Welcome to Lesson 8.5! Maintaining clean, accurate data is the foundation of good donor stewardship and reliable financial reporting. In FastFund Raising, data integrity is maintained through a combination of proactive prevention tools and retroactive correction utilities.
FastFund employs strict internal controls to prevent bad data from entering the system, while also providing administrators and users with the necessary workflows to fix mistakes when they inevitably happen. In this lesson, we will explore how FastFund validates data at the point of entry, how to correct transaction mistakes, and how to manage duplicate constituent records.
1. Preventing Errors at the Point of Entry
FastFund is designed to catch common data entry mistakes before a transaction is ever saved to your database.
- Required Fields Validation: Throughout the system, any field marked with a red asterisk (*) is a mandatory field. FastFund performs a strict validity check before allowing you to save a transaction. If you attempt to save without completing a required field, the system will halt the save and display an error message next to the missing data.
- Duplicate Reference Checking: To prevent double-entry of the same donation, FastFund automatically checks the Reference field (e.g., the check number) against all previously posted transactions for that specific donor. If you attempt to use the exact same reference number twice for the same donor, the system generates a warning prompt, asking you to confirm if you truly want to reuse the reference or if you need to cancel and change it.
- Transaction Balancing Rules: FastFund enforces mathematical accuracy; a transaction cannot be saved if the sum of its gift distribution lines does not exactly match the total transaction amount entered in the header.
2. Correcting Transaction Errors
If a mistake makes it past the initial entry—such as assigning a donation to the wrong Appeal or Gift—FastFund allows you to modify the transaction without destroying the original audit trail.
- Editing Linked Transactions: FastFund’s internal controls dictate what can and cannot be edited. If a transaction is linked to another process (for example, a cash gift that has already been included in a Bank Deposit), the core financial data like the Donor Name and Total Amount will be grayed out and locked. However, you are still permitted to edit the Distribution Area to change the Appeal, Gift, Solicitor, or Tribute, ensuring your fundraising reports remain accurate.
- Reversing Entries: You cannot edit a transaction that falls within a permanently closed accounting period. Furthermore, if a check bounces and is returned by the bank, you should not simply delete the original entry. Instead, you can open the original transaction and check the Reverse option box. This automatically creates and posts a new reversing transaction to perfectly offset the original entry, maintaining a flawless audit trail.
3. Correcting Data Import Errors
When you import bulk data using the Batch Processing utility (such as daily website donations from EFT Corporation), the system does not immediately dump the data into your live histories. It places it in a staging area for review.
If any imported transaction contains invalid data—most commonly an unrecognized donor name that the system couldn’t match—the transaction line will appear in the Batch Details list highlighted in red, accompanied by a hint explaining the error. You can click directly on the red line to open the entry, manually correct the donor name, and click Save. Once the error is resolved, you can safely post the batch.
4. Managing Duplicate Records
Over time, duplicate constituent records can infiltrate your database (e.g., creating a new record for “Bill Smith” when “William Smith” already exists). FastFund provides utilities to identify and consolidate these records.
- Duplicate Names and Emails Reports: You can navigate to the Utilities menu and use the Duplicate Names function. This utility scans all existing entities using a similarity algorithm and processes an offline report of potential duplicate names. You can also run a Duplicate Emails list to easily spot constituents sharing the same email address, which is highly recommended since email addresses are a primary matching criteria for web imports.
- The Merge Names Utility: If you find a duplicate constituent record, you cannot simply delete it if it has financial transactions tied to it. Instead, you must use the Merge Names utility. This tool allows you to select the duplicate record (Merge From) and the primary record (Merge To). FastFund will automatically move all transactions, notes, action codes, soft credits, and solicitor/tribute links from the duplicate over to the primary record. You can even check a box to automatically delete the duplicate record once the merge is complete.