Below are a list of questions and answers culled from webinars regarding the updated Contributions module in the 8.9 version of Shepherd's Staff. This has been updated with additional questions as more webinars have been run, and with updated answers as changes have been made via service pack updates since the initial upgrade.
General questions
Q. Is there a manual available?
A. PDF manuals are compiled and updated periodically from the relevant data in the help center. You can also access the articles directly online in the help center. See link here to download a PDF:
Does-Shepherd-s-Staff-offer-a-Contributions-Manual-8-9-FAQ
Q. Do we get notified when there is a service pack update?
A. There won't necessarily be a notification, but you can click to check for updates on the login screen any time you open Shepherd's Staff if you so choose. Check regularly, just so you don't miss out on anything new and great!
Q. Where can I find recordings of the Contributions webinars?
A. All previously recorded Shepherd’s Staff webinar videos are available on our Youtube channel here: Shepherd's Staff Webinar Series
Q. Can a person with user security run a report that will show names of people and what they have contributed?
A. If they have the proper permissions on their profile they can, yes. This can be done as a batch report, from the Offerings view, or in various formats under Summaries, Analysis and Other Reports.
Batch entry
Q. Have batch numbers been eliminated?
A. Batch numbers are no longer used in the new version. The batches can be identified by the date and the totals or contents.
Q. How do I reprint a batch report?
A. From now forward, you will be able to see previously posted batches by selecting “Posted batches” from the Filter drop-down. Select the one you want and use the Print button at the bottom of the window to select the report you want to print. Due to way the previous version of Shepherd’s Staff was set up, this will only work with batches posted after you upgrade to version 8.9. For prior batches, you will want to find the date in question in the Offerings grid and print from there.
Q. Can offerings still be entered in a batch instead of one at a time?
A. Yes, we won't take the batch entry away! It's still available under the Batches tab under Giving.
Q. Can you see totals by contributors grouped before you post? Helpful when splitting checks over multiple funds when adding $?
A. Yes, there are a number of report options now under Print in the batch entry window, one of which is a checklist by giver.
Q. Can you enter the offerings into the batch by number instead of name?
A. Yes. This may be the default if the user doesn’t have permissions to view the names, but even for those who do, you can check the box that says “Enter by number” to be able to type just the number instead of the name into the Contributor box. You can do the same with Funds. You can enter them by name or check the box to enter them strictly by number.
Q. How do the lock icons work in the batch entry screen?
A. There are three lock icons, for Fund, Check no. and Description. If you click the lock closed, it will “lock in” the option you have selected for that field for any subsequent entries:
- In the case of a Fund, you must first select a fund that will be repeated for each entry thereafter.
- In the case of a check number or description, you can either lock them blank, if you will be entering multiple offerings that do not need those fields used, or lock them with information entered, if that information needs to be applied to multiple offerings. While the lock is closed, those steps in the offering entry will be skipped.
- If you want to change the Fund, Check no. or Description entries at any time, simply click to un-lock the lock on the field in question.
Q. What is the Distribute button for?
A. If a Contributor has an active pledge, the Distribute button will appear on the offering entry line after the Add button. In a case where a Contributor has pledged to more than one Fund, the Distribute button will automatically apply the amount given to those funds proportionally to the pledges made, creating two entries for the giver, and, if a check number was supplied, noting the same number for both entries. You are not required to use the Distribute button if the giver has specified that they want their gift for that week to be applied differently.
Q. Loose offerings is no longer an option. How do we handle these offerings now?
A. You have two options for that now:
- You can use Envelope 0 for Anonymous which is the direct equivalent of “Loose offerings”.
- You also have an option now called "(other giver)", with no envelope number. If you know some details about a visitor or other person who has given, who does not have a Person or Contributor record in the system. When you select “(other giver)”, you will be able to enter the details you have for them.
Q. Does the Other Giver have to be in your membership?
A. No – the purpose of Other Giver is to assign an offering to a person who’s name (and possibly other information) you know, but who does not have a Person Record in Membership. If the person does have a record in Membership, you can assign them an envelope number on the fly in the batch entry screen by clicking the plus sign next to Contributor above the Contributor drop-down, so you don’t have to use Other Giver for them.
Q. Where do you find the other givers after entering?
A. Once the offerings have been entered, they will show up in the Offerings grid as “other giver”. To view specifics of those givers, you can generate a Contribution Statement for them under “Other Reports”. As such, you’ll want to be careful if you use “other giver” for the same person more than once, that you enter their name and information the same way each time, so the report knows it is the same giver each time.
Q. Can I edit a batch to add more offerings to it?
A. Yes, whether a batch was entered straight from the batch entry screen or imported through one of the import methods, as long as it is unposted, you can select it in the Unposted Batches view and click Edit to go in and change or add entries.
Batch import - Vanco
Q. Where do I find Vanco batches?
A. Once you import them, they will show up in the batches grid just like ones you have entered manually.
Q. Where do I go to import Vanco batches?
A. You can still import them under Giving>Batches. At the bottom of that window you'll see an Import button, and the first option there is Vanco. If you have not used the Vanco import in the past, you will need to contact Vanco to set you up with login information for Shepherd’s Staff import – this will be unique from your login for their website.
Q. When I entered a date range to download, it listed offerings that were already posted from that date range. Am I going to accidentally post duplicates?
A. The import will show any Vanco offerings from the date range you enter, but it won’t allow any to go into a batch that have already been posted in a previous batch.
Q. How do you enter a Vanco contribution from a visitor into your contributions?
A. You have two options for this:
- If you want to import the offering with your regular Vanco import, you will have to add the visitor into Membership and then add them as a Contributor so that you can enter their Vanco ID. You can use the “Does not use physical envelopes” check-box in their Contributor record so you don’t have to give them a “real” envelope number.
- If you don’t want to add the visitor as described above, you won’t be able to import their offering through the Vanco import. You can get the details of that offering there or from the reports Vanco sends you and add it to a regular offering batch as Anonymous, or under Other Giver.
Q. Do we need to manually enter each giving ID from Vanco?
A. Yes. A Contributor’s giving ID will need to be added to the Contributor record initially. Then whenever you do your imports going forward, it will know what contributor belongs to that ID.
Q. If I am already using Vanco, will any information change or need entered.
A. If you already have Vanco IDs assigned, you will not re-add them after upgrading, they'll still be there.
Q. Where do we enter their Vanco giver ID?
A. Under Contributors, edit the giver's record. There is a Vanco ID field to fill in there. If someone has more than one ID, you can use Giver ID 2, 3, etc. to fill in extras.
Q. Why would someone have more than one Vanco Giving ID?
A. If, for example a giver signed up for e-giving and text giving separately they might have been assigned separate IDs, or if both members of a couple that give jointly have an account with Vanco, you might need to associate both of their IDs with their Contributor record.
Q. Does the batch report have a total line?
A. Yes, and the second page is a full summary with total.
Batch import - Other Giving Source
Q. What is the Other Giving Sources option for under Import?
A. If you use an online giving platform other than Vanco, you can import a CSV file into Shepherd’s Staff. You just need to make sure that the giver ID for that platform is entered in one of the Giving ID spaces in the Contributor’s record, and that the columns of the CSV line up with what the importer is expecting: Giver ID number, Fund number, Offering date, Amount, Document number, Description, Transaction fee. Fields like Document number, Description and Transaction fee can be blank, but the columns are necessary for the import to work.
Contributors
Q. When I go into "contributors", it defaults to listing by envelope number. How can /I change that to alphabetical?
A. You can sort by either column (or any other) by clicking on the column header. Clicking a second time will reverse the order of the listing.
Q. Please remind me how to find the list of Contributors?
A. In the Contributions module, on the Giving tab, select Contributors from the list on the far left side to get to the grid with all contributors listed.
Q. Even though a person doesn't take an envelope are they still assigned a number?
A. They do still get a number to associate their contributions to, but if you check the box in their contributor record that says “Does not use physical envelopes”, it will assign a number in the 6-digit range and you can leave them off of your envelope box export and labels reports.
Q. Under giving there used to be a field for last date given. I do not see that anymore.
A. That's true. You can look in the Offerings grid for this data, or open a contributor's record and scroll down to the Offerings section to see it as well.
Q. How do I "unlock" a contributor to change their Vanco member number? I often have to do this in order to import their contributions into a batch.
A. Unlock from the grid is no longer an option. Instead, you can edit the Contributor record and make the change there.
Q. What happens when you select does not use envelopes?
A. This gives you the ability to exclude it from your envelope export and box label reports and leaves it out of the renumbering process.
Q. What number is assigned when the member doesn't use envelopes but still gives offerings and wants a year end statement?
A. Checking Does not use physical envelopes assigns a number in the 6-digit range. This will not affect their ability to receive Contribution Statements.
Q. If you make an envelope number joint, can it be separated again later if the couple breaks up?
A. Yes, you can edit the Contributor record for their envelope and un-check the box that indicates they give jointly. Just make sure to assign the envelope to whichever member of the couple is keeping it, and to give a new envelope to the other person, if they both intend to continue giving separately.
Q. With the new update that changes functionality between "Skip this envelope when renumbering" and "Does not use physical envelopes", what happens if we've already been checking "skip when renumbering" since we thought it meant "doesn't use envelopes".
A. If you do nothing everything will work the same for any that were pre-selected. Only ones checked after the update will work in the new way. However you may choose to realign the check boxes. If so, once the service pack update is installed, you can edit your records, unchecking Skip and checking Does not use physical envelopes.
Q. How do you update your envelope provider when your envelope numbers change?
A. After renumbering next year's envelopes, you can export a list of them to provide
Pledges
Q. Can we enter pledges from an excel spreadsheet?
A. There is not an option to import pledges from a spreadsheet, but you can use the mass add utility (find the button at the bottom of the Pledges grid) to add multiple similar pledges.
Q. Do we have to attach the offerings to pledges each time we post a batch?
A. No, you don't have to do that generally, only if you create a pledge after some offerings have been posted for the fund and date range of the pledge.
Q. How do you recalculate if offerings were entered before the pledge was entered (pledge came in later in the year).
A. In Tools/Settings, under Pledge tools, you'll use "Attach offerings to pledges". It tells the system to go re-check for any offerings that have an active pledge for the same date range and apply them.
Q. Can you recalculate for one person only?
A. The Attach offerings to pledges tool will check for anyone who has given prior to the creation of the pledge. If that only applies to one person, then they are the only ones who will be updated.
Q. Is there a way you can save your begin date/end date for each pledge?
A. Yes, when you enter the pledge, the begin and end dates are required fields to be specified.
Q. We are having a pledge drive that covers multiple years. How could I enter that into Shepherds Staff?
A. You can specify a start and end date that go beyond the current year.
Summaries
Q. Can we get a year-to-date total for different funds?
A. Yes, in the Summaries tab in Contributions, select “By fund, year” to the left of the grid, then in the Search field, type in the 4-digit current year and hit enter to get a list with totals thus far for each fund. You can export the grid to Excel as-is or choose one of the options under Print to generate a report in your desired format.