User Support Forum

We had to enter a $1 pledge amount for church members who did not pledge in order to create a monthly file for our envelope company. Now all those $1 pledges are causing headaches in our canned reports. Because of that, I have had to start working with custom reports. However, I still need to replace the $1 pledges with a zero. I found the expression builder on the tot_pled field properties, but have no idea what the expression should be like or if this is even the correct place to try this. If the $1 can be replaced with zeroes on the reports, will I be able to sum that field correctly, using the zeroes instead of the $1 pledges? Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

nvrgvup wrote:We had to enter a $1 pledge amount for church members who did not pledge in order to create a monthly file for our envelope company. Now all those $1 pledges are causing headaches in our canned reports. Because of that, I have had to start working with custom reports. However, I still need to replace the $1 pledges with a zero. I found the expression builder on the tot_pled field properties, but have no idea what the expression should be like or if this is even the correct place to try this. If the $1 can be replaced with zeroes on the reports, will I be able to sum that field correctly, using the zeroes instead of the $1 pledges? Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

It would probably be better to delete the entire pledge, not just zero out the amount.

That said, why does the envelope company need to have a pledge for each envelope ??

A lot of families did not want to pledge, but were willing to contribute as they could. So, we are providing everyone with an envelope in their monthly packet, along with a "record of contribution card" that includes their pledge amount, and total amount contributed so they can keep track. You can't enter a pledge for a family with a 0 pledge, trust me, I tried! This was the only way we could figure this out. For the envelope company, we create an excel file using the custom report option, a query getting the envelope number, total pledged, total pledge received. I then replace the $1 pledges with a zero on the spreadsheet, etc. and then upload a comma delimited file to the envelope company. It works great, except for our reports!

nvrgvup wrote:A lot of families did not want to pledge, but were willing to contribute as they could. So, we are providing everyone with an envelope in their monthly packet, along with a "record of contribution card" that includes their pledge amount, and total amount contributed so they can keep track. You can't enter a pledge for a family with a 0 pledge, trust me, I tried! This was the only way we could figure this out. For the envelope company, we create an excel file using the custom report option, a query getting the envelope number, total pledged, total pledge received. I then replace the $1 pledges with a zero on the spreadsheet, etc. and then upload a comma delimited file to the envelope company. It works great, except for our reports!

I take it that your envelope company does not use a format that can be exported directly from Powerchurch. I also take it that your envelope company is tracking your pledges for you?

You are correct, we can't export directly from Powerchurch. No, the envelope company is not tracking our pledges, they are only providing the envelope and record of contribution card.

nvrgvup wrote:You are correct, we can't export directly from Powerchurch. No, the envelope company is not tracking our pledges, they are only providing the envelope and record of contribution card.

Then wouldn't just exporting the name & address, along with the envelope number work just as well ??

Oh, if it were only that easy! You know, companies will provide the service, but you have to give them your data in THEIR format AND it all has to be on one file. I think I have tried everything, and I appreciate your help. I was just hoping I could manipulate those $1 pledges on the reports to take some of the manual work out of the process, but I don't think that's going to be the case. I can query that database to get the total number of $1 pledges, and we will just have to subtract that amount from the total pledges. I may push for the majority of the reports to only report "actual" pledges (those greater than $1). Thanks again for your help.