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Donation Transactions Overview: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1107606
As of the July 2019 release, PatronManager creates Payment Transaction records for all processed Donations, regardless of payment type. Prior to the July 2019 release, PatronManager only created Payment Transactions for credit card Donations, and we've now extended that functionality.
This means two things:
- Donations will be fully reportable alongside ticketing transactions in financial reports.
- Donations will have an audit trail.
In this article, we'll go in to a lot more detail about why we're making this change and the specifics of the impact it has throughout PatronManager, including:
- Entering and refunding Donations
- Fixing mistakes on previously-entered Donations
- Financial reporting
We'll also answer some FAQs at the end - let's jump in!
If you haven't already, we highly recommend you first check out our preparation guide. There, we'll make sure you're ready for Donation Transactions, and that all of your future reports will be accurate.
Why Donation Transactions?
Donation Transactions bring the most robust PatronManager record-keeping functionality to every financial transaction in PatronManager. Click below to learn more about these two key benefits:
Previously, Payment Transaction records were only created for Ticket Orders and for credit card Donations. As a result, there was no common denominator between those kinds of transactions and other kinds of Donations, like those paid via cash or check. That made it impossible to pull a single report to show all money transacted through PatronManager.
The Donation Transactions feature adds Payment Transaction records to all completed Donations, allowing you to report on all your PatronManager transactions in one place.
This enables commonly-requested reports, like:
- A single report for “my auditor needs to see a report of all money transacted in PatronManager last year”
- A single report for "I need to see all the money transacted in PatronManager at the end of each day"
"What are these reports you speak of?"
You'll find them in the Financial Reports tab! We've released the Donation Summary report and the Transaction Summary report.
Don't worry - your existing Donation-based reports will continue to work just as they have in the past.
Because Payment Transactions cannot be edited or deleted, having them for all Donations gives you a complete audit trail. This audit trail allows you to see when a Donation was processed or refunded, and (within the Payment Transaction record itself) by whom.
It also prevents users from deleting Posted Donations entirely, or editing financial data on a Donation after it has been processed. This prevents users from accidentally editing financial data in PatronManager after you've booked it in your accounting system, and leaves you with a clear record of adjustments that were made intentionally.
What's changing about Donation handling?
Because Payment Transaction records cannot be edited or deleted, having them in place for Donations means some best practices are now required. For example:
- You'll now need to refund and reprocess a Donation if you need to change transition-specific fields
- You will also no longer be able to delete any Posted Donations; instead, you can refund them
Read on below for more detailed information.
There's no change to your process here, but there are a few things to keep in mind once you mark a Donation as Posted:
- You will not be able to adjust the Amount, Check Number, or Payment Type
- You will not be able to change the Stage, except to another Closed/Won Stage (for example, you can change "Posted" to "Closed Won" or a custom Stage with the same meaning, but you cannot change "Posted" to "Pledged")
- You will not be able to delete the Donation (though you will be able to refund it)
Donations can no longer be deleted once they've been processed, but you can now refund them using the "Refund Donation" action:
You will always have options to refund a Donation to cash, check, or the Payment Type that was originally used. You can also choose specific custom refund methods that you'd like available for all Donations.
To set up additional third party refund methods, check out these instructions.
Because the fields mentioned above (Amount, Payment Type, and Check Number) are locked after a Donation has been Posted, you'll want to take extra care with those fields when entering the Donation record in the first place.
If you do make a mistake, though, no worries! You can refund the Donation record, and start again -- though you may want to consider Payment Transaction Dates and Financial Reporting, as the Transaction Date on the new Donation record will reflect the day you re-enter it.
In this case, we recommend you make a note in the "Description" field or in Chatter on the refunded Donation, to clarify why it was refunded. If you use the "Description" field, you'll be able to pull that into a custom report later on, while Chatter is only visible on the record itself.
Q: What if the mistake is on a different field (i.e. not Amount, Payment Type, or Check Number)?
A: Just go ahead and edit the Donation directly! No need to worry about refunding/reprocessing.
What about mistakes on older Donations?
Refunding and reprocessing a Donation to correct a mistake is only necessary if the Donation has a Payment Transaction attached. To check, first click on the "Related" tab on the Donation to view all related records:
Then scroll down to "Payment Transactions" to see if any exist:
If you need to correct a mistake on a Donation that does not have an associated Payment Transaction (either because it pre-dates this release, or because it's not yet Posted), you can edit away, or delete the Donation record freely.
Transaction Dates and financial reporting
Payment Transaction records have a Transaction Date, corresponding to the date and time the transaction record was created. This may differ from the Close Date on the Donation, which is more freely editable.
As a best practice, we recommend that the Close Date match when you received the Donation, which is ideally the date it was entered in PatronManager -- and thus also matches the Transaction Date.
There are two cases in which you might not want the Close Date to match the Transaction Date:
- You need to correct a mistake in the Amount, Payment Type, or Check Number fields on a previously-entered donation
- When you refund and reprocess the Donation, the newly-processed Donation's Payment Transaction Date will be the date you process it (not the date of the original Donation)
- That new Payment Transaction Date is where it will now appear on your comprehensive financial reports
- In this case, it's a good idea to make a note in the Description (reportable) or Chatter (not reportable) about why the Donation was refunded and reprocessed
- The Donation was received in one fiscal year, but should be applied to a different fiscal year
- We recommend you use a custom "Fiscal Year Applied" field to track this instead, and have the Close Date consistently reflect when you received the gift. You can set up an automation to fill in the field automatically and accurately 99% of the time, and add it to your Donation page layouts so you can adjust its value when necessary
Donation Transaction FAQs
Donation Transaction records will only take effect for all Donation Payment Types going forward. That means prior Donations (those with Close Dates prior to this release) won't be included in comprehensive financial reports, as those rely on the Payment Transaction record.
If you would like to have Payment Transaction records created for previous Donations, so that you can include them in the forthcoming packaged reports, our data specialists can help you out with a paid data project. Submit a support request for more information, and let us know how far back you'd like to go (for example, you may wish to backfill for the current fiscal year, if it started prior to July 1).
Head to Organization Settings via the waffle to find the enabled date:
If you choose to have us backfill Payment Transaction data, we'll also update this field so you'll always know how far back you can run comprehensive transaction-based financial reports.
That's fine! As long as the Close Date is on or after the date Donation Transactions took effect, the Donation record will receive a Payment Transaction record when you close it as Posted.
That's alright, too! Donations with Close Dates prior to the date Donation Transactions took effect won't receive Payment Transactions even if you change the Stage to Posted (for example, to correct a mistake from a previous year). This keeps your data clean and prevents inconsistencies in your historic data, allowing you to run accurate reports.
Payment Transactions are not created for Parent Donation records (e.g. Grant), but will be always be created for the child Payment records (e.g. Grant Payment).
You should check out this step in our preparation guide to make sure you have your Donation Record Types set up correctly -- otherwise parent record types like Grant and Pledge might receive Payment Transactions, which would result in double-counting money.
Q: Child? Parent? A little more explanation, please?
A: If you're using PatronManager functionality to track Grants, Pledges, and/or Group Sales, you enter information on the parent record (e.g. Grant) to track the entirety of the interaction -- the total amount of the Pledge or Grant, along with any supporting documentation, for example. Then, you enter child Donation records (e.g. Grant Payments) to track the actual money paid toward that larger commitment.
More of a visual learner? Here's a flowchart for you!
Whew, that was a lot of info. Do you have any adorable gifs?
