Lesson 6.7 – Processing Bank Deposits

Welcome to Lesson 6.7! After you spend time diligently entering stacks of checks, credit card payments, and cash into the Donations/Receipts screen, those funds do not immediately appear in your organization’s checking account balance. Instead, FastFund safely holds them in a temporary queue.

In this lesson, we will explore how to group those individual donor transactions together to create a single Bank Deposit that perfectly matches the physical deposit you take to the bank.

1. The Undeposited Funds Account

When you save a cash gift, cash receipt, or pledge payment, FastFund Raising automatically accumulates those funds in a system holding account called Undeposited Funds.

The money remains in this holding account until you use the Bank Deposit function. The deposit process groups your selected receipts together, removes them from the Undeposited Funds account, and debits the total amount into your actual cash or checking account.

Important Note: If your FastFund Raising module is fully integrated with the FastFund Accounting module, the deposit function is controlled from the Accounting system, not the Fundraising module.

2. Preparing a Bank Deposit

If you are using the standalone version of FastFund Raising and managing deposits within the module, the Make Deposit window serves as your staging area. It displays all donations, cash receipts, and pledge payments that have not yet been deposited. The list includes the date received, transaction type, donor name, reference number, and amount.

Steps to Process a Deposit:

1. Select Receipts: In the Make Deposit window, check the box next to each receipt you want to include in your current bank deposit. If you want to deposit everything on the screen, simply click the master Select All / Deselect All check box at the top of the list.
2. Review the Total: As you select individual receipts, FastFund automatically calculates the deposit total and displays it at the bottom right of the window. Ensure this total exactly matches the physical deposit slip you are taking to the bank.
3. Prepare Deposit: Once your selections are made, click the PREPARE DEPOSIT button.
4. Enter Deposit Details: The Deposit Details window will appear. You must select the specific Bank Account you are depositing the money into, enter the Deposit Date, and type a Reference (e.g., “Dep 3/24”).
5. Save: Click the blue SAVE button at the top of the screen to finalize and post the deposit.

3. Filtering the Deposit List

If you process a high volume of donations, your Make Deposit window might contain hundreds of unposted receipts. To easily locate specific transactions, you can click the Filters + tool.

This allows you to narrow down the displayed list by entering specific criteria such as a Date Range, Transaction Type, Name, or Reference. Once you enter your criteria and click FILTER, only the receipts matching your search will appear.

4. Editing or Deleting a Deposit

Mistakes happen—you might accidentally include a check in a FastFund deposit that you left sitting on your desk.

You can edit or delete a saved Cash Deposit as long as it is not in a closed accounting period, and (if integrated) has not been marked as cleared in a bank reconciliation.

If you choose to delete a deposit, FastFund does not permanently erase the original donor transactions. Instead, all of the cash receipts included in that deleted deposit are simply put back into an “undeposited” state. They will reappear in your Make Deposit window so you can select them again and process the deposit correctly.