Oh, it only it worked that way!!!

Happy Friday, y'all:)

B is for Budgets

Budgeting can be the most exciting time of the year when you are planning for next year’s programs OR the most stressful!!  Let's see if we can help you cut down on the stress level for getting your budget into the Financial Edge, so you can focus on the exciting programs part. Asking and answering some key questions ahead of time is a great place to start. 

First consider: 

• What do we need to track in our budget? 
• Does it need to be broken down by fund?
• By department?
• By Project? 
• Is your Grants income part of your budget? 
• What are the “set” numbers in your budget and which ones may change?

Do you have Advanced Budget Management?

This optional module in the Financial Edge adds some additional functionality that allows even more flexibility in your budgeting process.

It allows for: 

• An unlimited number of budgets (called scenarios)    
• Merging (or combining) multiple budgets into one budget after they are created

Another important consideration is the time frame for your budget.

Do you budget by fiscal year or by grant time frame or both?

Since you define the number of periods in your budget, either way will work.  Decide what makes the most sense for your organization.  You may actually need both a fiscal year budget and grant year budgets.  Again, with Advanced Budget Management you can do all these things within the Financial Edge using the powerful scenarios function. It will vary depending on your organization's funding structure.

Keep in mind that as part of General Ledger setup in configuration, you can define what happens when an invoice is being entered that will affect a specific General Ledger account’s budget. In Business Rules, you can determine how the system behaves:

• Do you want to be warned if you exceed your budget? 
• Do you want to just allow the expense to be entered
• OR do you want to actually prohibit this expense from being entered. 

The problem with prohibiting the expense to be entered is that the expense has probably already been incurred so you have committed to pay it.  This tells you that you might need tighter budget controls and perhaps prior approval for all expenses in place in your organization .  So how are you budgets controlled and enforced?

How often do you adjust your budget—annual, quarterly, monthly? 

This will determine your budget process and the frequency of your budget reviews. 

Another tip for getting started may be last year's budget. The good news is that in the Financial Edge, budgets can be imported and exported!  

Are last year’s actual numbers a good way to start when creating a new budget?

If so, you can export them, modify them as needed, and import them.  This can be done by department or project if needed.    As a good starting point:  setup a spreadsheet(s) with the current year information in  the format that you will need to import the budgets, create a blank spreadsheet for the new budget and distribute this format to your staff.  You may need to give this to each department head or to each project manager for them to complete.  When you get the budgets back and they are approved, they are already in the format you need to import into Financial Edge. How cool is that?

Do you need to budget for Revenue as well as Expenses or are Expenses enough? 

This is important because you may need to know where you stand at all times.

What is the best way to view my budget?  

Your financial statements will dictate this.  You can add a column to any financial statement.  If you have created your financial statements with a Visual Chart Organizer in the format your organization requires, adding a budget column is easy.  If you have not, then it is time to setup your own financials in Financial Edge that will meet your needs.

Wow, that seems like a lot of questions, but it save you tons of time in the long run. Creating a "budget plan" will allow you to focus on the exciting parts instead of being bogged down with the stressful parts.

Keep it in balance,

Delores

Options are optimal; I'm a big fan of options and am often known to opt in! In the Raisers' Edge, you have User Options (which will be the topic of a future post), but few people realize that user's also have Options to control how all of the search windows behave in the Raiser's Edge. You have Options when searching for:

• Records (all types)
• Queries
• Exports
• Batches

The options are yours, and they go with you anywhere you search in the Raiser's Edge. So, what are my options, Sandy? Let's take a look!

• Load search windows automatically
• Confirm single match results
• Default search field

Load search windows automatically

When searching for Campaign, Fund and Appeal records, with this option selected, the search window will automatically load into the window a list of those records in the database so that you can simply select which one you want without having to enter any search criteria. This especially handy when you're searching for these record types in Query. It's a great time saver when you don't remember the exact name of the record you're looking for.  Checked is my personal preference.

Confirm single match results

When you have this box check, if your search returns a unique result (only one record matches), that record will be listed in the results screen, and you will have to confirm that's the record you want (by double clicking or highlighting it, and clicking Open). If that box is UNchecked, the system will automatically take you to that record without having to confirm. Unchecked is my personal choice.

Default search field 

This is a really handy feature that lets you choose which field your cursor will be in when you open the search window for a particular item in the Raiser's Edge. I love, love, LOVE this option for the Open Query screen. When I am scrubbing data for a client, I will create LOTS of queries each day throughout the course of the scrub. I change my default search field on the Query search screen to the Created On field. Using that field in combination with the F3 for today's day, I'm quickly seeing a list of only the queries created that day! Easy squeezy lemon peasy

So, what's your favorite field to search on by default? Constituent ID? Event name? Query created by?

I just love having Options; dopn't you?

Keeping you on the Leading Edge,

Do you ever wish you could just  talk to another  Raiser's Edge or Financial Edge user about a particular issue or problem you’re having? Do you ever wonder how other organizations are using the system, or if you’re using it as efficiently as you could be? Did you just figure out some little cool trick that you’re dying to tell somebody about? You're not alone!

Now, you can interact with others like you, thanks to forums and user groups popping-up all over the web and social media sites. In addition to the ones sponsored by Blackbaud, there are several other independent user groups out there to help.

Look for independent user groups on:

• LinkedIn- there is one, general group, as well as several region-based groups. Don't see one for your city? Start one-and invite me to join!
• Yahoo! Groups-again, there's a general user's group and several around the country
• Facebook- Dave Berger over at Archmere Academy does the selfless, and usually thankless, job of maintaining this page to help other Raiser's Edge users connect and stay up to date on news and issues about the software.

Most of these tend to be about Raiser's Edge. I guess fund raisers are more social than accountants

Finally, check out  www.blackbus.org., for users of all Blackbaud products. "The Bus", as it is affectionately known, is an independent forum and an all around friendly community of like minded folks all over the map.

And of course, don't forget about all the Help functions available elsewhere.

So, if you want to be a part of a community where you don't  feel silly throwing at words like Constituent and Config, find or start a group you like and start posting!

Do you know of any others you'd like to tell us about? Leave us a comment!

Keeping you on the Leading Edge,

The always spot on Heather Mansfield, author of Social Media for Social Good, offers up a great list of best practices when building and maintaining your online donations page. Some of them may surprise you! As a Raiser's Edge consultant, I was especially pleased to see her number 11 on the list. Take a peek at her suggestions, and then see how your Donate Now button measures up! How did you do?

Keeping you on the Leading Edge,

Top of the morning to you!

Happy St. Patricks Day:)

Okay, so technically, it's called HAS No Valid Address in the Raiser's Edge, but I already used H for Help, and this is just too good an opportunity to let slip by. This setting on the Bio1/Org1 tab seems so straightforward to me; has no valid address seems to sum it up nicely, I think, don't you? This powerful filtering field did not exist in previous versions of the Raiser's Edge. The programming gods at Blackbaud blessed us with this beautiful box with the release of the Raiser's Edge 7 in response to feedback from their vast stable of non-profit clients. This one little check box partially helped to eliminate a complex maze of merged queries that were required just to remove records that we know have……..um……NO VALID ADDRESS!

So, if users of the Raiser's Edge asked for it and defined its meaning, one would think that its simplicity and ready availability throughout the system would be embraced, right? Well, not so fast. The most common problem I see with this box is users' lack of trust. They can't seem to stop with just marking Has No Valid Address when we receive notice that the address is no longer current. In their well-intentioned efforts to help their organization avoid wasted postage, they will also: 

• Add a solicit code of Do Not Mail (or something similar).
• Just to "be sure", they will further mark the record as Inactive,
• And/or put something akin to Do Not Use/BadBad Address in the Address Lines (yes, I've actually seen that in a client's database!).
• Finally, just to be really, REALLY  sure, they will uncheck the Send Mail to this Address box! (Check back for the S post on this topic; don't get me started). 

In these scenarios, what is a body to do when, through our diligent research, we find a good new address for this Constituent? Is the record marked Do Not Mail because they really don't want to receive mail from us? Are they really Inactive? What is Inactive? Why, even after we've updated the address, do they continue to show-up in Mail or Export with blank address fields?

These are all real life stories of real life non-profit clients with  real life Raiser's Edge databases. My advice to you, as it was to them:

Let Has No Valid Address mean exactly what it says.

Track that information in one place, in the same place on every record, in the place that was designed specifically for that information. Has No Valid Address=Has No Valid Address.It is an absolute, pass/fail filter available to you anywhere you are pulling information out of the Raiser's Edge. Allow it to do the job is was designed, and so desparately wants, to do.

In short, when used consistently, you can trust the Has No Valid Address box to say what it means, and mean what it says. Isn't that really all we can ask of anyone?

Any questions?? LOL

Thanks to Dave Berger for sharing this!

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Did you know you can enter dates into the Raiser's Edge or the Financial Edge without ever leaving your keyboard? In all date fields in both systems, the following keyboard shortcuts will enter a date:

• F3 will enter today’s date
• F7 will open a calendar. Once you are in the calendar, you can scroll from month to month by clicking on the month name. You can also scroll year to year by clicking right beside the year field.
• In addition, if the date you need to enter is in the current month and year, all you have to enter is the day number! So, if it’s April 2012, and you want the date to be April 20, 1208, then in any date field, simply enter “20”. When you use your tab key to move to the next field, the system will automatically complete it with “04/20/2012”! (Based on your system’s clock).

How cool is that?

Happy Friday, y'all:)

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