Gift Acknowledgement Process

Diana Empsall
Diana Empsall
Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud eTapestry® General Discussions

Hi everyone - my org is new to eTap and I am trying to establish our new workflows relating to gift acknowledgment and tax receipts. Would anyone be willing to share how your org handles these processes for online (BBMS) and offline gifts? I'm seeking to understand what functionality can be automated, what needs to be manual, and how information (including copies of acknowledgement letters/gift receipts) are tracked/stored in eTap. Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Marilyn Field
    Marilyn Field
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Diana Empsall, Welcome to eTap! I'm relatively new as well (just under one-year) and am happy to share learnings as I know the community has really helped me.

    At our org, we have automated as much as possible. For BBMS donations, acknowledgements/thank you and receipts are sent immediately using DIY forms. The donation form can be established with a set receipt letter that can be developed with appropriate content. Simplified instructions - First step is to create your receipt/acknowledgement under Communications. Once done, set up your DIY form for the online donation. Under settings, email, select the receipt/acknowledgement that you created under Communications, and click Generate Receipt. Ensure you complete all of the steps on the DIY setup including editing the automated email message (the basic message provided can be used, but we found it too impersonal for our org). Using this method, donations are thanked and recorded automatically.

    For manually entered donations, such as cheques, securities, etc., you can also develop a receipt under communications to use in your process, or simply create and send receipts manually using whatever document you choose. Receipts can be generated manually, downloaded, printed and sent, or emailed as PDFs. In Canada, we need the receipt separate from the email and it must be ‘non-editable’, so we must use PDFs in automatic or individually sent emails, and of course we print then send in mailings.

    To track what manual receipts need to be sent/prepared, I run a query that includes receipt numbers to ensure that I capture receipts that need to be sent manually once per week.

    I hope this helps. I highly recommend taking training sessions or reviewing recorded session presented by @Geoff Arbuckle. He is an incredible resource and highly knowledgeable!

  • Marilyn Field
    Marilyn Field
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Diana Empsall, Sorry, I should have mentioned when I create the query and view the results to check what donations are missing receipts, I had to add the Generated Receipt Number field to the query view when I preview. This setting stays for all subsequent previews so you only need to do it once.

  • Diana Empsall
    Diana Empsall
    Facilitator 1

    @Marilyn Field Thanks so much, this is super helpful! I also want to automate as much as possible since we are a VERY small shop. The workflow you describe is basically what I've had in mind. Unfortunately, I'm finding that there is nothing in the database that records that an acknowledgement was sent. Ideally, I would like to have a copy of the acknowledgement letter added automatically to the gift journal as part of an automated process. Less ideal, but also doable is if I can import PDFs as attachments to journal records. Do you know if either of these options is possible? Thanks!

  • Marilyn Field
    Marilyn Field
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Diana Empsall Yes, it would be helpful to have an actual copy of the letter attached to the record in the journal or on the transaction itself. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to do this except manually. When you click on the generated receipt number in the transaction record, it will give you the basic information but nothing that indicates what receipt/acknowledgement was sent, or a copy of the receipt itself. We name the acknowledgement and receipts appropriately and attach the letter name to the DIY form so we can at least have some idea of what was sent during that period for that donation form and/or approach. You can add the “letter” name to the DIY form to come up automatically (do this through the DIY settings - page type tab), or manually add it later if you wish. We add the name of the letter/acknowledgement/receipt (one name) to the DIY form so we know which letter was provided. It's not ideal, but it does work - just make sure you don't ever delete the receipt form from your communications and only archive it if you want to reduce the number of letters in that section.

    With respect to no record of an acknowledgement being sent, I have to trust the system and that the DIY form completed the actions as was set up. The auto response can be part of the acknowledgement, as can the email and receipt if set up appropriately. We auto receipt and it issues a “generated receipt number” that provides confidence that all was sent as intended. If there's no receipt number, we know we need to send something.

    For manually sent letters and acknowledgments/receipts, I add the letter used manually under the transaction record. We are fortunate that the majority of our donors prefer emailed receipts, even when a cheque is provided, so we can have this done automatically through the “create document” tab on the transaction record when we create a document to mail or email.

    In my mind, the DIY form is the way to go to ease the process. I hope this helps.

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