Reassigning Envelope Numbers When Two People Have The Same #

[Matt]

I have a situation where the same contribution envelope number is assigned to two people (e.g. husband and wife) in Personal Profiles. Both people belong to the same Family Mailing List. The Pastor would like to assign a unique envelope number to each person. I've done some testing and found that when you reassign the first envelope number PC+ does not attach any of the posted contributions to that person. However, when you reassign the second envelope number PC+ attaches the posted contributions as well. It does not seem to matter whether the person is listed 1st or 2nd in the Directory Sequence Number in Personal Profiles. Accordingly, it appears that if you want the posted contributions to stay against the wife's Personal Profile record you would need to reassign the husband's envelope number first and vice versa if you want the posted contributions to stay on the husband's Personal Profile record. Can anyone confirm that this is indeed the logic PC+ uses when reassigning envelope numbers when two people have the same envelope number and there are posted contributions against that number? Also, does anyone know how the logic would work to assign the posted contributions if you had 3 people in Personal Profiles with the same envelope number (all on the same Family Mailing List) and you needed to assign each person a unique envelope number?

[NeilZ]

I have a situation where the same contribution envelope number is assigned to two people (e.g. husband and wife) in Personal Profiles. Both people belong to the same Family Mailing List. The Pastor would like to assign a unique envelope number to each person. I've done some testing and found that when you reassign the first envelope number PC+ does not attach any of the posted contributions to that person. However, when you reassign the second envelope number PC+ attaches the posted contributions as well. It does not seem to matter whether the person is listed 1st or 2nd in the Directory Sequence Number in Personal Profiles. Accordingly, it appears that if you want the posted contributions to stay against the wife's Personal Profile record you would need to reassign the husband's envelope number first and vice versa if you want the posted contributions to stay on the husband's Personal Profile record. Can anyone confirm that this is indeed the logic PC+ uses when reassigning envelope numbers when two people have the same envelope number and there are posted contributions against that number? Also, does anyone know how the logic would work to assign the posted contributions if you had 3 people in Personal Profiles with the same envelope number (all on the same Family Mailing List) and you needed to assign each person a unique envelope number?

Matt,

its setup this way as most families only give one contribution, and usually its credited against the husband and wife as one tax unit. The only reason we used to issue a separate envelope number for a spouse was if they asked for it, as they filed separately, or if one spouse used a different checking account than the other and they wanted to track the contributions from each account separately.

Normally we didn't add any children to the parent's envelope number, just assigned them a different number.

Now, due to this attachment to the envelope, if you wanted to give one of the couple a new number, all the previous donations would stay with the old number, and the new one would start fresh. The only way to split up the contributions would be to go back through the past year and setup reversing contribution entries for the old number, and add that weeks contribution to the new number. As you know, you would not post these changes to Funds Accounting, but post only to Contributions.

FWIW ... if the pastor wants to assign a new number to each person, then I would start at the beginning of the new year (or the pledge year you use).

That said, I've had a case of a divorce and we basically had to get a letter from the people involved to tell us who would get credited with what !!!

[Jeff]

Matt,

You are correct in how PC+ changes the envelope number. What happens is when you change someone's envelope number, the program looks to see if anyone else has the original envelope number. If someone does, it leaves all the contributions under the original number. If no else has that envelope, then it goes through and moves all the contributions and pledges to the new number.

So if you want to separate people, whoever retains the envelope number, keeps the contributions.

[Matt]

Neil and Jeff,

Thank you for your confirmations of how the program logic works when reassigning envelope numbers. I will pass this on to the Pastor of the church I am working with.