Deleting vs. Archiving

[gospeltab]

It feels like our membership lists are getting cluttered. We have deceased members and people who have moved out of state with no contributions within the last 10 years. If we delete these individuals, does it delete the information from those years if we ever wanted to print reports? And would we ever need to print those reports?

I have archived these people, and make sure they don't show up on current reports, but they still show up on lists in the contributions modual, etc.

My desire is to delete, but it feels a bit scary to actually do it. I appreciate thoughts!

[NeilZ]

It feels like our membership lists are getting cluttered. We have deceased members and people who have moved out of state with no contributions within the last 10 years. If we delete these individuals, does it delete the information from those years if we ever wanted to print reports? And would we ever need to print those reports?

I have archived these people, and make sure they don't show up on current reports, but they still show up on lists in the contributions modual, etc.

My desire is to delete, but it feels a bit scary to actually do it. I appreciate thoughts!

A lot depends on the information you want to get. As far as Contributions, here's something I put together a few years ago on how I leverage envelope numbers to segregate donors of one type or another:

I recommend using envelope numbers to segregate donors by active, inactive/deceased/archives, visitors/one-time donations.

Here is what I use, and adjust as needed:

100 thru 999 - Active Envelopes (999 is setup as Loose Cash Offerings)

1000-1999 - Visitors & one time donations (some of these could become members, or moved to the archives after a year of no contributions), also inactive members who have not given in a year, but have not yet been removed by your governing board. This allows you to reuse the active envelope number.

2000-2999 - Archives - data that must be kept for at least 4-7 years for IRS purposes.

The active donor range of 100-999 needs no explanation of use.

If a visitor leaves a check or a pew envelope with cash and lists name and address, or a memorial/one-time giving, they're assigned a number in the 1000-1999 range. After the statement is issued, you can move them to the Archive range if there's no further activity for a few months after the statement was issued in January.

The archives are where you would store the data you must maintain for at least 4 years. This includes deceased members if they have no other survivors using the envelope; again moving them here after their estate gets the contribution statement at the end of the year. Also included are transferred members data, the visitor/on-time givers, etc.

Again, this requires that part of the January 'envelope maintenance' (for lack of a better term) would be deleting those envelopes in the archives that have been there for 4 years or longer.

One caveat ... the envelope number 99999 is reserved by the system, I don't think the system will even allow you to save it as an issued envelope number.

If you move all those 'archived' personal profile record envelope numbers into the archive range as I listed above, then when pulling a Contribution report you can just select the 'active' and 'one time' donor range of numbers (100-1999) to pull data.

As I mention above, you have to retain that data for at least 4 years per IRS regulations, but then you can also move the 'one time' donors to the archive range.

You would obviously adjust the size of the envelope ranges based on the number of donors you have.

As far as membership data, for normal reports you would not have the deceased personal profile status selected as one of those statuses selected. If you don't know, you can setup the reports with saved Report Profiles. You can find out more about this in the Powerchurch manual. For V14 its on page 428 of the PDF, and for V15 its on page 341.

Does this help?