Lesson 10.4 – Transaction and Activity Reports

Welcome to Lesson 10.4! While campaign and donor summary reports give you a high-level view of your fundraising success, you also need the ability to dive into the raw financial data. FastFund Raising provides comprehensive Transaction Reports, which act as your system’s accounting-style records. These reports are categorized by the type of transaction and are frequently referred to as your “Books of Original Entry” or “Source Journals”.

In this lesson, we will explore the structure of transaction reports, how to extract highly detailed activity data, and how to utilize the Multi-Year Trend Analysis report.

1. Standard Transaction Reports

Transaction Reports display the exact details of all recorded transactions and any associated transaction splits (allocations).

When you generate a standard transaction report, it will automatically include the core financial data: the transaction date, the reference number (such as a check number), the donor’s ID number, the donor’s name, the designated Appeal and Gift, the amount, and the reference total.

2. Adding Detailed Information to Reports

Sometimes, the standard columns are not enough. FastFund’s Control Accounts Reports provide options to add a wealth of supplementary information to your report output to capture the full context of the activity.

You can choose to include:

• Memos: Both the overall Transaction Memo and specific Gift Memos.
• Audit Data: The Transaction Type, the Date Entered, the Date Modified, and the exact User who entered the transaction.
• Fundraising Details: Project codes, Tribute Names, Solicitor Names, and the exact Tax-Deductible amounts.
• Link Back Info: Data showing if the transaction is linked to another system activity (e.g., displaying the date and reference number of when a pledge was paid).

Crucial Formatting Rule: The PDF version of FastFund reports has a fixed width. Because of this limitation, if you choose to print this additional detailed information, you must generate the report in either HTML format or export it as an Excel (.xlsx) or Comma Delimited (.csv) file to ensure all columns are visible.

3. Generating Control Register Reports

Instead of navigating to the main Reports menu, you can quickly generate a detailed transaction report directly from your Control Registers while you are reviewing your daily activity.

Steps to Print a Register Report:

1. Navigate to Transactions > Transaction History.
2. Enter your desired date range and select the specific control account (e.g., Undeposited Funds, Pledge Receivable) from the drop-down list.
3. Add any additional filters (like a specific transaction type or donor name) and click FILTER to display the list on your screen.
4. Click the Register Report button, or click the PDF icon located in the upper right-hand corner of the window to instantly generate a printable report of the displayed transactions.

4. Multi-Year Trend Analysis

If you want to track a donor’s activity and giving patterns over an extended period, the Multi-Year Trend Analysis report is highly useful. This report provides a total of all donations received by a donor, summarized by month for multiple years.

When generating this report, you specify the exact date range. If your date range spans multiple years, the report will clearly break down the totals by calendar year. You also have the flexibility to select exactly which transaction types (such as Cash Gifts or Pledge Payments) should be included in the analysis.