Letter file clean up and removing the letter code from gift records

Gabe Shalley
Gabe Shalley
Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Hi, I have a ton of old out of date letter files in RE that are no longer used with the “new” mail merge programs, but I can only delete a letter if it is not used on any gifts. Is there any harm in deleting the letter code from gift records, assuming I never need to re-produce that letter from a gift over 5 years old?

Any thoughts appreciated!

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  • Joe Moretti
    Joe Moretti Community All-Star
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Raiser's Edge NXT Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge First Reply

    @Gabe Shalley I would just leave it alone since it does not really cause any issue. It seems the minute you remove something like this, then someone will ask about it.

  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management

    @Joe Moretti is right! This will cause more problems than it solves. It doesn't hurt anything, and you can make them inactive.

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Gabe Shalley, don't quote me on this, but - when I have deleted letter types, or even made them inactive, I have found that you cannot amend/adjust and save past gifts unless you first remove the inactive/defunct letter code. This can be an issue for certain amendments or adjustments where the gift is posted on a previous (closed) year and the fields are greyed out. BB doesn't charge by gigabyte used, so it's not doing any harm and honestly I would just leave them. However, IF you were able to successfully delete them on all records (probably you would have to use Import to get around the greyed-out records) I don't suppose there would be any real harm removing the template as long as you replaced with an identifiable letter code for historical purposes.

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    @Gabe Shalley:

    Hi, I have a ton of old out of date letter files in RE that are no longer used with the “new” mail merge programs, but I can only delete a letter if it is not used on any gifts. Is there any harm in deleting the letter code from gift records, assuming I never need to re-produce that letter from a gift over 5 years old?

    Any thoughts appreciated!

    I am about 99.5% certain you cannot delete letter codes if they are present in a gift batch, even one that was committed years ago. So if your organization used gift batches for donation processing and those batches are still in your system, you would not be able to delete the letter code anyway.

    Karen

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