Spouse access to online donation history and statements

I just went to the online donations and there is a new message at the top. Apparently they just made some changes so that spouses can optionally view your donation history and generate statements showing donations for both spouses. There is a new setting that turns this on. Pretty cool. And just in time for tax statements.

It says "Did you know that donors have the ability to allow their spouse to view their donations in Donation History".

So it sounds like that person has to make the change to allow the spouse to see it. Spouses can't grant themselves the rights to see it. So the non-managing spouse will have to log in at least once to grant the rights.

eblood66 wrote:I just went to the online donations and there is a new message at the top. Apparently they just made some changes so that spouses can optionally view your donation history and generate statements showing donations for both spouses. There is a new setting that turns this on. Pretty cool. And just in time for tax statements.

It seems to me that it only half works. Yes, it allows you to see your spouse's donations in the Donation History -- and it includes a checkbox that allows you to quickly include or exclude your spouse's donations from the history list. That's a great improvement, and very straightforward implementation.

But I could see no capability for including the spouse's donations in any statements. That is in spite of the fact that the announcement message says "This feature will also allow donors to go to Donor Statements and generate a donation statement showing donations from both spouses."

EDIT: eblood66 clarified that the spouse's donations are indeed in the statements when this option has been enabled; they are just on a separate page or pages in the statement.

aebrown wrote:

eblood66 wrote:I just went to the online donations and there is a new message at the top. Apparently they just made some changes so that spouses can optionally view your donation history and generate statements showing donations for both spouses. There is a new setting that turns this on. Pretty cool. And just in time for tax statements.

It seems to me that it only half works. Yes, it allows you to see your spouse's donations in the Donation History -- and it includes a checkbox that allows you to quickly include or exclude your spouse's donations from the history list. That's a great improvement, and very straightforward implementation.

But I could see no capability for including the spouse's donations in any statements. That is in spite of the fact that the announcement message says "This feature will also allow donors to go to Donor Statements and generate a donation statement showing donations from both spouses."

I assumed that if you can see the spouses donations then they will be included on the statement. Or, perhaps, it would do it based on the checkbox to include spouses name on the statement. I'll see if I can tell using our accounts.

It looks like it doesn't actually generate a completely combined statement. Instead, if you have access to your spouses donation history then it will generate a PDF that has first a statement with your own donations and then on the next page another statement with your spouse's donations. So you still have two statements but you can generate and print them together.

eblood66 wrote:It looks like it doesn't actually generate a completely combined statement. Instead, if you have access to your spouses donation history then it will generate a PDF that has first a statement with your own donations and then on the next page another statement with your spouse's donations. So you still have two statements but you can generate and print them together.

Thanks for the clarification. As I was trying to generate a statement, I saw that there was no option for including or excluding the spouse's data, so I incorrectly assumed that the spouse option didn't affect statements. And then when I saw that the first page of the statement only included my donations, I assumed that my incorrect assumption had been confirmed.

Now that I know that the statements are on separate pages, it makes sense. A statement is more official, and since donations are indeed tied to only one MRN, I can understand why the statement feature was implemented that way.

I noticed in the instructions we are supposed to do something in settings to allow our spouse to view donations. I can't find a place in settings to do that.

zielkee wrote:I noticed in the instructions we are supposed to do something in settings to allow our spouse to view donations. I can't find a place in settings to do that.

It's in the Preferences section of Settings -- a check box labeled "Allow spouse to view my donations".

In the attached screen shot, you can see the checkbox. Note also that just above the checkbox is a notice that says "You have been authorized to view donations for: Doe, Jane" -- that appears if your spouse has authorized you to view their donations.

That option isn't there for everyone. I'm not sure exactly what's required to make it appear. If the only requirement is to be currently married, or if your spouse also has to have a LDS Account that is associated with their MRN.

I doubt if this option would work for non-member spouses. Yes, they can still donate with a non-member account, but without a MRN, the system won't know who they are married to.

russellhltn wrote:That option isn't there for everyone. I'm not sure exactly what's required to make it appear.

At her account, your spouse has to authorize you to see her donations. If she does, the option to view them shows up on your account. And if you authorize your spouse to see your donations, she will then get a box allowing her to view your donations.

In other words, each spouse has to authorize the other spouse to view their donations.

russellhltn wrote:That option isn't there for everyone. I'm not sure exactly what's required to make it appear. If the only requirement is to be currently married, or if your spouse also has to have a LDS Account that is associated with their MRN.

Clearly, the option is pointless unless both spouses have LDS Accounts linked to their MRN. Only if both accounts are linked to their respective MRNs can the system verify that they are spouses. And only if both have LDS accounts can spouse #1 sign in to authorize spouse #2, and spouse #2 sign in to see the transactions and statements for spouse #1.

aebrown wrote:Clearly, the option is pointless unless both spouses have LDS Accounts linked to their MRN.

I agree it's useless until then. But I'm wondering if the option will still appear - it just won't be functional until both accounts are setup.

russellhltn wrote:

aebrown wrote:Clearly, the option is pointless unless both spouses have LDS Accounts linked to their MRN.

I'm wondering if the option will still appear

If your spouse has an LDS Account linked to the correct MRN, the option will appear.