Online Donation Batch - Category adjustments

Hello all - back in the clerking business and new to finances online.

I recently had to adjust a couple of different online donations, both were for a Ward Missionary, one where the father had donated to General Mission rather than his son's Ward Missionary Account, and the other was a donation from a member to a missionary that has returned home, but has a 0 in their account, and hadn't fallen off the list yet.

The question. When I adjust the category, it asks to print the donation slip to store with the 'batch' - however, because they are online donations I do not have a batch paperwork for them. It got me wondering what others are doing with online donations? Should we regularly be printing/storing them physically? Should I just print the one that is affected by the chaned donation category and just keep the ones that required adjustment?

thanks all!

johnshaw wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:42 am Should I just print the one that is affected by the chaned donation category and just keep the ones that required adjustment?

No experience with the current system, but that's what I'd do.

The question I have is should the change be made just from a verbal request, or should there be something written to show it was the member's request? I think at minimum, I'd add a note on the changed receipt saying who requested it when. The old cover your rear approach while minimizing the hoops people have to jump though.

That's a good thought, I didn't think about it as both persons were in the clerk office with me when we made the changes, but I certainly could follow up with that. But that still leaves them just sitting in my folder for the month and not tied to a specific donation batch summary print-out.

Is the retention of local donations still 3 years plus current? When I clerked, we'd file each week into it's own envelope and then toss them into a "donations" folder for the month in the file cabinet. I'd file this paper work in the "donations" folder for the same period.

No, it won't be associated with any batch. Perhaps a new envelope for "Online"?

johnshaw wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:42 am The question. When I adjust the category, it asks to print the donation slip to store with the 'batch' - however, because they are online donations I do not have a batch paperwork for them. It got me wondering what others are doing with online donations? Should we regularly be printing/storing them physically? Should I just print the one that is affected by the chaned donation category and just keep the ones that required adjustment?

I just printed it and filed it with the batch that was nearest to the date of the online donation. But I'm not sure that printing it is it's really needed for a change to an online donation. For a change to a ward donation batch you definitely want the printed documentation so that the auditor can easily see the reason for the difference between the donation slip and the finance records. But online donations aren't audited so the auditor will never look at it. And records retention isn't really relevant because the documentation is all stored online. But since it says to print it, I did anyway.

I would not recommend printing all online donation records. There has been no instruction to do that and it seems like it's just creating additional sensitive paper records without a purpose.

Unless there's a comments field when making a correction, I'd still feel more comfortable about printing it and then writing on it the reason for the correction. Otherwise, all that shows is the member entered one thing and you changed it to another with no paper trail as to "why".

russellhltn wrote: Mon Feb 12, 2024 8:46 pm Unless there's a comments field when making a correction, I'd still feel more comfortable about printing it and then writing on it the reason for the correction. Otherwise, all that shows is the member entered one thing and you changed it to another with no paper trail as to "why".

Yes, it requires that you enter a reason for the adjustment before you can save it. But it doesn't let you upload any documentation. So if you have some written documentation you probably want to file it and having the printout of the change would certainly make sense. But if you just have verbal instructions, then the adjustment reason should be sufficient (unless the reason is complicated--there is a length limit).