Cannot merge donors

[bjhomer84]

I'm trying to merge two donors (one from before the records were received, one for after.)

I go to Finance -> Add/Update Donors -> "Merge Donors" button.
There's a "From Donor" and a "To Donor".
I click "Select" next to the "From Donor".
It brings up a very small list of donors, none of which is the donor I am looking for.
So I hit "Add".

... and nothing happens. The "Add" button seems to simply do nothing at all.

Am I missing something? Is this just a bug in MLS (v3.5.1). Is there a workaround?

[gregwanderson]

I can confirm that I recently experienced the same problem. Off the top of my head I can't recall how I eventually got around it. But I agree it seems like something is buggy since 3.5 was released.

[jdlessley]

I click "Select" next to the "From Donor".
It brings up a very small list of donors, none of which is the donor I am looking for.
So I hit "Add".

A specific order must be followed when merging donors in which one of the records is a membership record. The "From Donor:" name list will not include member names for which there is a record in your local MLS. It will only include nonmember donor records or temporary records (I'm not sure about out of unit member leaders.). All member records, all temporary records, and all nonmember donor records will be listed in the "To Donor:" name list. Following the proper order will merge the temporary record or nonmember donor record with the member record.

In other words, only nonmember donor records or temporary records can be merged with member records. Member records cannot be merged with member records, nonmember donor records, or temporary records. If the name needed cannot be found on the list of donors then the merge order has been reversed.

Another important aspect of a merge is the "From Donor:" name record will be deleted in a merge. That is one reason a member record ("From Donor") cannot be merged with a nonmember donor record, temporary record, or another member record.

Note: For the purpose of discussion in this post a temporary record is not a donor record. A temporary record becomes a nonmember donor record once a donation has been linked to the temporary record. A temporary record is a record with a temporary record number and not a permanent membership record number.

[bjhomer84]

Aha. The problem was that the Non-member records I was trying to merge were tagged as "Member of Another Unit", rather than "Not a Member/Miscellaneous". Once I switched them to the latter, they showed up in the "From" list, and I was able to merge them successfully.

[Miknmaur]

It looks like I cannot merge a not a member donor to an out of unit donor? We have a few parents from other wards/stakes paying for missionaries from our ward. In a couple of cases we have two entries that are slightly different entry names. In one case we have a donation from the mother and another from the couple which I would like to combine but they are not in our ward.

[jdlessley]

In a couple of cases we have two entries that are slightly different entry names.

You can edit a donation to change the donor name.

[Miknmaur]

Yes, good idea, I did not see the forest for the trees!