Procedures for Counting Donations

[nutterb]

Something I've taken to doing to reduce some of the errors is I go through "Add/Update Donors" each year and hide as many of the names as I can. It's a bit of a nuisance, and making donors visible again can be obnoxious at times, but having started this, I've found finding the right donor to be much quicker with fewer errors than before.

[mfmohlma]

After we enter donations, and before we go through the step that involves checking the checks entered and amounts, we go through every donation slip and verify that the name on the slip matches the name on the donation entry. It is a simple check. One person reads the names on the donation slips in order while the other reviews the donation entries in the open batch. It only takes a minute or two to go through all of the slips.

Before we implemented this check we regulary had problems with donations credited to a member with the same last name or even to the children. Since we added that two-minute check it is very rare for us to have problems at the end of the year.

I second this recommendation. I still have to remind myself to read the whole name though, as the error is often as you said - credited to the wrong member of a family.