Who confirms that a gift reached the bank
In the Non-profit pack a person marks each gift received after seeing it in the bank. Why no feed is read, and who should hold that job.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Non-profit businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
"The money's coming on Friday," says the donor, and the fundraiser, delighted, tells the director. By Monday the gift has been announced at a staff meeting, thanked on social media and counted towards the appeal target. Two weeks later, finance mentions that nothing ever arrived.
Every organisation that raises money has some version of that story. The gap is not dishonesty; it is the distance between a promise and money in the account, and the habit of treating the first as if it were the second.
The Non-profit & fundraising pack in Achekam's Industry CRM closes that gap with a simple rule: a gift is received only when a person who has seen it in the bank says so. This article explains the rule, why the pack works without bank or payment feeds, and how to decide who holds the job.
Received means seen, not promised
In the pack, a gift is marked received by a person who has seen it in the bank. Until then it is a pledge or an expectation, recorded against the donor but not counted as money you have.
The pack keeps Donors, and Donations and pledges by fund and campaign, so the difference shows up where it matters. A campaign can have pledges that look healthy and confirmed gifts that tell the real story. A board member asking how the winter appeal is going deserves both figures, clearly labelled, and the confirmed one is the figure to plan spending around.
No feed is read, on purpose
The pack reads no bank feed, no debit-order feed and no payment feed. Nothing marks a gift received automatically.
That can sound old-fashioned, but it removes several ways for the record to go wrong:
- A debit order that bounces. A collection can appear to run and then be returned days later. A person checking the statement after it has settled sees what actually stayed in the account.
- A payment that is not a gift. A deposit for the right amount from a similar name may be a refund from a supplier or a different donor. A feed matching on amount alone can attach it to the wrong person.
- A gift for the wrong fund. A donor may pay a pledge for the bursary fund with a reference that reads like the general appeal. A person who knows the donor can catch it.
Each of those errors, made automatically and repeated, produces a donor record nobody trusts. A deliberate check by one person is slower, but it means the received figure is right.
The bank statement as the evidence
The person confirming gifts needs a reliable view of the bank. In Achekam's books, bank statements are imported as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053 files, and each import is checked so that the opening balance plus the movements equals the closing balance. A statement that passes that check is complete; no lines are missing.
From there, bank lines are matched by suggestion and a person accepts each match. A line not yet in the books becomes a suggested journal that a person approves. So the bank line that proves a gift arrived is also the line that puts it in your accounts, and a reconciliation completes only when there is no difference left or every remaining line is explained.
A practical routine for the person confirming gifts:
- Import the latest statement for each account donors pay into.
- Work through the incoming lines and identify each gift by reference, name and amount.
- Mark the matching gift received in the pack, using the statement line as the reason you are sure.
- Leave anything you cannot identify unmarked and raise it with the fundraising team, rather than guessing.
- Note which pledges were expected but have not arrived, and pass the list to whoever stewards those donors.
Where the confirmation sits in the welcome
The pack's donor welcome workflow calls and thanks the donor, records their preferences, confirms the gift reached the bank, sends a receipt or acknowledgement and then sends an update on what the gift made possible.
The order matters. A thank-you call can happen when the gift is promised, because thanking someone for their intention costs nothing and is always welcome. The receipt cannot. A receipt or acknowledgement for money that never arrived is an embarrassment, and where receipts carry tax value it is a serious problem. So the confirmation sits between the personal steps and the formal ones, and the receipt waits for it. The full sequence is described in welcoming and thanking a new donor.
Who should hold the job, and who should not
Deciding who may mark gifts received is a control decision, not an admin one. The principle is the same one finance teams apply everywhere: the person who brings money in should not be the only person who confirms it arrived. AccountingTools' explanation of segregation of duties describes assigning the steps of a process to different people so that no one can both commit and conceal an error or a theft.
| Role | Should confirm gifts? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Finance officer or bookkeeper | Yes | Sees the statement and owns the reconciliation |
| A second finance person, where you have one | Yes, as cover | Keeps the check going during leave |
| Fundraiser who secured the gift | No | Has an interest in the gift being recorded |
| Director | Only as cover in a very small team | Better placed to review than to record |
| Volunteers | No | Should not need access to bank statements |
In a very small organisation the ideal split may not be possible. If one person must both raise and confirm gifts, have someone else, a board treasurer for example, review the confirmed gifts against the statement each month.
Gifts nobody can place
Sometimes the statement shows money nobody can link to a donor. Do not mark a gift received just to make the figures tidy. Bank deposits you cannot trace to a donor explains how to handle those lines, and recording gifts by fund and campaign covers how each confirmed gift is tied to its fund.
Before you switch the pack on, write down the name of the person who will confirm gifts, the name of their cover, and how often they will check the bank.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
