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Author: Joel Kristenson
Last Updated: 2016-01-28
Overview
This article shows how to set your previous, current, and next Cycle or Fiscal year in your Trail Blazer database. It also shows how to add new cycle/fiscal years if you need to, and how to mass update a list of donations to a specific cycle/fiscal year en masse.
This article is for nonprofit customers, if you’re a working with a political campaign you’ll want to follow these steps.
IMPORTANT: You must have administrative security clearance to your database in order to accomplish these tasks.
Outline
#1 Check your Current Cycles/Fiscal Years and Create New Ones
#2 Set your Previous, Default, and Next Cycle/Fiscal Year in your Organization Record
#3 Mass Update Donations to a Specific Cycle/Fiscal Year En Masse
#4 Related Resources
#1 – Check your Current Cycles/Fiscal Years and Create New Ones
Navigate to System Manager > Lists > Cycles > Click [Search]
This will populate all of your current cycles/fiscal years. In my example I had 28.
If you need to add a new cycle, click on the [+ New] button on the search tool strip. If you don’t need to, you can continue to section #2.
In my example I added a new one for Calendar Year 2016 (1/1/2016 – 1/1/2016). Put in the name, date, and save-and-close.
Click [Search] to refresh the list and the new record will display.
Make sure you add one for the ‘next’ cycle/fiscal year as well, and then move onto the next section which shows how to set these in your Organization record card.
#2 – Set your Previous, Default, and Next Cycle/Fiscal Year in your Organization Record
Navigate to System Manger > Lists > Organization > Click on your organization record to open it. In my example it was called “Demo Nonprofit Joel”.
Navigate to the Dates and Cycles tab, adjust the Current, Previous, and Next cycles, then click [Save and Close]. In my example I used these settings (Current = 2016, Previous = 2015, and Next = 2017).
When you manually enter your next donation it will default the cycle to whatever you set as your ‘Current Cycle’ in your Organization record. In my example it was Calendar Year 2016 as shown in the image below. For online donations coming in through your Trail Blazer iFrame form, they’ll also be set to the ‘current’ cycle.
You’ll need to repeat these steps every year. The next section shows how to mass update donation records to a specific cycle en masse if they aren’t set correctly.
#3 Set Contributions to an Election En Mass
Navigate to Contributions list by following Application Menu > Donor (Contacts) > Contributions/Pledges > Contributions.
Search by the date range for your Fiscal or Calendar Year. In my example I searched for the calendar year 2015 (1/1/15 – 12/31/15) which provided 3,833 donation records. If your list of donations is over 1,000 make sure that you load ‘all’, if it’s less than 1k it will auto-populate the grid.
Click the File drop-down menu and select ‘Update Cycle’.
Choose your ‘cycle’ from the drop-down list and click [OK]. I selected the Calendar Year 2015.
This will initiate the operation. Once it’s complete you’ll get a message with the results. Click [OK] to finish.
Repeat these steps if necessary for any of your fiscal/calendar years where donations may be keyed incorrectly to the wrong ‘cycle’.
Once this is complete you should get the same results for a query if you search by the cycle date-range OR by the cycle drop-down menu. In my example I get the same results searching by the Cycle 2015 as I did when running the query by date-range.
The related resources below link to many other useful articles and videos, if you need immediate assistance please call our live support line (1-866-909-8700 | 8 AM – 5 PM CT).
Related Resources
Article: Enter Contributions
Article: How to Create a Year-by-Year Giving History Report Using Filtered Contribution Columns in the Grid – Primarily for Nonprofits
Article: Contribution Year-End Report
Video: Getting Started 106a – Entering Contributions (NON PROFIT ONLY)
Video: Filter Using New Date Controls
Video: Filtered Contribution Columns in Format
Video: Election Cycles to Contributions Records (en masse) – Political Only
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