Tracking and Reconcile Restricted Contributions/Expenses

Barbara Kunkel
Barbara Kunkel
Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

We are looking for a solution to streamline our process with Finance on restricted funds. Finance doesn't have Financial Edge. Contributions are recorded in RE for the specific funds (100+). Finance enters the contribution in excel by the community by the fund. Finance uses 3 different programs to locate the expenses which are entered into excel for a true balance of the restricted funds. I have not found a way to house this information in RE to pull reports for our Executive Directors.

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  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    I've never worked anywhere where the fund balances have been housed inside RE. With as many as you have, that could be a nightmare to keep up with. That's always been Finance's responsibility. So, if you can, I'd push back on having that be inside RE and keep it housed in Excel where it is. Share that Excel doc, or a pared down version of it, with your ED instead. If you can't, and you are forced into housing it in RE somewhere, I'd look at a Fund Attribute.

  • Barbara Kunkel
    Barbara Kunkel
    Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    Hi @Heather MacKenzie - thank you for providing additional support to my experience. I wanted confirmation that I knew what I was talking about.

  • Bill Connors
    Bill Connors
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    Heather has the right answer: RE isn't designed for this and the responsibility of this tracking is a Finance responsibility, not Development.

  • Janis Worley
    Janis Worley
    Sixth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    We don't have Financial Edge either - we use Quickbooks. At the end of each month I pull a list for that specific time period, designating which funds I want (or all). Then I export the list into Excel and match each transaction to my BBMS disbursement reports. All the included disbursements are then sorted by fund and input into my tracking sheets. That gives me the specific donations per fund. It's super cumbersome, but the best solution I can come up with - if BBMS would simply include the fund name on the disbursement reports life would be so much easier! But I don't see that happening anytime soon unfortunately.

  • Barbara Kunkel
    Barbara Kunkel
    Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Janis Worley - Thank you for providing me with how you are handling this. I will ask Finance to look at Quickbooks.

  • Thomas DiGuglielmo
    Thomas DiGuglielmo
    Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Barbara Kunkel you could create a custom attribute on your gifts with a table containing all the funds. This could be cumbersome if the funds change often , but if they don't it really only takes time to set up the table and then you're good to go

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