A batch represents a collection of giving transactions that are grouped. Typically this group would represent a series of giving transactions that were all given at the same time, such as "Sunday Morning" or "Sunday Morning 9:15 Service" on a given date. A batch is automatically opened when adding a giving transaction, and all subsequent entries are added to that batch. The batch will not be closed until you manually click the "Close Batch" button. After closing the batch, new entries will be added to a new batch.
How to Add a Batch
To add entries to a batch:
- Navigate to Giving
- On the "Add Giving Transaction" page, you'll see a batch number on the right. This is the batch of any giving transactions that will be added.
- If the batch already has entries, you can click "Close Batch" to close the batch and add entries to a new batch number.
Note: On the "Add Giving Transactions" screen, click the batch number to add entries to a pre-existing batch. From the dropdown list that appears, select the batch to which you'd like to add giving transactions. There is a limit to the number of batches that can be created. The largest number of batches that can be created is 2,147,483,657. Once this number is reached (generally from a Giving import from a file), all batches will reflect this number moving forward, and all batches beyond this will be linked together since they can't move past this limit. Delete the batches and import files with the correct batch numbers to resolve this error.
How to View a Batch
To view details for a given batch:
- Navigate to Giving
- Click "Batches" on the left.
- Click the batch number corresponding to the batch you'd like to view.
- You will be shown a list of all giving transactions within that batch and summary information.
How to Close a Batch
To close a batch:
- Navigate to Giving
- Ensure you're on the "Add Giving Transaction" page.
- On the right of the page, beneath the batch number, click the "Close Batch" button.
Note: Batches will also automatically close when closing your browser window. For example, you will have to quit Chrome, not just x out of the window for the batch to close. To re-open a batch to add more giving transactions, see change batch.
How to Change a Batch
Occasionally, a batch may be accidentally closed prematurely, or you'd simply like to add a giving transactions (s) to a previous batch number. While you can change the batch number on giving transactions that were already submitted by editing the giving transaction, to add new giving transactions into a previous batch, you can do the following:
- Navigate to Giving
- Ensure you're on the "Add Giving Transaction" page.
- Click the "Current Batch" number on the right of the screen. It will change to a drop-down menu.
- Use the drop-down menu to select the batch you want to enter, giving transactions into.
Note: If giving transactions are accidentally added to the wrong batch, you will need to edit giving transactions individually to adjust the giving transactions to reflect the correct batch. At this time, there is no way to merge batches.
To change the name of a batch, simply navigate to the batch list (Giving > Batches). Under the "Name" column in the batch line, click to enter the name.Online Giving Batches
The "Online (Date Range)" batches are created automatically within Breeze and cover a range of Sunday-Saturday. These online batches will open and close automatically. They will close at 12:00 am UTC, and then the next week online batch opens up. Forms with payments will also open and close batches automatically.
We do not recommend using batches to reconcile Breeze with your bank deposits. We recommend using the transfer report found in the online giving reporting to show you transfer totals and individual payments. Check out our resource on Reconciling Online Giving for our best practice here.
Editing the name on an online giving batch will cause Breeze to create a new online giving batch the next time an online gift is received in Breeze. It will have the same date range for that week, from Sunday to Saturday.
Since batches automatically open on Sunday, if you enter giving transactions on Sunday, you'll want to ensure that you have refreshed your screen before adding new giving transactions, as the next batch you may be entering into may already be being used as the online giving batch. If you do get stuck entering in gifts into an online giving batch, simply close out the batch and move to the next batch number in the sequence. Editing a giving transaction will help you change any gifts added to that batch by mistake.
How to Delete a Batch
Batches cannot be deleted after they have been opened. Clicking the "x" to the batch number's right will only delete that batch's giving transactions. If you need to remove a batch, the Breeze Best Practice is to move all the transactions out of that batch and to name the batch "closed for x reason" or something along those lines.
We do not allow for batches to be deleted as it creates an inconsistency within the batch numbers, as our batches count up in number (100, 101, 102, etc.). If a batch were to be deleted, it would disrupt the sequential order, making reconciliation difficult.
To delete all of the giving transactions within a batch, click the X to the right of the batch. This will not delete the batch number but will allow you to easily delete all giving transactions in the specific batch at a time.
Giving transaction batches do not start over each year but continue with the number sequence.
Internal Note: If a batch is deleted as described above, the giving transactions cannot be recovered as expected in the "Restore" section. The action for "Batch Deleted" in the log will show you the data of what was deleted, yet no option to restore (despite the option to "Undo")
How to Print a Batch
If you need to print a batch, you can simply right-click to print the batch with totals (and/or hide any additional details beforehand by using the column tab in the right corner to remove or add details).
How to Edit a Batch Name
A batch name can be edited by simply clicking on the batch name.
How to Export a Batch
To download an Excel file of a Batch:
- Navigate to Giving
- Click "Batches" on the left.
- Click the batch number corresponding to the batch you'd like to view. You will be shown a list of all giving transactions within that batch and summary information.
- Click Download as Excel.
Note: The Excel file contains three sheets. Sheet one is the individual giving transactions. Sheet two is the Batch broken down by fund totals. Sheet three is the batch broken down by method totals.