Overview
This article shows the steps to add a donation and enter a transaction. Use these steps to also enter items like bounced checks if desired.
Linked Articles:
- VIDEO: Adding Contacts & Transactions
How To Add Transactions
You can add new Transactions using the green + Add New button located in the upper left-hand corner of all Kindful pages.
This modal will appear, and you will fill out each of the elements to complete the transaction entry. Read on for further information on what each element means and how to use them.
What The Elements Mean
Contact
To choose the contact to assign the donation to, begin typing in letters. After four (4) letters have been entered, suggestions will appear in the dropdown menu. Hover over the contact with your mouse, highlighting it in blue, and click to select.
If the contact has an email address on file, you will see a checkbox appear with an option to send the donor an emailed receipt at the time of entry. This box is checked by default and does not appear until you enter the contact's name. You will see an option to add an email to this contact to send a receipt if the contact does not have one on file. Be sure to uncheck it if the transaction has previously been receipted.
Campaign
Click to choose a Campaign assignment for the donation entry from a dropdown menu. The campaign you choose will control the Default Fund (found in the Advanced Options) as well as the Custom Field options.
Designation
This is only available if the feature has been activated by our Care team or if you are using the QuickBooks integration. If you do not use this feature, you will not see it as an option.
Date
This is the gift date. We recommend using the date that the donor indicates on their donation (e.g. the date written on the check).
Transaction Type
This will correspond to the transaction types that Kindful offers. These can be set by you manually or they can be set via an integrated application like Classy or QuickBooks. These values are both filterable and exportable.
Amount
This is the amount of the donation.
Admin Note
Use this field to add in any additional notes surrounding the donation. These will be exportable as well as accessible when editing a transaction. Donors do not see the Admin Note.
Has Been Acknowledged
Check this box to indicate that this gift has been acknowledged apart from the automatic receipting functionality. Checking this box will remove this gift from being eligible for any lists you have setup using the Acknowledgements tool.
Campaign Custom Fields
Setup Campaign Custom Fields to track additional layers on your donations. Track questions such as "Is this donation in honor of someone?" or "How did you hear about us?". These custom fields are tied to and dependent upon the Campaign, so the values will be different as you toggle between Campaign options.
Advanced Options (including Fund)
Set the Fund on your transactions. The standard practice is that Kindful will adhere to the Fund that is set on the Campaign level. This is controlled when you Create or Edit a Campaign. However, if you wish to assign this transaction to a different fund, you can deselect the "Use Default Fund" checkbox, which will give you the option to choose a different Fund via a dropdown menu. This selected Fund can be different than the one linked to the Campaign.
Of Note: If you are wanting to track "restricted donations" (gifts for a particular purpose), we advise having a separate "Restricted Fund" that you can use to designate particular donations. Using our feature of manually overriding a Fund would be of great use in this case.
Advanced Options also include the options to set the Non-Tax Deductible Amount as well as the description for this.
Split
You can split transactions across multiple Campaigns. Use this when a donor gives a gift and wants some of the dollars to be allocated to one spot and other dollars to another spot.
If you split a transaction, you must enter enough splits to total up to the entire parent transaction amount.
Manage Soft Credits
Use this to indicate that a donation was made by way of another entity. An example here would be a donation made to your organization by a contact like the United Way. Along with that donation from the United Way, you receive a list of names. You can assign credit (for the United Way donation) to these contacts, as long as they exist in your database prior to entry.
Another example would be crediting a contact for another contact's donation because you know that they suggested and encouraged the donor to give.
You do not have to enter in soft credits equal to the parent transaction amount.
Use Credit Card
Use this to process the donation from a payment method stored on a contact's profile. If there is no payment information stored on the assigned contact's profile, the option here will be greyed out.
Cancel
To stop what you are doing, and not enter the activity, click Cancel.
Create
Use this to Save the activity and add it to your Kindful account.
Of Note: If you receive the same gift every month (a manual recurring donation), there is not a way to duplicate the donation in a manner that will include all details (split information, admin notes, custom field values, etc.). You must enter in the new donation each month.
Handling Unique Cases like Bounced Checks
Ultimately, the "best" way to handle this will depend on your preference. Since you received no money, you could simply record nothing in Kindful. Or if you'd prefer to have the record in Kindful, and already have a check transaction recorded, you might consider using the "Cancel" option. To do this, find this transaction on the main Activities page, expand it using the blue arrow on the right side, and click "Cancel". This will let you essentially show a void activity that will "zero out" the transaction.
Of Note: Select the "Back date" option when cancelling a check to make the cancellation appear on the same date as the check. Otherwise, it will be two separate Activities - one for entry and one for cancellation.
Filtering and Reporting
Filtering for the activities you enter is done via the Activities page. You can use the Basic Search along the top of the page to create a custom view.
From here, you can Create Custom Reports.
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