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16 – End of Year Letters

US donors prepare their Income Tax Returns starting January each year. End of Year Letters in Donorview consist of a Template (CRM >Mail Merge Templates) that may contain any message and perhaps the Christmas card, followed by the list of donations made during the year (with a column for the “Amount” and “Tax Deductible Amount”; the latter excludes credit card processing fees).

  1. Merge Duplicate Constituents
    • Workspace >CRM >Constituents >Actions >Potential Duplicates Report >Exact Match on First and Last Names >Run
    • select two (only) duplicate records, then Actions >Merge Constituents, and follow instructions (repeat if the name has further duplicates)
    • to be sure, repeat the procedure, this time using “Soundex Match on First and Last Names”, and later, “Exact Match on Email”
  2. Remove Gifts mistakenly entered twice
    • Workspace >Fundraising >Gifts
    • Filter Name (at left): Gifts 2020, that already have these parameters: “Amount” Greater Than 0 and “Date” within chosen year (just create filter for other years with those parameters)
    • drag and drop Last Name column to top (row above column names) to group by that column
    • make sure each person has only one Constituent ID, otherwise merge them first (see step 1 above)
    • make sure to delete gifts that are obviously duplicated (e.g., same amount, date and Notes, and/or same check number)
    • make sure if “Scholarships” is indicated in the “For” column, there must be a diocese indicated in the “Fund” column; otherwise, edit the gift and add the diocese in the space for “Fund”
  3. Make sure the amounts correspond:
    • “Amount” is the amount spent by donor; this appears in the End of Year letter
    • “Tax Deductible Amount” is what they can claim for tax deduction; this also appears in the End of Year letter
    • “Total Gift” is the same as the “Amount” above [check if correct]
    • “Included Processing Fee” is what the credit card company and Donorview charge
    • “Amount Net of Processing Fee” is the same as “Tax Deductible Amount” [check if correct]
  4. To send the End of Year Letters, follow Donorview’s Video Guide
    • basically: Workspace >CRM >Constituents >Actions >Print/Email Mail Merge > Select Template 2020 End Of Year Letter which was prepared beforehand >Attach the following data to the end of the letter: >Cumulative Giving
    • in Filter, make sure Date From Jan 1 to Dec 31
    • in Filter, make sure Sort Order > Oldest to Newest
    • in Filter, make sure to Suppress Txns less than or equal to: >indicate Transactions greater than $0.00
  5. Notes in general:
    • Merge Votive candles donors who might create a new Constituent each time they donate entries (for example, if they use a different email)
    • a Gift may first appear as Pledge, and when paid, it will reappear as Amount; do not merge them