Managing Donors Accounts
Note: The below content does not explain how to combine duplicate Donors (people). Rather, it deals wth the rare situation when the same checking/routing number is listed in your system twice under the same Donor record. To combine duplicate Donors (people), use Combine Contacts Tool.
There are two ways that duplicate Donor Accounts come into existence. First, you may have combined duplicate Donor records where each had the Donor account once. Second, you may have had multiple Batches in production in the Batch Manager Tool where the Donor Account was present and unassigned. Both of these situations are rare. If you have two identical Donor Account records (identical Donor, Account number, and Routing number) and would like to combine them, there are two options.
- Eliminate the Donor Account after updating all donations to point to the surviving Donor Account.
- Eliminate the Donor Account without updating donations.
Eliminate the Donor Account
- You may want to temporarily rename one of the donor account records to something obvious so you can identify it from a pick list.
- If there are any donations assigned ot the donor account you want to delete/combine:
- Select all donations from the donations subpage on the Donor Account Record.
- Transfer the selection to the Donations page.
- Use the Assign tool to reassign the Donor Account record to the one you want to keep.
- Once any donations are re-assigned to the donor account you want to keep, you can safely delete the record by selecting it on the donor accounts page and using the delete tool.
Eliminate the Donor Account without Updating Donations
Select one of the Donor Account records on the Donor Accounts page and delete it selecting the "unassign" option for Donations on the delete screen. Those Donations are left in the system. There is no significant advantage to knowing historically which Donor Account sourced a Donation.
Note: There are situations, such as bank (bill pay) checks are issued. These Donor Accounts show multiple donors. These accounts are to be expected and do not need to be updated.