Donation Entry: How to Enter Batch Transactions
Introduction
If your organization receives checks, cash, or donations from another source outside of CharityEngine, you may want to use our Batch Entry tool. This will allow you to enter and process transactions without having to create transactions individually. This will save you time when preforming this task.
Table of Contents
Prerequisite
Before you start entering batch transactions, make sure your batch template includes fields you want to capture. You can have different templates for different types of transactions, and collect different information on each template. To create or manage your batch templates, navigate to Configuration and under the Transaction section, click on Batch.
Click create new in the upper right corner to create a new batch template or click to manage your existing batch template. Enter in the name of the template on the General tab and on the fields tab, toggle yes/no on the fields you want to display/remove on your batch template. You can also mark fields as required in order to ensure certain data points are captured.
Click Save to create or update your batch template.
Setting Up the Batch
To enter a batch, navigate to the Donation Application then under Quick Actions click on New Batch
On the General Tab, name your batch, select the deposit date, select the template, and the payment method. You can only have one payment method per batch, therefore if you have multiple different payment methods, you will need to create a new batch for each method. Additionally, you can enforce the number of rows and amount for the batch to ensure that the amount and number of transactions match to what you physically have.
Once the general settings have been entered, click the Save button. After you click Save, additional tabs will appear at the top where you can configure other settings. on the Default tab, you will be able to select the default fund and initiative for all the transactions in the batch.
On the Acknowledgement tab, you will be able to select the receipt, acknowledgement, and statement emails that will be sent to the donors. Use the dropdowns to select the template that will be sent. You do not have to select one of each, only select the type of email you want to send to the donor.
Lastly, on the advanced tab, you will be able to configure some other settings like the Quickbooks account that the batch will be synced to, the processor these should be processed on if you have multiple payment gateways, and even change the gift date if you are processing the batch after the date the gift was made.
Note: If you want to overwrite any of the contact information with the information entered into the batch, ensure that the Overwrite Contacts fields is toggled to yes. This will update the contact record with whatever new data is entered. For example, if John Doe's contact record shows 123 Sesame Street as his address, and you enter 8200 Greensboro drive as the address in the batch, if the overwrite contacts is toggled to yes, his address will be updated to the new address. If overwrite contacts is toggled to no, the address will be captured on the transaction record, but it will not change the contact record.
Entering Batch Transactions
Once all your settings have been configured, click on the dropdown next to save and click on Transactions to navigate to enter the transaction on the batch.
You will then be able to enter in the transaction information
Contact Information
In the contact information section, you will be able to enter the name of the contact record, or click on the magnifying glass to search for an existing record. If the contact already exists, you can prepopulate all of their information, such as address, email, and phone number.
Transaction Information
After you enter in the contact information, you will be able to enter in the amount, frequency, and payment method specifics. If the payment method is set to check, the check number and date will appear as fields, but if the payment method is set to credit card, the credit card number and expiration dates will appear. If you set the default initiative and fund in the settings, the campaign, initiative, and fund will be auto populated, otherwise you will be able to enter that information in those fields.
If the contact record is associated with any accounts such as a sustainer, pledge, or membership, the Accounts section will appear in the batch where you can use the magnifying glass to search for the invoice or the account you want to attribute the donation to.
If your template contains any additional field, make sure you fill out the appropriate fields. After you enter in the first transaction, click Add Row to add the next transaction.
Processing the Batch
After you have entered in all of the transactions for the batch, click on the dropdown next to save, and click Process.
After the batch has been process, a green bar will appear at the top of the screen where you can then navigate to the transaction listing screen to view the transactions.
