How Do I Receipt Gifts?

After processing incoming Gifts, the next step is typically sending out Gift Receipts. Whether you are sending paper or digital Receipts, the Virtuous Receipting Tool can streamline the preparation and sending of all kinds of Receipts. Using Receipting Groups will allow you to define criteria for which Gifts qualify for which Receipt Templates. This article will provide an overview of the Receipting process, along with some best practice tips. 

Table of Contents 

1. Receipting Overview 
2. Query Tips 
3. Creating Receipting Groups
4. Ordering Your Receipting Groups 
5. Manually Set Group
6. Queuing Receipting 
7. Confirming or Rejecting Runs 
8. Receipting History 

Receipting Overview

1. Build your Receipt Templates. You'll want one Template for every different type of Receipt you want to send out. Check out this article on how to build receipt templates.
2. Build your Receipt Queries. You need one query for every receipt template you will build. We'll go into this in a bit more detail in this article. For more guidance on building Queries, check out this Support Article. 
3. Create your Receipting Groups. This will pair your Receipt Template with the appropriate Gift Query that specifies which Gifts qualify. 
4. Order your Receipting Groups. This step ensures that your Donors receive the most relevant Receipt , should they qualify for more than one Receipting Group. 
5. Queue Receipting. This is your chance to check that all your Queries are set-up correctly as well as ordered appropriately. 
6. Run Receipting. This is the actual execution step that will create the PDF downloads for Mail Receipts or sends out Email Receipts.

Creating Receipting Groups

Receipting Groups allow you to link a Receipt Template with a saved Gift Query, effectively defining the criteria for which Gifts should receive that particular Receipt Template. To create a new Receipting Group, select the Actions button available in the top right corner of the page, and then select "Create Receipting Group."

This will open the New Receipting Group Form.

Receipting Group Name: Each group should have a unique name that makes it clear what type of Gift or Receipt is included. For example, you might have one Receipt Group for "Basic Email Receipt" and another for "Email Receipt - Gift with Premium."

Receipt Code: Each group must have a unique code. You can use the same values as the name or use an abbreviation. The groups used as examples above could have simple codes, like "BER" and "ER-GwP."

Gift Query: Search for the saved Gift Query to be used in identifying which Gifts should be included in the group. You may use criteria about the Gift itself, such as the Gift Amount, Project, Segment, or Premium, or criteria about the Donor.

Receipt Format: Specify whether you would like to select an Email Template or a Mail Template. This will narrow the selections available in the next field.

Receipt Template: Select the Receipt Template to be used for receipting Gifts in this group. Only Receipts with the "Single Gift Per Receipt" type can be selected. "Multiple Gifts per Receipt" templates (typically used for Annual Statements) and Receipt Templates created using the legacy editing (HTML) tool cannot be included in bulk receipting runs.

Use the Preview button to view a preview of your template to confirm you have made the correct selection. When you have entered all the appropriate information, select "Save Receipting Group" to create your new Receipting Group. Repeat this process for each Receipting Group you wish to create.

Ordering Your Receipting Groups

Once you have created all of your Receipting Groups, you'll need to set the order in which Receipts will run. Select the three lines next to each Receipting Group and drag them up or down to re-order. 

All Gifts selected for your Receipting run will be compared to the criteria for the first group in the list. If there is a match, then a Gift will be assigned to that Receipting Group. All Gifts that do not match will then be run against the Query criteria for the next Receipting Group, and then the next, progressing from top to bottom. If a Gift were to match to more than one Query, it will be assigned the Receipt Template for the first Receipting Group it matches. In the example shown in the GIF above, a large Gift that includes a Premium for a Donor who wishes to receive email receipts could match to the Receipt - Large Gift Query, the Receipt - Gift With Premium by Email query, and the Receipt - Email query, but by moving the Large Gift group up, the donor will receive the Large Gift Receipt.

Manually Set Group

The first Receipting Group listed, which you'll see locked to the top spot, is the "Manually Set" group. This Receipting Group will include all Gifts where a Receipt Template has been manually specified during Gift Processing. It is possible for users to set a default Receipt Template when creating an import, or to select a Receipt Template when creating or editing a Gift. This allows for complete control of Receipting, including special circumstances. Gifts where a template has been selected by a user will always be sorted into the first Receipting Group, in order to honor the user action.

Queuing Receipting

Once your Receipting Groups have been created and the order is set, you can begin running Receipts by selecting the Actions button and selecting "Queue Receipting."

This will open the New Receipting Run form.

• Receipt Date: Select a date to be marked as the Receipt Date on all receipted Gifts- this date will be marked in the Receipt Date value on the Gift but WILL NOT be the date used in the Receipt Date Merge Tag on the Receipt (that date will always be the day that you run receipting).
• Gift Create Date Start and End: Set a date range for the Gifts to be included in your receipting run.
  • Note that these dates will be used to identify gifts by Create Date, not Gift Date. This makes it easy to identify all gifts imported on a particular day, for example, and generate receipts for all of them at once.

Once you have made your selections, select "Queue Receipting Run." This will return you to the main Receipting Groups screen, but all of the Receipting Groups will show that they are locked, as your group structure cannot be edited while the receipting process is running. You may choose to do other work in Virtuous during this process, and then return once it is complete.

Confirming and Rejecting Runs

Once your receipting run has processed, you will see counts indicating the number of gifts that have been matched to each Receipting Group. Select the "preview" icon to the right of each number to view the list of Gifts assigned to each group.

If you need to make changes to your Receipting Groups, or your Queries, and then re-run receipting, you can select the Actions button on the right and then choose "Discard Receipting." This means that no receipts will be sent or exported. You can make any necessary changes and then queue a new receipting run.

If there are no changes needed, then you can select the Actions button on the right and select "Run Receipting" instead. This will immediately send email receipts and begin generating exports for all PDF receipts.

Receipting History

Each receipting run will be logged and can be viewed from the Receipting History tab. There, you can view the total counts for Receipts generated, and even see rejected runs and those awaiting approval (runs waiting to either be completed or discarded). Click on the preview icon to the right of each row to view more details about a particular run.

Once you preview a receipting run you'll see the total number of Email Receipts sent, the status of the Email send, and the open rate for those Emails.You can also view Email Receipt Activity in the Email Activity page , available in the Marketing section of Virtuous CRM. You just need to select actions, then "View Activity." This will show you the results of any emails sent (including Receipts) in the last 90 days.