Knowledge Base

Tales From Tech 2 - Issue: 18b

Part deux of Tech 2's cavalcade of pop culture references disguised as helpful pledge hints.

Today I will be finishing up the Question and Answer session I began in Volume 18A. I hope you've enjoyed everything so far. If not, please forward me your comments and suggestions. I have even set up a new e-mail just for your critiques and criticisms. It's kissmygrits@powerchurch.com. (Okay, okay. I'm just kidding. This newsletter is supposed to be funny. You know I'm just goofing off, right? The actual address for comments is surewhatever@powerchurch.com. Oh mercy. There I go again.)

Anyway, thinking about why the sky is blue reminded me of that old saying: Life is like a box of chocolates; it melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

CLEANING IT UP A LITTLE

Here's a question from Wendy Darling at Neverland Assembly.

"We've been using PowerChurch Plus for the last 26 or 27 years and we've been keeping our contributions and pledges from year to year to year. Our computer ain't what it used to be. How do I clean out some of the old junk from Contributions so things will run a little faster?"

In Version 8, contribution data or pledge records can be deleted simply by using the Delete Old Data option under Contributions.

Obviously, before you delete any information from the system, we would strongly recommend that you make a backup. In fact, we would recommend that you make more than one backup, just to be safe.

Anyway, if you've decided that it's time to clean up Contributions a little, the Delete Old Data option is just the thing for you.

When you click on Delete Old Data, the window that appears allows you to choose to delete posted contributions or pledges. If you choose contributions, you simply enter the date range that you want to delete the contributions for. This date range can be anything you want, but most churches will generally keep at least two years or so on the system. Just don't forget that the program doesn't care what dates you put in these fields and mistyping the dates could delete every posted contribution you have. Scary, but a little exciting too, isn't it?

If you choose pledges on this screen, you can enter a contribution fund number range and a pledge end date. So, let's say you only want to delete all the pledges to the Always Young Fund that ended before January 1, 2000. In the fund range, you put the number for the Always Young Fund in both fields and then January 1, 2000 in the "ending prior to" field. Pledges that end on or after the date you specify will not be affected, just the ones that end before that date. And yes, you could accidentally delete your current pledges if you put in a date after the date they expire on, so be careful!

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

Leia Organa of the Thirteenth Church of Alderaan was terribly distraught when she wrote the following:

"I accidentally deleted someone's pledge. I have a bad feeling about this. Help me Tech 2, you're my only hope."

Well, the answer to this one is actually pretty easy. If you delete a pledge and then decide that you really didn't want to delete it, just add it back.

Hey, that was pretty easy, wasn't it? Of course, you know me; I'm not going to shut up just because I've said enough. Not me. Sometimes I've been known to ramble on and on and on about the smallest of details, but I know that the most important thing is... Oh, wait a minute. I digressed again. Let me get back to the subject at hand.

When you add a pledge record for an individual, the software asks if you want to search for contributions to apply to it. If you choose yes, the program will search though all the posted contributions for this envelope number that are for the same fund number that the pledge is for. If there are any that fall within the pledge date range, they are displayed in a window so you can pick and choose the ones you want to apply. So, if you delete a pledge and then later add it back, you can reapply all the contributions to it with just a few keystrokes.

If you search for contributions when you add the pledge, keep in mind that only the contributions for that fund that are within the date range of the pledge will appear in the list. If there are other contributions that you need to apply to the pledge, you will have to manually apply those by going to the View Posted Contributions screen, finding those contributions, clicking the Change Pledge button and then picking the pledge you want to apply them to.

WHAT'S IT FOR?

Our final question today came from Rick Blaine at Church Americain of Casablanca.

"If it's so easy to apply a contribution to a pledge even though it was given outside the date range of the pledge, what's the Pledge Start Balance all about?"

Prior to Version 8, many users would use the Pledge Start Balance field to enter pledge prepayments. Some used this field to record any over or under payments from prior pledges when they created new ones. In Version 8, you may never need to use this field since it is now so easy to handle pre and postpaid pledges.

In Version 8, an amount in the Pledge Start Balance field doesn't actually have any affect on the amount pledged (in previous versions, it did). It actually affects the amount given. This amount doesn't show on the statement as an actual contribution, but the amount given to the pledge will actually be higher or lower based on any amount (positive or negative, respectively) entered as a Pledge Start Balance.

You might use the Pledge Start Balance field in Version 8 if you are creating new pledges that people have already contributed to, but you don't have those contributions entered in the program. This could be a multi-year pledge that you are adding that is already in progress or maybe you are setting up the Contributions module in the middle of a pledge campaign. If you don't have the contributions already made to a pledge entered in the program, you could enter those amounts as Pledge Start Balances.

Another possible scenario would be if you have individuals that didn't complete a previous pledge and you want that amount to affect the pledge you are now adding in the program. If that previous pledge doesn't exist in the software, you could enter a negative Pledge Start Balance as a reminder that they still have an amount remaining from a previous pledge.

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION (SERIOUSLY)

Since this two-part issue of Tales From Tech 2 dealt with contributions and pledges, I wanted to take a moment to make an important announcement concerning pledges. If Version 8 is the first version of the software you've used, this probably won't mean very much to you. But, for individuals out there that used a previous version, this information is important.

Prior to Version 8, you couldn't have more than one pledge for a particular envelope and fund number and so what many users did to create new pledges for a fund was to change the start and end dates on an expired one.

In Version 8, DO NOT DO THAT!!! The only time you might change a pledge date is if someone changes their pledge mid-year or if the pledge date range is extended or shortened for some reason. If you have new pledges to create, do not change the dates on an existing pledge. Just go in and add the new ones.


Created: 08/21/2002
Last updated: 07/25/2021