[nisaac]

For the umpteenth time we are revisiting how we separate our donation mail/online credit cards into batches. There are always many factors we consider: how we circulate our associated documents, how batches affect balancing our bank rec, how we combine them for deposits to the bank. I'd love to hear from anyone who has gone through this thought process.

Currently, we separate our batches daily into online transactions, non-credit card donations and non-online credit card donations (separated into two batches by different credit card types). After they are posted to FE, we separate the batches for distribution so the correct people see them quickly.

The factors that come into play are circulation (different people need to do things with the mail) and bank reconciliation (credit cards come through at different times - we post in summary).

We are always searching for the most efficient way to handle this process. Is anyone else working through this process?

[CChesler]

Nora -
At my former employer - the bank reconciliation process drove the issue of batch creation. Every batch had to match a corresponding line on the bank statement. On any given day we could have 10 to 12 batches. We also tried to limit the size of a batch to no more than 45 records. In peak event season, it could run as many as 20 batches for one day if we separated the "in house" cash and check batches.

Standard breakdowns for us were:
Lockbox cash/check batches - size and number of gifts determined by the bank.
Lockbox Visa/MasterCard
Lockbox Discover
Lockbox AmEx
Online Visa/MasterCard from the bank
Online Discover from the bank
Online AmEx from the bank
Online VisaMasterCard from IATS
Online Amex/Discover from IATS
In house checks and cash
In house Visa/Mastercard
In house AmEx
In house Discover

Batches were then filed by batch, by date. That's how the accounting staff and the auditors wanted it. Development staff got copies of checks if they needed them, and got the information they needed from reports.

Candace Chesler

[nisaac]

Thanks so much, Candace. I see you faced the same issues we do. We've figured that we should make the credit batches to help with bank rec. How did you separate your online IATS batches? We use Net Solutions now (BBNC soon).The batches come in one batch.

[CChesler]

Nora -
We used NetCommunity for our online IATS transactions. We were able to select specific transactions to be included in the daily batch. We would sort the transcation grid by Credit Card type and then by date so we could select the Amex/Discover transactions first. Process those, and then do the MasterCard/Visa transactions.
One thing that caused a challenge for us in the beginning was the date of the transaction. The server IATS
used to process the credit cards was in a different time zone than we were. A gift could have a date stamp of Thursday, March 29th, but be included in the March 28th bank deposit. The cut off time for gifts would range from 1:00 am to as late as 4:00 am Chicago time. We solved this by always printing the Journal Report for the previous day. We compared that list to the transactions waiting to be processed and then knew which ones belonged in the daily batch.

Another small issue - but annoying when we forgot - was to remember to check for Corporate Contributions of the credit card type we were processing. They appear on the second tab - and if my data entry folks forgot to check, then we would have yet another batch for the day, causing the accounting folks to gnash their teeth.

Candace

[nisaac]

Thanks, Candace. This gives me hope. We are moving to BBNC May 1st. Hopefully, we will be able to process the transactions in split batches. That would be a big help.