GivingFire’s offline donation tracking allows your organization to track cash and check donations made in-person, enter them into the system, integrate them into your donor database, and track batch deposits in the bank. Batches are bundles of checks & cash that you deposit into your bank at the same time. For example, you might create a single batch for a non-profit fundraising event, a single service on Sunday, or even an entire Sunday's worth of donations. This article will show you how to create an offline batch in GivingFire.
1) Go to the Offline Batch Entry
Click Donations > New Offline Batch from your admin dashboard.
2) Enter in your Offline Donations
Enter in your offline donations using the form with five columns. When you first load the screen, the form only has enough one line for one donation entry, but you can add more by clicking the + symbol to the left of the first line. This form is built for quick data entry, and multiple lines can be entered by pressing Tab after each entry. Pressing Tab at the end of the Amount field will automatically add a new line. You can also add a Fund Split, in case a donor writes one check but wants money from that check to go to multiple funds. To add an additional Fund Split, press the + symbol by the fund, or press Enter at the end of the Amount field.
Here’s an explanation of the data you’ll need to enter:
- Type: This is the type of donation. Options are cash, check, stock, or other/in-kind.
- Ref. #: Optional. This is usually the check number, although some organizations may want to use another ID.
- Donor Name: Start entering the donor’s name, and donors already in the system will appear below for you to select. If a donor is not explicitly selected, a new donor record will be created.
- Fund: Which fund to place the donation into.
- Amount: Amount of the transaction. The “$” is not needed.
3) Enter batch name and deposit time
Under “Batch Information,” enter a descriptive name for this batch that will help you identify it later - “2/2/2019 5PM Service”, etc. Finally, set a deposit time for this batch when you expect to deposit it in the bank. This can be backdated. If you don’t set a deposit time, you can go in later and mark it as deposited, which will change the batch status from "pending" to "deposited".
After you're done, click "Submit Batch" to enter the batch into the system, and you're all set! If you created new donors, you may want to go into the Donor List and update their addresses and emails, if available.
