Breeze makes the task of generating your organizations giving statements so easy. In this article we have put together some common scenarios you might encounter. While we mostly talk about end of year statements, know that these steps can be followed at any time to generate statements for your donors.
Breeze does not require "closing a year" as some accounting systems do--Breeze seamlessly continues into the next year and continues to provide yearly reports.
Ensuring data is ready for statements
Before you generate statements there are a few things you might want to consider before moving through the next steps, to Ensure Data is Ready for Statements.
- Confirm all contributions are in Breeze. Before you generate statements consider if you have added all of the previous years contributions into Breeze. If you manually import giving, you will want to make sure you have imported all of your giving into Breeze.
- Associate Contributions. If you are using Breeze for online giving, you will want to ensure that you have associated contributions with profiles. If you fail to associate contributions with profiles, some giving may not be included on statements.
- Archive Deceased. You may want to make sure that you remove the name of deceased individuals from your statements. If you'd like to learn more, check out our documentation on best practice for handling deceased people and moving contributions from one person to another. Below is an example video showing you how to remove a deceased individuals name from a statement:
Determine who are you wanting to generate statements for
Once we know the integrity of the contribution data is correct, the very first step when sending out statements is to determine who you are wanting to generate a statement for. This helps us determine where exactly we need to be generating statements from; a profile, a filtered contribution report, or from "statements" within Breeze.
Click on the options below to reveal instructions on how generate statements for each specific scenario.
- Navigate to More > Contributions > Statements.
- Select Print or Email and then walk through the steps to customize your statements.
Here's a quick example showing how to create statements for all donors:
For more information take a look at our documentation on Creating Contribution Statements.
- Navigate to the Person's Profile in Breeze.
- Click the Giving tab on the left-hand side.
- Adjust the start and end date to reflect the dates you want to generate the statement for.
- Click the Dropdown Arrow beside Download as Excel select Print Statement or Email Statement.
- Navigate to More > Contributions > Reports
- Run a report based on the date ranges you would like of giving to be included on statements.
- Select the "Amount" filter and enter a minimum amount.
- Check "Search by Sum" for the search to look at the sum of all giving for the whole year, rather than the amount of each individual gift.
- Check the "Group by Family" checkbox to tell the system to search and look at the combined sum of all giving, for all family members, rather than each family member individually.
- First we are going to need to create a tag, you can label this something like "(Year) Pledgers" if you would like.
- Then we will need to actually tag the pledgers.
This is done by navigating to More > Contributions > Pledges > Click on a campaign to open it.- Within the Campaign, in the upper left corner click on the link that says # pledges. This will open a list of "people".
- Using the Action Panel you will want to click on "More Action" > "Assign to Tags"
- Find the tag you just created and assign these people to the tag.
- If you have multiple pledge campaigns you would like to send the statement to, repeat this step to make sure you tag all of those who have pledged.
- Now, navigate to "Reports" in Contributions. Run a report based on the date range you would like include giving from on this statement. Select the the "more" filter option and select "people".
- Assuming you want to send the statement out and include the spouses giving on the statement: Set the "People" Filter (drop down) by scrolling to the bottom and selecting "Tags Contains" and choose the Tag you just created. Then under "Other" select "Search Type" and select "Family". And hit the blue Apply Filter button.
- If you do not want to include the spouses giving on the statement: Set the "People" Filter (drop down) by scrolling to the bottom and selecting "Tags Contains" and choose the Tag you just created. And hit the blue Apply Filter button.
- Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it, and follow the steps below to Customize the Statement.
- Navigate to More > Contributions > Reports
- Run a contribution report for the contributions you'd like to include in the giving statement you are generating.
- Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it, and follow the steps below to Customize the Statement.
If you want to generate statements for those who did not give, this is considered a letter, as there is nothing to actually generate a report on.
-
- Navigate to More > Contributions > Reports
- Run a contribution report for the date range of giving you are wanting to generate statements and include giving from.
- Towards the upper left of the screen (under the date) click on the Graph Icon.
- Scroll down to the "Givers vs Non Givers graph"
- Click on the "Non Givers bar" to generate a list of non givers.
- From here Using the Action Panel you can either email or export a Letter for these non donors with the specific verbiage and content you would like to communicate with them.
Customizing your statements
Once you have decided who you are sending your statements to, the next step is to customize your statement! Because Breeze allows for so many different options to customize statements you can easily use a Breeze Template or create your own template. To customize the statement we recommend you select "Email Statement" > Click the Blue "Continue to Compose Message" button > at the bottom of the Compose Message Window there should be a "Giving Statement Preview" link, click on this > This will open a new "Preview Statement Window" where you can hit the blue "Customize Statement" button to make changes and then immediately preview the changes you are making to the statement in live time, by clicking "save"
- Then Let's Start With a Template
Here's a video showing how to use a pre-existing template, that we've already built in Breeze:
You can use one of our templates by navigating to the statements editor and clicking "Templates" in the toolbar. Click on the options below to view different templates breeze provides:
If you want to use a template you already created, and have it fit window envelopes, we recommend using tables to put the address in the correct place. To do so:
- In the statement editor, hover over the table icon in the toolbar and create a table 2 wide x 1 high
- Using your mouse, grab and stretch the table out to span the width of the statement
- Add the name and address mail merge options in the right table cell
- Put the cursor in the left cell and navigate to "Table > Cell > Cell Properties". Give it a width (you could start with 150) and click "Ok". This will adjust how wide a space you have to the left of your address. Tweak this number until it matches your envelope windows.
- Then Let's Customize the Statement Layout
Breeze allows you to customize statements so that they appear just how you want them to look when a donor receives them. Here's a quick video showing how you can customize the appearance of your statement:
Customizing your statement allows for you to spruce up the design and layout, making the statements unique to your church! Click on the options below to see how to accomplish the different tasks:
Let's say you want an itemized list of contributions but you only want the date, method, fund and amount appearing for each gift without any other columns (such as name, batch etc). You can customize the mail merge options to include exactly the specific columns you would like to display by adding to the the itemized mail merge option. See the available options below:
The standard mail merge option of [itemized] list each tax-deductible contribution given with the columns of Date, Name, Method, Fund and Amount. You can specify which columns show up on the itemized list by adding specific text after the word itemized in the mail merge option. You will want to make sure to not include any spaces, to not capitalize, and to keep amount as the last word.
While the margins cannot be adjusted, be sure to keep date as the first option and amount as the last for proper spacing of the margins.
[itemized:date:name:method:amount]
[itemized:date:envelope:amount]
[itemized:date:fund:method:amount]
|
Text |
Description |
|---|---|
|
date |
Date of the contribution |
|
name |
Name of the contributor |
|
method |
Method of payment |
|
fund |
Fund payment was given to (if listed as first column, entries will be sorted by fund; otherwise entries will be sorted by date) |
|
amount |
Amount of contribution |
|
batch |
Contribution's batch number |
|
batch_name |
Contribution's batch name |
|
envelope |
Donor's envelope number |
|
note |
Note on contribution |
|
check |
Check Number |
|
account |
Checking Account Number |
The Pledge Summary Mail Merge Option brings in information for pledges that were active during any part of the selected date range.
The amount given to the pledge in this mail merge will include all previous contributions matching that pledge, even if they extend before the start date of your statements, so that the amount given to the pledge will be accurate regardless of your starting date range for statements. This ensures prepaid pledges receive accurate pledge summaries for the current year.
You can also specify what pledge information is displayed and which pledges will show up by adding specific text to the mail merge option. You will want to make sure to not include any spaces, and to not capitalize any letters.
[pledges_summary:campaign_name:date_range:amount:remaining:percent]
[pledges_summary:campaign_name:amount:remaining:percent]
[pledges_summary:campaign_name:amount:remaining:percent:campaign-5823]
|
Text |
Description |
|---|---|
|
campaign_name |
The name of the campaign |
|
date_range |
The start and end date of the donor's pledge (e.g. 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2017) |
|
frequency |
How often and how much the donor planned to give (e.g. $50 weekly) |
|
amount |
The amount given and total amount pledged (e.g. $200 of $500) |
|
remaining |
The amount that still needs to be paid (e.g. $300 Remaining) |
|
note |
The note associated with the pledge |
|
percent |
The percentage paid (e.g. 40%) |
|
campaign-nnnn |
The ability to specify a specific campaign to include, excluding the rest. Replace nnnn with the campaign ID. The campaign ID can be obtained by navigating to the campaign in your Breeze account and looking at the number on the end of the URL. You may include multiple campaign IDs if desired (e.g. :campaign-1000:campaign-1001:campaign-1002). An example using this option might look like: [pledges_summary:campaign_name:amount:remaining:percent:campaign-5823] |
- To include giving to non tax-deductible funds on the statement place your cursor where you would like to include this item.
- Click "Mail Merge" and choose "Non Tax Deductible" and then select what type of mail merge you would like to include for the non tax deductible giving (Total Amount, Itemized List, or Funds Summary):
When customizing statements you may want to add your church logo or a signature of an authorized signer to your statements. This can be done using the Upload Tool in the Modify Statement Window.
It is important to understand the resources available to you in the Modify Statement window when customizing your statement. Regardless of if you are modifying your statement through the "Email Statement" option or the "Print Statement" option the Modify Statements editor box allows for you to customize your statements to be exactly as you want them to appear when you send out a statement from your organization.
Options within the First Row of the Formatting Tool Bar:
- Bold allows you to bold text in your statement
- Italicized allows you to italicize text in your statement
- Underlined, you guessed it, allows you to underline text in your statement.
- Text Color allow you to change the color of the text.
- Background color allows for you to change the
- Select Mail Merge Options to show the list of items able to be mail merged (included) in your statement
- Upload an image or a signature the statement
- ... (this opens up the second row of formatting options)
Options within the Second Row of the Formatting Tool Bar:
(Select the ... in the first row to reveal the second row of the formatting options)
- Font Sizes allows you the ability to highlight text and change the font size.
- Templates allows you to use Breeze provided templates, save new templates, replace templates, delete templates.
- Left Align formats your text with a left alignment
- Center Align formats your text with a center alignment
- Right Align formats your text with a right alignment.
- Table allows for you to input tables into your statements
- Full Screen allows for you to modify your statement in a fullscreen view, rather than small box.
- More reveals more options
- Bullet List allows for you to add bullet points into the content of your statement
- Numbered List allows for you to add a numbered list into your statement
- Horizontal Line inserts a Horizontal Line that can be used to provide clear separation between parts of your statement.
- Page Break will insert a page break where you place it in your statement. This can be helpful when writing a cover letter and wanting your statement to be on a separate page.
Sending your Statements
Now it is time to send your statements out to your donors. You have the option of emailing statements, printing statements, or printing statements for those without email address. Simply click the options you would like to use.
- "Group by Family" Scenarios:
- If all the contributions have been credited to Fred Flintstone throughout the year, and you select to “group by family”, the statement will be addressed to both Fred and Wilma (the spouse).
- If some donations are credited to Fred and other contributions are credited to Wilma, and you select to “group by family”, both of their names, and giving will be included on one statement together.
- Deselecting "Group by Family" Scenarios:
- If some contributions are credited to Fred and other contributions are credited to Wilma, and you deselect "group by family", a separate statement will generate for each person.
- If all the contributions have been credited to Fred Flintstone throughout the year, and you deselect "group by family", Wilma’s name (the spouse) will not be included on the statement.
Here's the setting showing how you can control this:
- Include Children Scenario
- If some donations are credited to Fred or Wilma (Parents), and Pebbles (a child) has giving recorded within Breeze, if you select “including children” when sending statements, the child's giving will be included on the statements.
- Exclude Children Scenario
- If some donations are credited to Fred or Wilma, and Pebbles (a child) has giving recorded within Breeze, if you select “excluding children”, the child's giving will be not be included on the statement.
- To generate a statement for children seperately review this article:Printing Statements of Children
Additional Options when Printing Statements
Click on an option below to see more information about the options available when printing.
- This is a browser setting so you'll need to uncheck this setting in your browser before printing.
- We recommend using Chrome and the video above shows how to quickly remove the header and footer content when printing in Chrome.
If you'd like to only print end of year statements for people who do not have email addresses, you can do this. This is ideal if you'd like to email people their statements but still want to send physical statements by mail to those you're unable to email. To do so:
-
- Navigate to "More > Contributions > Statements"
- Click "Print"
- On the "Print For" dropdown select the option "Donors without Email Addresses"
- Click "Print Statements"
- If all the contributions have all been credited to Fred Flintstone throughout the year, and Fred has an email on his profile, Fred will get an emailed statement. Wilma will not receive an emailed statement to her email address, however, her name will be included on the statement if the Statement was grouped by family. A statement will not print for this family if using "print for those without email addresses".
- If all the contributions have been credited to Fred Flintstone, and he does not have an email on his profile within Breeze, but Wilma (his spouse) does have an email on her profile (but no giving records in her name), neither spouse will get a statement emailed to them, and they will generate a printed statement. If you would like the Flintstone family to receive an emailed statement, you would need to include an email address for Fred on his profile, as all of the giving is recorded under his name.
- If some donations are credited to Fred and other contributions are credited to Wilma, and they both have emails on their profile within Breeze, then they will both be emailed a statement. (If you select to group by family, the statement will include both of their names/giving combined on the statement). A statement will not print for this family if using "print for those without email addresses".
- If some donations are credited to Fred and other contributions are credited to Wilma, and Fred has an email on his profile, but Wilma does not, then Fred will get an emailed statement, and Wilma will trigger a printed statement for those without an email. While the actual statement would be identical, the one family member with an email is triggering the email statement option. The other donor in the family, without an email, is triggering with the print for donors without email addresses option.
- While different browsers have different interfaces for how to adjust the margins, our most recommended browser is Chrome. The below video shows how to quickly adjust the margins in Chrome and instantly see how it will affect the formatting of your statement:
- Navigating to "More > Contributions > Statements"
- Click "Print"
- Click the dropdown arrow to the right of "Print Statements" and select "Print Mailing Labels"
If you are looking to print mailing labels for those you printed statements for generated from a specific contribution report, you will:
- With your contribution report loaded, Click the arrow beside "Download as Excel"
- Select Print Statement
- Click the drop down arrow beside "Print Statements" and select "Print Mailing Labels"
Comments
We print quarterly statements so that people know how they're doing with their pledge. How do I get statements for those who have pledged, but gave nothing so far? If there's no dollar amount given, it won't print a statement. Thank you.
Hi @mothermindystjames!
Thanks for reaching out! I have provided a great resource that will help you get these desired results:
Managing Pledges
Happy Breezing!
Two questions
1. Is there a way to have more than one letter to send? For instance, I want to send a letter with all contributions listed and pledge payment progress to date, but for those who didn't pledge this year it says "No pledge information." So, I want to have one letter for those who have pledged and one for those who didn't.
2. For the pledge information, the way my letter comes out is below. Is there a way to get that all on one line?
"As of September 30, 2019, you have paid
$250.00 for the $1,020.00
pledged for the fiscal year.
Thank you!
@mmcmullen
Thanks for reaching out to the Forum! We're going to move your request over to Support in order to better serve you.
Cheers!
We track our donations, church use income and preschool student income through Breeze, is there a way to separate these categories out when printing statements so we only print donations and not income?
@office
Yes! Simply select the Funds that would like to be included on the Statement from the contributions Reporting, then Print/Email your statements from there!
If you have any additional questions, please let us know!
Is something like this possible? We want to summarize both the amounts by fund by family member, but also have totals by family member and the total for the entire family on one report?
Tax-Deductible Amounts Given to Each Fund by family member:
[funds_summary:amount:family_member]
Total Tax-Deductible Amounts Given by family member:
[amount:family_member]
Total Tax-Deductible Amounts Given by the entire family:
[funds_summary]
[amount]
(It would be helpful if there was an easy to find FAQ listing all of the commands for report templates.)
@didaktos
Great question here! Unfortunately, this functionality isn't possible within Breeze. However, it might make a great feature request! Submitting Feature Requests
Cheers!
Can you adjust the column width on a giving statement?
Can you print giving statements for just children?
@bharkcom
Unfortunately, there is no Functionality from marching control within statements. Depending on your browser, you could have some flexibility here on the print preview. Browsers like Google Chrome provide some extra functionality here that could be useful for you!
Additionally, you can print statements just for people listed as children in your database if necessary!
Cheers!
If you have a family who participates in 3 different pledge campaigns is it possible to list a grand total for what is left to pay on those pledges in a statement? I know the campaign info can be listed separately, which we plan to do, but would like to have a grand total due under that information. See example of what we're thinking below:
Religious Education Tuition $0.00 of $300 0%
$300 Remaining
Confirmation $10 of $100 10%
$90 Remaining
Communion $20 of $100 20%
$80 Remaining
Your total amount due is $ 470.00
Thanks!
@skaraba
Great question! Unfortunately, this is a limitation of breeze. You will only be able to see a total amount remaining for each individual pledge...not combined. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause!
I hope this helps!
Is there a way to email family giving statements for most people, but email individual giving statements for those who submit their tax returns as individuals rather than families?
Or at least to exclude a few individuals from the email statement and print them instead, without having to delete their emails from the database?
Hi @Admin,
If I understand your question correctly, it sounds like you want to create statements for everyone, yet keep some grouped as families, while having others remain as individuals in a family. If this is the case then we recommend creating a tag for one of those groups and then running two separate contribution reports to print or email statements!
If you have any trouble accomplishing this, feel free to Contact Us and we'd be happy to help :)
Thank you!
Funnily enough, that is exactly what I'm in the process of doing, as I thought that might be solution.
:)
We're so glad we could help! Don't hesitate to reach back out if other questions come up!
Is there a way to "turn off" option for someone to no longer receive a statement of giving by email yet still be able to receive all other email notifications?
Hi @angeld!
I am so glad that you reached out with this great question! I can definitely understand why it would be important to exclude certain people from receiving giving statements, yet still have them receive all other email notifications.
There is a way to accomplish this in Breeze! It is not a click-of-a-button way, but I would love to suggest this workaround to fit your needs by using tag filters before sending giving statements. Here are the steps:
As your final step, click "Apply Filter". Then, you will be able to click the arrow next to "Download as Excel" and select "Email Statements". This will only email statements to those who are not in the "No Email Statement" Tag.
For more information about this, this article is really helpful as well: Searching Contributions and Creating Giving Reports
I hope this is helpful! Please let us know if there is anything additional we can assist with!
Blessings,
Annie
When I try to set up the Email Statements, Breeze fills in BCC with everybody's name. I obviously don't want giving statements blasted out to everybody. Can you tell me how to assure that each email is only going to the correct Giving unit (Family).
How do I allow Giving Units (families) to opt out of emailed statements? Some will want paper statements instead, but most will be fine with email.
@kandtvj2
Great questions!
When I try to set up the Email Statements, Breeze fills in BCC with everybody's name. I obviously don't want giving statements blasted out to everybody. Can you tell me how to assure that each email is only going to the correct Giving unit (Family).
- The BCC Email that you see in the "Statements" area is actually sending each person their own individual statement. You'll notice that it's impossible to change it to the "TO" function for this very purpose. Because of this, you'll never have to worry about Breeze contributions statements going out to the wrong people!
How do I allow Giving Units (families) to opt out of emailed statements? Some will want paper statements instead, but most will be fine with email.
- I normally approach this by soliciting this information from the congregation well before issuing statements. I do this by creating custom profile fields and categories for Statements so that I can identify who would like their statements Emailed vs Mailed and Joint Statement vs Individual Statement. After this, I create a Form that has the same categories and field options so that the members can fill it out. Once they've completed it, I can then push that information to their profiles!
Doing this will make it super easy to export statements according to their selections! See here for more info: Complete Guide to Creating Giving Statements
For more information on this and perhaps even a visible walkthrough with one of our Advisors, give us a call! 888.320.6030
Cheers!
Is there a way to show a merged list of tax-deductible and non-deductible in the same list instead of separate lists?
Hey @crystal!
Because of the nature of our statements feature, you wouldn't be able to combine the tax and non-tax deductible gifts. The reason being that this might confuse givers as to how much they can write off for tax purposes. I hope that helps!
I know I must have missed this, can you please tell me how to add a page break to our statements. Without one, I can't print front to back. I also want to print on letterhead, but can't when some statements go to the 2nd page. I want to put our letter on the front and then only giving information on the back. Thank you.
Hey @Office,
Great question!
Inside of the Statement editor you can add the page break. Click on the three dots and then More.
I hope this is helpful! Please let us know if there is anything additional we can assist with!
Blessings,
Shalonda
Deceased persons who have been archived continue to show up in statements. There are no other family members, so the email and home addresses are likely inactive, but I still would prefer to err on the side of caution and not have statements sent to the deceased, just in case.
Thanks
Hey @info!
This is a great point! It can definitely be hard navigating deceased individuals. I hear you completely, and I am very sorry that this has occurred! I'm sure that's stressful and a little frustrating.
Just to give some insight as to why statements can still be created for archived, deceased individuals, if their contributions are not moved in Breeze to another family member, then it will still generate a statement for the archived person.
I know you mentioned this particular person does not have any other family members so I know this is really inconvenient, and I sincerely apologize for this limitation. This is definitely less than ideal, and I really appreciate your valuable feedback! I want to encourage you to reach out to our product team with these thoughts you provided. You can do so here: Submitting Feature Requests.
Additionally, here are some articles that may be helpful to you!
What is the Best Practice for handling Deceased Members?
Archiving People Things To Know
Have a wonderful day!
My issue was the formatting. I was not able to have a repeating header on each page. That would be a very useful feature - repeating headers and footers.
I have two questions.
1. What file format is required to upload a logo? I was unable to upload a pdf file.
2. Is there a way to print statements only for members who contribute particular amounts? (We only mail statements to members who contribute $250 or more.)
Thank you,
Elly