Group Sales Status Finalize versus Complete

Andrea Fisher
Andrea Fisher
Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1 Blackbaud Certified
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

I recently became the Altru Coordinator for my museum. I've noticed some people are checking in groups, which changes their status to “complete GL distrubtion” and some are marking them finalized, but not checking them in. From trainings, it seemed like checking groups in was the final step and eventually all reservations would be marked that way.

Am I correct in this thinking? What are we losing by just marking them finalized but not checked in? I want to start getting us all standardized to do the same process, but I want to be able to explain why we are all moving towards the check in part and I'm not sure I know the why more than “Altru says to do it.”

Comments

  • Rosita Bradham
    Rosita Bradham Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    @Andrea Fisher
    Hello! I hope this graph comes through ok. It explains what the different group reservation statuses mean. The reservation status depends on if you use a reservation deposit, a security deposit, require a contract, or if you require a final count.

    Order statusDescription
    PendingWhen an order is added, it automatically has a status of “Pending.”
    TentativeAfter a contract is sent to the group, the order status becomes “Tentative.”
    ConfirmedWhen the contract is returned and the deposit received, the status becomes “Confirmed.”
    FinalizedAfter the group provides the final count of those attending, the status moves to “Finalized.”

    When a reservation requires a final count, when that count is updated by it's due date, then the status of the reservation is switched to Finalized. The status remains until the reservation is checked in via the “Check in group” button. When you check in the reservation, the status turns to Completed.

    Checking in your group reservations is very, very important. Group sales revenue is the only type of earned revenue that is deferred. What that means is when you receive a pre payment, like a deposit, Altru will show that revenue as “Unearned Revenue”. If you're familiar with the Total Revenue and Payments report, the group sales prepayments show as a separate unearned revenue section.

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    If you don't check in the reservation then, that payment never gets allocated to the right program revenue account. When you run revenue reports, the unearned revenue is not reflected.

    I hope this helps!

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