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Data Entry: How to Input Individual Payments
Jessica Mocha 5/29/2024 2:35:00 PM

Introduction

There may be times where you have to manually enter a transaction into CharityEngine, such as when you receive a cash or a check donation, or if you take donations on a different platform other than CharityEngine and the transaction did not come through a web form. If CharityEngine is your system of record, in order to keep reporting accurate and up to date, you will want to add these transaction to CharityEngine. Manually creating a transaction is very easy and all you need is the contact record, or create one if the record does not already exist, and some basic transaction information. You will also be able to attribute the transaction with different initiatives, funds, or even attribute the transaction to an existing sustainer or membership account.


Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for manually creating a transaction


Instructions - Where Users Can Enter Donations

There are multiple locations in which a user can enter a singular donation.Entry allows users to maximize their individual standard operating procedures.
New Payment: Access the Donations App > Quick Actions > New Payment
New Transaction: Access the Donations App > Transactions > Search & Manage > Create New > New Transaction
Transaction: Access the Contacts App > Organization & People > locate contact record > Add+ > Transaction
Note, users also have the ability for bulk entry, see the following articles for additional support:


Workflow Reference - Contact Information

The first step in creating a transaction is to add or attribute a contact to the transaction. This contact can be an individual person, an organization, or a household. To indicate the contact record type, select from the three options by clicking on the contact record type.
Note, if the user is entering a transaction from a flow that is driven from the contact record, the contact information will be pre-filled.


Note: Best practices for adding new contacts - CharityEngine encourages entering information into all fields. This step ensures that the matching logic is leveraged to locate any existing donors. If no donor is located, the workflow will create a new contact to assign the transaction.

Contact Name

You will need to enter the full name (first name, last name for people) of the contact (person, organization, or household) associated with the transaction



Click on the gear to input additional fields necessary to either match or create the contact



In addition to the fields you see by default on screen, you will have the ability to add:

  1. Prefix, suffix, and middle name
  2. Donor employer (if necessary)
  3. Donor Title
  4. A birthdate
  5. Gender

Note: if you are collecting donor birth date information, consider setting up a drip campaign that sends out happy birthday emails to your donors

If the contact type is an organization, you will have the ability to add

  1. the organization type
  2. the industry of the organization
  3. the point of contact



If the Contact type is Household, you will have the ability to add:

  1. Head of Household
  2. Spouse



Contact Matching: Promoting Record Data Hygiene

At any point upon information associated with your transaction, a match associated with the data can be found. The more information that is entered into the fields, the better the database will be able to provide a match.

If a match is found, the possible matches will appear on the side of the screen, with the matches listed in the closest match order.



If no matches are populating, but you are positive the contact record exists, you can always try a broader search to provide an extra check against all records in your CRM



After searching the entire database, if no contacts match, click create a new record to create a new contact with the information provided in the fields.

 

Contact Address

By using our new feature, Google Maps API, when you begin typing the donor address, results will auto-populate



You will be able to add additional address details, the same way contact details were added, by clicking the gear button



Note: additional addresses can be added later when you manage the contact record.

Contact Phone Number

By clicking the gears for the phone number, you will be able to identify the phone number category – home, office, other, add an extension, and attribute number type – landline, mobile, fax



Contact Email Address

By clicking the gears for details, you can identify if the email is a home, office or other type of address




Note: Delineating email address type helps your marking teams be more strategic in targeted campaigns and initiatives

 


Workflow Reference - Transaction Information


After you have attributed the transaction to a specific contact, you will be able to enter the payment information

The two key fields to note are the Amount and Method fields.



When selecting the method type, the drop-down will include Cash, Check, Credit Card, Bank Account, Electronic Check, In-Kind, Other, and None

 

Payment Method: Credit

When the Credit method is selected, the processor and the mode will be set the default settings that can be changed if needed.



Payment Method: Electronic Check and Bank Account

By selecting either Electronic Check or Bank Account, almost all the same fields will appear. The only fields that differ are the Check Number field for electronic check and the ACH Type field for Bank Account. Entering the correct information is crucial and will help with locating the transaction more easily.




Note: The only required fields for ACH and Electronic Checks are the Account Number and the Routing number. All other fields will assist in locating the transaction and ensure funds are withdrawn from the correct account.

Payment Method: In-Kind

An In-Kind donation is a non-monetary donation, such as a car, clothing, or food products.



Payment Method: Offline

Cash or check payments that were made in person are considered offline payments.

 

With Cash payments, the only information that needs to be entered is the amount



With Check payments the check number and date should be entered to provide easier reconciliation with your finance team.




Workflow Reference - Other Attributions


Once the user has entered the contact and transaction information, the user can assign other attributions to the transaction through the workflow. These entries will include:

Opportunities

Any accounts or opportunities that the contact record has been associated with in the past will display as options to attribute to the transaction record. This makes it easier to assign the transaction to the correct account while creating it.

Account

In this step, the user will be presented with any previously identified accounts which may include pledge, sustainer, membership account types.

Campaign Initiative

On the Campaign Initiative tab, the user will have the ability to search for an initiative to attribute to the transaction. Select Click to Select Initiative. This will initiate a pop up appear where the user can search by name or Id of the initiative.

Advanced

The Advanced tab will allow the user to attribute a specific fund, GL code, and/or response channel to the transaction. This step will also allow manual entry of any transactional custom fields



Confirm

Finally, on the Confirm step, the user will confirm all attributions and entry before transaction creation.



By following the above steps you will be able to create transactions manually and attribute them just as they would through a web from.



FAQs & Additional Resources

Q. How do I process a refund, credit, partial credit, or charge back?
A. Learn more in our article Donations: Processing Outgoing Payments/Credits

Q. Where can I complete batch processing of donations?
A. Learn more in our article Donations-Batch Entry: How to Set-up & Enter Donations Via Batch Processing

Q. I have historical transactions/external transactions that I need to import into CharityEngine. How can I achieve this action?
A. Learn more in our article Data Importing: How to Import Transactions



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