Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

Fundraisers using Sage Fundraising 50 sometimes struggle with how to code gifts that come in after the end of the fiscal (or calendar) year properly. I hope we can clear this up here.

Let’s suppose your organization’s fiscal year runs from January to December. We’ll further suppose that your organization runs an annual campaign each year; we’ll call this campaign the 09 Annual Campaign. The 09 Annual Campaign is made up of two solicitations: the 09 Spring Mailing and the 09 Fall Mailing. All set?

Now, let’s suppose that it’s January 3 and two donations arrive on your desk.
Donation A is a check dated December 31 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.
Donation B is a check dated January 1 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.

How should these gifts be coded?
BOTH gifts should be applied to the 09 Fall Mailing (and, consequently, the 09 Annual Campaign). The GIFT DATE for each should be the date on the check. While the tendency is to want to create an “overflow” or “after year end” solicitation, the truth is, there is no need.

The Result
Donation A is properly contained in tax year 2009 and Donation B is properly contained in tax year 2010. BOTH gifts are in response to the 09 Fall Mailing and the 09 Annual Campaign.

How should you report on these?
When the E.D. asks for a report of all donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation), you can simply use the criteria 09 Annual Campaign (or 09 Fall Mailing solicitation).

When he/she asks for a report of donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation) for the fiscal year (or another set of dates), you will use the DATE of the gift, along with the campaign and/or solicitation to report.

YES, these numbers will be different, but now you know why and can explain to him or her why this is the case. Part of your responsibility, too, is asking the right questions of the person who is asking you for reports.

If you’re still skeptical about not needing to recode the solicitation, the following situation might help you to understand a bit better. Suppose your organization has undertaken a capital or major gifts campaign. A donor has agreed to make a gift to the 09 Major Gifts campaign. She will pay this donation over five years. Each time a gift comes in, it will be coded to the 09 Major Gifts Ask and the 09 Major Gifts Campaign. This will be true for every pledge payment made over the course of those five years. You wouldn’t recode the gifts to come from a different solicitation each year in this scenario; why would you do it to any other gift?

For my Sage MIP Fund Accounting Friends and Family. Wanted to share a neat new trick to deal with MIP v9’s printing issue: print to screen minimizing (drives us all nuts). So when you print to screen and the report minimizes, just double click on the blue bar on top of report and it will enlarge to full view. Thanks Paul.

Or you can wait for your IT folks to install version 10x.

Starting with the release of Sage MIP Fund Accounting v10, Sage recommends that customers upgrade their database engines to SQL Server 2005. This can be either the full version or the Express edition (included on the MIP v10 CD). SQL Server 2000 and MSDE 2000 will still be supported database platforms in v10. However, they are encouraging customers to upgrade to gain the following benefits:
• Better security
• Better performance
• Longer support life (from Sage and from Microsoft)
• Express edition includes SQL Server management tools that were previously only available in
full SQL Server.
Upgrading the database engine will require uninstalling MIP and SQL Server 2000 (or MSDE 2000) first. Instructions for upgrading will be included in the v10 installation instructions booklet. You may also view article #282603 in the knowledgebase at www.sagesoftwareonline.com or contact Soft Trac support atfor more information.

Under Reports>Vendor Activity there is a neat report capability that some of you may already know about. But for some of you Sage MIP users, who have not heard of it, read on.

If you select the canned report under Reports>Vendor Activity called you will see that it looks like a Check Register with the expense coding and the related invoices associated with the payment. The Filter Tab has the settings all set up but please feel free to make customizations. Also feel free to add in the Content Tab a page break by Program or Dept or both or maybe put Program in the body of the report! Have fun getting the report to look the way you want it to, or better yet, the way the auditor would like to see it.

I called my report “Check Register with Expense Coding” – not very original, I know.

An Easy way to set up Prepaid Expenses using MIP

How to Create a Prepaid AP Invoice