CONTACT USBack to MinistryPlatform Site
Your Knowledge Base has moved to the new Help Center.  Check out the release notes for details. And don't forget to update your bookmarks and in-house documentation before May 28.

Manual Entry Donations

 
To enter a donation manually via MinistryPlatform:
 
  1. Go to Stewardship > Donations > New.
  2. Complete the information for the Donation
     
    • Input all required fields. (If the Donor is not found immediately, select the “***Default Contact” for now, type any information about the donor into the notes field. Refer to the Assign Donor process to find or create a Donor.
    • Input the Item Number, if desired.
    • Do not complete the Batch at this time. 
  3. Click Save. The record returns to a read-only display and a sub-page called Distributions appears.
  4. Click New on the Distributions sub-page to create at least one distribution to indicate how the donor wishes the funds to be used.
  5. Click Save on the new Distribution, then click Close.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for any additional Distributions the donor has indicated. Make sure the sum of the Distribution amounts is the same as the Donation Amount.
  7. Once all Distributions have been completed, close the Donation record.
  8. Create any additional Donations following steps 1-7:
    • For manually adding recurring Donations, you can use the Copy action and set the appropriate recurrence pattern. However, this should only be done if the recurring Donation is already set up in Authorize.net, but needs to be added to the Platform due to an error.
  9. Review the Donations you've entered. Pay special attention to the Donation Amount and Distribution Amount fields to ensure they are the same.

Practical Tips & Tricks

How you process donations from a service is a very church-y decision.  But here are some tips & tricks:
  • Use a combination of volunteers and staff to count and stack all cash and checks. 
  • Checks are sorted into stacks of no more than 50. 
  • Checks are sorted into stacks based on designations (single designations to a specific congregation in one pile, single designations to a building campaign in another, mixed designations in another).
  • Check stacks are counted and tallied and a receipt from the calculator is attached to the stack (usually with the counter and verifiers initials on it).
  • Some sort of excel spreadsheet is filled in either on paper or computer with a listing of how many checks and the amount for each stack (include the type of stack).
  • Stacks are then scanned into the BMT as individual batches. 
  • Batches are verified using one of the Reports (most churches run the "Batch Summary Report"). 
  • Once all numbers match, the deposit is made to the bank.