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Author: Kristenson, Joel
Last Updated: 2016-12-30
Overview
This article provides a quick walk-through on how to change your default cycle or fiscal year in your database so all new donations are automatically categorized as such. It also shows how to check your current list of cycles and add a new one if it hasn’t been created yet. Typically this task is taken care of once a year at the end of the current cycle, and the beginning of a new one.
Scenario: When entering a physical donation (cash/check/in-kind…), or when they come in through your website, they will be ‘flagged’ with the default cycle here:
Tip: For a more in-depth walk-through read this article which covers things like mass updating a list of donations to a specific cycle en masse. This is very useful if a large amount of contributions weren’t ‘keyed’ correctly to the correct cycle – instead of going one-by-one you can mass update the whole batch to correct the problem.
Steps
First you’ll want to verify that the next cycle/fiscal year has been created in your database, and add a new one if it isn’t.
Navigate to the Cycle list by following Application Menu > System Manager > Lists > Cycle.
Verify that the current and next cycles are present, and then move on to the next steps. If they don’t exist yet, click [+ New] from the search tool strip and create new ones. In my example I created one new cycle for 2018.
Once the cycles have been created or you verify that they are already present it’s time to set the default for your database.
Under the Application Menu open the Organization list by following Application Menu > System Manager > Lists > Organization (*requires security clearance).
Click on the organization ‘name’ from the list to open your org record.
Navigate to the Dates and Cycles tab. Select your current cycle from the drop-down, as well as the previous, and next cycles.
Click [Save and Close] to finish. My example is below where I set the default cycle to 2017.
The next time a donation comes in online or you hand enter it, it will be categorized with the new default cycle. Example below.
You can build search queries by the cycle in the Contributions and Donors (Contacts) lists.
The related resources below link to a variety of articles and videos similar to this topic.
Related Resources
Article: How to Change your Current, Previous, and Next Cycle or Fiscal Year, and How to Mass Update Donations to a Specific Cycle or Fiscal Year En Masse – Nonprofit Only
Article: Tax Deductible Contributions – How to Record the Tax-Deductible Amount and How to Mass Update a List of Contributions with a Tax-Deductible Percentage
Article: How to Create a Year-End Tax Letter Addressed to Individuals or the Entire Household using Merge Fields – Nonprofit Only
Article: Inserting Contribution Transactions In Donor Merge Letter
Article: Tracking Grants in Trail Blazer – Requested, Denied, Approved, and How to Build a Pivot Summary Off the Data
Article: How to Track Soft Credits using Contribution Notifications – ONLY for Nonprofit Customers
Article: How to Create a Year-by-Year Giving History Report using Filtered Contribution Columns in the Grid – Primarily for Nonprofits
Video: Year End Tax Letter
Video: Getting Started 106a – Entering Contributions (NON PROFIT ONLY)
Video: Getting Started 102 Beginning Queries - Nonprofit
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