Using Custom Fields for Envelope Numbers

Or other financial shortcuts

If you are using envelope numbers for donors within your church, Custom Fields can make it simple to track that envelope number and to turn it into a shortcut for easy donation recording in the Accounting suite. 

You can also create other financial shortcuts using custom fields which will be readily available when entering a new donation or expense. 

By using a custom field as an Envelope Number (or another financial shortcut), whenever recording a new donation or expense, from the donor/payee dropdown, you'll be able to type the envelope number (or any other data saved in that field) and the list will be automatically filtered to show only individuals with that information. 

For example, if a donor named Sarah Abel has envelope number 1255, by exposing the Envelope Number custom field, typing "1255" into the Payer dropdown will show us all individuals with Envelope number 1255. (see below)

It's easy to set up:

1. As an admin user, go to the People menu. Choose People Settings. Click Custom Fields. 
2. Add a new Custom Field or Edit an Existing One. 
3. Under Options, check the checkbox for Include in New Deposit/Expense Pages. 
4. Once finished, save that custom field. 

The information for anyone's profile saved to that custom field will now be visible (and searchable) in the dropdown list for recording new donations or expenses! 

Tips and Suggestions

Here are few tips and suggestions for using this in the best way possible: 

• Limit the number of custom fields used in this manner. Each custom field this is enabled for will add data to the dropdown list when recording new donations / expenses. This can become unwieldly when including multiple custom fields.
  
  
• If no information is saved for a specific custom field for a person, then that custom field will not be displayed in the dropdown. This ensures that you don't have a bunch of repeated custom field labels when no data is saved for that person. 
  
  
• You can use the same value for multiple people in order to make your payer/payee list filterable. For example, using the same envelope number for individuals who share a single envelope number for their family/household. Or, use a custom field with matching values to make it easy to find anyone from a group of donors when recording a donation.