should be a pledge payment. We will have to do 2 entries for a regular cash gift (one-time check/credit card) 1. enter it as a pledge and then 2. another entry to payoff the pledge the same day. Would love to know how other organizations handle one-time gifts. Thank you

Austen Brown

@Suja Joseph - Finance's request is absurd. At the end of the day this would only create more work for you and them, for what added benefit? I have only ever entered one-time gifts as that, one-time/cash gifts. Pledges are reserved for when a donor makes a signed agreement with the organization to give a donation or a series of donations on a schedule in the future.

JoAnn Strommen

@Suja Joseph
Ditto what Austen posted. I still recall when we got RE years ago, consultant said we could enter a pledge for every gift and that some orgs did that. I said too much unnecessary work.

Why does finance want gifts to come this way? Are you integrated with FE? Do they want everything coming in as account payable? If so why? It might help in making your case not to have pledge and payment to know why they want it.

Dariel Dixon

@Suja Joseph Yeah, I agree with @Austen Brown & @JoAnn Strommen. I believe that to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What is the business reason for this? What justification could they possibly have for this ridiculous request?

Do not capitulate to this foolishness. I would definitely push back on this request and state that you would need a reason why and that it would adversely impact your department's work. And make sure your leadership backs you on this decision.

EDIT: I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think I can safely say you'll be hard pressed to find any organization that would process gifts in this way. I'm sure everyone here processes one-time gifts as just that, one-time gifts. And I am quite passionate about other departments putting unnecessary work on my team. I don't apologize for it, and sometimes you have to take a stand and hold tight.

Alberto Garciga

@Suja Joseph
One thing you can ask your Finance team is to tell you just how many of those single payments have never been honored. For example with checks how many have been returned due to no funds available. Just become just a very few number of donations may not be paid should not dictate how the majority of donations get processed. Again, where's the business case to justify the request.

Theodore Haegele

@Suja Joseph
I agree with above (although I have heard of this request before.)

One thing not mentioned is that this will adversely effect your ability to report on and analyze pledge payments. If I were on your audit team I would not be happy about this and if push comes to shove, they might be a good ally.

And finally, "pledge" means something. It is a promise for the future. What they are asking for is something different. They should be able to code the phantom transaction they are looking for a different way.