Contribution statements are individual reports on offerings and pledges that can be used for tax-deduction purposes. Contribution statements also have the ability to show Gifts-in-kind, and nondeductible giving as well. This article will cover each of the options available to you in the Contribution statements report, as well as how to prepare your annual contribution statements.
- Who - This field controls which group of contributors you'll be preparing this report for. A variety of different groups are available, and you can select a particular subgroup by choosing the "* For a subgroup" option, or a particular list or grade by choosing the "* For a list or grade" option.
- Envelope Range - This field allows you to select a specific range of envelope numbers to prepare your contribution statements for. This works in conjunction with the group you select in the "Who" field.
- Offerings from - This field allows you to set what date range of contributions you would like to see represented on your contribution statements.
- Term for "pledge" - This field lets you select what term for "Pledge" should be used if you're showing pledge information on your statements. Pledge is the default option, but if you would like to use your own custom term, select the (custom term) option from the drop list and enter the term you would like to use instead.
- Show difference as - This field is referring to the difference between what has been pledged and what has been given and how that difference is described. The default option is (do not show) which means this difference will be hidden. If you want to show this difference, select one of the other options in this field.
- Funds - This field represents which funds should appear on your contribution statements. Make sure only the boxes of the funds you want to appear on your contribution statements are checked. If you're having trouble finding a fund, you can type the fund name in the "Type here to search..." box and the fund you're searching for will be highlighted. The visibility of your inactive funds is determined by the "Hide inactive funds" box on the far right side of this field.
- Giving Filter - This field will further filter out contributors based upon the criteria you set in this field.
- (no filter) - No additional filtering
- Those who gave - Only contributors who contributed to any of the selected funds during the selected date range will have a contribution statement prepared through this report
- Those who did not give - Only contributors who did not contribute to any of the selected funds during the selected date range will have a contribution statement prepared through this report.
- Those with a pledge - Only contributors who pledged to at least one of the selected funds during the selected date range will have a contribution statement prepared through this report.
- Those behind on a pledge - Only contributors who pledged to at least one of the selected funds during the selected date range and have not fulfilled their pledge for the time period will have a contribution statement prepared through this report.
- Sort by - This field controls what order to print your contribution statements in.
- Envelope name - This will print out your contribution statements in alphabetical order, by the last names of the contributors on each envelope.
- Envelope number - This will print out your contribution statements in envelope number order.
- Postal code - This will print out your contribution statements first by postal (or zip) code order then in alphabetical order by the last name of the contributors on each envelope.
- Message - This will allow you to include a custom message on your contribution statements. Click the green + icon to create a new message. In the window that appears, fill in the title of the message in the "Message name" field. Then, in the Message field, you can write up to 3000 characters to include in your message. Click "Save" to save the message that you wrote. Saved messages are stored, and can be selected from the drop list in this field. If you want to edit a saved message, select it in the drop list, and click the pencil icon. If you want to delete a saved message, select it from the drop list and click the trash can icon.
- Show - The show section controls what kind of information appears on your contribution statements. You can select any combination of these options to include in your contribution statements.
- Annual giving history - This option will show annual giving totals broken out by deductible and nondeductible giving, alongside the overall total for each year.
- Attendance summary - This option will show the number of times each giver on an envelope attended during the selected date range of the statements, broken out by attendance types.
- Fund summary - This option will show the total giving, broken out by deductible and nondeductible giving to each fund the contributor contributed to within the date range of the statements.
- Gifts-in-kind - This option will show any gifts-in-kind given by your contributors during the selected date range of the statements.
- Giving by date - This option will show each date a contributor contributed to any of your selected funds within the selected date range. A deductible, nondeductible and overall total will also be shown.
- Itemized giving - This option will show each individual contribution a contributor gave during the selected time period, and what fund each of these individual contributions was to. A deductible, nondeductible and overall total will also be shown.
- Pledge summary - This option will show each pledge the contributor made during the selected time period, their pledged-to-date, any gifts-in-kind that have been applied towards that pledge, and their given-to date.
- Quarterly summary - This will show you deductible, nondeductible, and overall totals for giving for each quarter of the year you have at the beginning of your date range. If your date range doesn't include all of a quarter, only offerings from the part of the quarter you have in your date range will be counted.
- Special description - This option will show each individual offering given by this contributor, by date, as well as the fund and any special description on each offering record.
- Options - The options section of the contribution statements provides a few additional settings for your contribution statements. You can select any combination of these options to include in your contribution statements.
- Alternate address if active - If this option is checked, and a contributor has an active alternate address in the membership module, instead of printing that contributor's primary address, the alternate address will be printed instead on the statement.
- Barcode - This will allow you to print out a barcode on your contribution statements. In order for this option to generate the correct barcode for your Church, you'll need to set up Intelligent Mail Barcodes (IMB) in the "Labels" report
- Canadian Format - This will produce an alternate version of the contribution statement that is compliant with the requirements of the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA)
- Do not print if prefers e-mail - This option will make it so any contributors who are designated in their contributor record as preferring to receive their statement via email will not have a contribution statement prepared by this report.
- Do not split out nondeductible - This prints a version of the Statement that only shows the total
given, with no breakout between Deductible and Nondeductible giving. - Preprinted / letterhead - This option will remove the return address for the church in the top portion of the contribution statement.
- Prior-year envelope number - This option will show the contributor's previous envelope number instead of their current envelope number. This only tracks the last envelope number a contributor had, it does not go back multiple numbers.
- Signature image - This allows for the insertion of the signature image you've uploaded in the Tools/Settings section of the Contributions module on your statement. This option is selected by default if your church is located in Canada.
- Move margins - These options allow you to adjust the top and left margins accordingly to accommodate a letterhead, folds you might make on a statement to fit into a windowed envelope or to resolve printer alignment issues. positive values in these fields will move the text down or right accordingly, and negative values will move the text up or left accordingly.
- You can access the Contribution statements report by opening the Contributions module and clicking Other Reports. From there, click on "Contribution statements"
- Select which group of people you're running your contribution statements for in the "Who" section. You can also limit which envelopes you're running your statements for in the "Envelope range" section, and filter for givers based on if they did or did not give, pledged, or are behind on a pledge in the Giving filter field.
- Set the date range for your offerings in the "Offerings from" field
- Set which funds you want to run the statements for in the "Funds" field.
- In the Show section, set what type of giving information you want to include. A typical year-end statement might include Fund Summary, and Itemized giving, and if your church does pledges, Pledge summary. Also, make sure to set your "Show difference as" field if your church does pledges and you want to show the difference between what was pledged and what was given.
- In the options section, set any additional options you may want to have for your statements.
- Click print, and this will start preparing your contribution statements for printing.