Donation Statement Troubleshooting

• Donation Statement Troubleshooting
  • Generating Statements
    • Missing a Statement
    • Two Statements for One Giver
    • Married Couple Getting Separate Statements
  • Statement Design
    • Remove Quarterly Section
    • Every Other Page is Blank
    • Excess White Space
  • Statement Content
    • Incorrect Donations
    • Missing Donations
    • Irrelevant Information
    • Pre-Paid Pledging
  • Emailing Statements
    • Incorrect Email Address
    • Send/Connection Errors

Here, we've outlined some common requests for statements and solutions to scenarios with unexpected results.

Generating Statements

Missing a Statement

If you run your statements and didn't get a statement you expected, here are some checks to go through.

• Receives Statement Box

  • In order to generate a statement, givers must have the Receives Statement box checked in Manage Givers.

  • Go to Givers > Manage Givers > Name Tab

  • Check the box if it is empty. If the box is 'grayed out', then you're on an individual profile for someone that is marked as a Giving Unit. Navigate to their Family or Group settings by going to the Giver # tab and clicking the button to access the Receives Statement check box on the name tab for everyone in the giving unit.

  • You can also go to Special Functions > Settings and click the button in the upper-right hand corner that reads 'Set Receives Statement true for all'.

• Step 1 Criteria

  • Statements generated and viewable in Step 2 of Donations Statements must have Receives Statement checked and meet the additional criteria set in Step 1.

  • For example, if the Donations Individuals box is unchecked in Step 1 > Edit People Selection Criteria, you won't generate statements those people.

  • People can also be eliminated from a batch of statements if they don't meet the Giving/Pledging Criteria. If you default to "only those with giving," you will not get any statements with $0 totals. If you're not sure if someone gave, you can check in Browse Donations.

• Typos and Name Changes

  • Verify that you're searching for the correct name and spelling. You can do this by searching Manage Givers or Browse Donations. If the record isn't found here, they may be listed under a different name. You can use Browse to search for a date or specific donation.

Two Statements for One Giver

If you run statements and get two different statements for the same giver, you've encountered a case of duplication and may want to Consolidate Duplicate Records To move donation history to one record, you can use Transfer Donations.

Married Couple Getting Separate Statements

If you come across two individuals that should be listed together on their statement, you can link them with the Gives With Family check box in Manage Givers under the Giver # tab. This will create a Giving Unit so that their donations are all included on one statement. Giving Units must be made up of people in the same Family Record in Membership.

Every Other Page is Blank

If you've run your statements but in the print preview you see that there's a page with content, then a blank page, content, then another blank page throughout your statement production, that indicates an issue with your statement layout.

• In order to fix this, you'll need to go into the Statement Designer and look for any fields that are highlighted in a pink color. Typically, what causes this result is a field that is overlapping the left or right margins in your design. When this occurs, the program tries to complete your layout horizontally.

• Once you have moved the overlapping field within the bounds of your page, the pink highlight will disappear.

• If you're having trouble locating the offending element on the page, try clicking and dragging over the report to select all fields. With this method, even the field is small or in an odd place, it should be easier to spot.

Excess White Space

Sometimes in adjusting the layout, a large area of space is left within the layout. This increases the number of statements that span multiple pages and can prompt a warning from the program that the layout needs adjusted.

• Go into the Statement Designer and find the area with too much empty grid space.

• Hover your mouse over the section to be adjusted (for statements, typically the StatementFooter band) until it becomes a vertical double arrow. You can also use the three lines on the ruler on the left side of the screen. Click and drag the section up to the content, reducing the amount of white space. Save the layout and check the results in the Print Preview.

Statement Content

Incorrect Donations

If there is an error on a statement regarding an individual donation, this gets corrected in the Browse Donations screen where it you can Correct Donations If a donation was assigned to the wrong person, you can Transfer Donations. That correction will be reflected after running the needed statements again.

Missing Donations

You can view all donations by going to Browse Donations. If there are donations that have been entered but do not appear on the statement, check to make sure the giving account has been set up properly in Manage Accounts. Make sure that the account has Print On Statement checked. If the account is non-tax deductible, then make sure that the statement layout includes these totals.

Irrelevant Information

You may notice fields for pledging or non-tax deductible giving on a statement, but these may not apply to your church. These fields are based on settings elected on the Step 2 > Options Tab.

• There is a [Template] Windowed Envelope, which includes information about totals from giving to accounts that are indicated as non-tax deductible in Manage Accounts and [Template] Windowed Envelope (No Tax Deductible Totals), which omits those fields. You can also use the Statement Designer to add or delete these fields individually.

• The pledging information box is located in the lower left of the Options tab.

Pre-Paid Pledging

Pre-Paid Pledges are donations that are made in one year but indicated for a pledge in the future. The donor can claim their pre-paid donation in their tax filing in the year it was made so in the next year's statement, it will shown as reducing their pledge but is not totaled in the giving for the year. In their statement, the amount of last year's pre-paid donations shows in the Prior Giving column in the Account Summary section.

Emailing Statements

Incorrect Email Address

Many individuals have more than one email address. InDonations Settings you can Mass Assign Default Email Field from the Membership module, while email settings for individual donors can be set in Manage Givers.

Send/Connection Errors

• Review your Email settings. Test them by performing a connection test and by sending a test email.

• The most frequent reason for a connection failure is an incorrect password. Ensure your email credentials are correct by logging in to your email through a web portal. If you are unable to log in, reset your password and update the new password in the email settings.

• Some email service providers, such as Gmail, require a special application password. This function is often found by logging in to your email account and going to security settings. Gmail App Password allows you to create a unique password that you'll enter in Church Windows. Gmail no longer supports third party application access without this layer of authentication.

• In order to prevent spam emails, some providers place restrictions on the number of emails that can be sent or the amount that can be sent at once. If you have a very large numbers of emails to send, you may need to send batches over several days. To increase the time in between each outgoing email, enter the amount of time in seconds by going to Setup SMTP Email > SMTP Server.