Duplicate Personal Entry

[emellesee]

I've found a duplicate personal entry, but I don't think I can delete one of them because there is a different envelope number linked to each one. I think what happened is that this person attended here, got an envelope number, stopped attending for a while and then got added into the database again and assigned a new envelope number. If one of the envelope numbers isn't current, can I delete that personal profile? If I leave both in the database, the duplicate keeps printing on church directories.

[NeilZ]

I've found a duplicate personal entry, but I don't think I can delete one of them because there is a different envelope number linked to each one. I think what happened is that this person attended here, got an envelope number, stopped attending for a while and then got added into the database again and assigned a new envelope number. If one of the envelope numbers isn't current, can I delete that personal profile? If I leave both in the database, the duplicate keeps printing on church directories.

What you can do is this:

Have the financial secretary (or whoever has full read/change/delete access in contributions) MOVE one of the envelopes using the [b\Reassign an envelope number[/b] function. You just need to decide which personal record you want to use, then reassign the other envelope to that one's number.

Then you can delete the one you don't want.

This presupposed that they are both listed under the same Mailing List Record. If not, you have to MOVE the personal record you want to delete to the Mailing List record of the one you want to keep.

Confused yet ??

Then you do the envelope number reassignment, and delete both the personal record as well as the extra mailing list record that was created.

How to prevent this happening again!!
This is what we instruct our counters to do:

When they get a check for someone they think is NOT in the database. At least, it doesn't come up in the list that they can search on in Contributions Entry. Go into the 'add a new contributor' module.

Then Just enter the LAST name of the person. If the system sees that there are records with that last name, it will pop up a dialog box that will tell you that, and do you want to EDIT them.

You do, select the EDIT button, and you will then get a list of people with that last name. You can scroll through the list looking for a match. If you can't find a match on the first name, I usually look for a match on the Address. What usually happens is that sometimes a couple will have different checking accounts, each in their own name. So, you find the matching address, and use that one for the contributor. There's no need to assign a number as its already been assigned. However, they need to jot down the name on the check, so the membership secretary can add it to the mailing list record.

Quick example:

Check comes in for Tom Brown. Tom is not listed as a current contributor. You click the Add Contributor button, enter the last name. The dialog box appears, you have some Browns in the database already. Up comes a number of Browns, but one, Ann has the same address. You select that one, click NEXT, verify the name, click NEXT and use that name for the contribution.

Hope this helps.