Complete Guide to Creating Giving Statements

Updated: November 14, 2024 20:01

Internal Note: This is a reminder that when you are working through statements with someone, if you make changes to the statement template and hit save, the customer will see those changes. Have them walk through the changes on their end, and then simply refresh your page to see them. You've got this, you are fully equipped to knock this call / ticket out out the park and serve the customer well!

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.

Role Permissions needed for Creating Giving Statements (Giving > Reports > View Reports and Names on Reports) and (Giving > Add Giving Transaction)

Notice

The Contributions feature has been renamed to Giving and is now located in the main menu.

If you are viewing a video that refers to the Contributions feature, please be aware that the information provided is still helpful and relevant but that the feature is now called Giving.

We apologize for any confusion this change may cause, and thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to make improvements to our platform.

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 giving transactions are in Breeze. Before you generate statements consider if you have added all of the previous years giving into Breeze. If you manually import giving, you will want to make sure you have imported all of your giving into Breeze.
Associate Giving Transactions. If you are using Breeze for online giving, you will want to ensure that you have associated giving transactions with profiles. If you fail to associate giving transactions with profiles, some giving may not be included in 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 practices for handling deceased people and moving giving transactions from one person to another. Below is an example video showing you how to remove a deceased individuals name from a statement:

Determine who you want to generate statements for

Once we know the integrity of the giving transaction data is correct, the very first step when sending out statements is to determine who you want to generate a statement for. This helps us determine exactly where we need to generate statements from; a profile, a filtered giving transaction report, or "statements" within Breeze.

Click on the options below to reveal instructions on how generate statements for each specific scenario.

If you want to print statements for all givers at once (which we recommend). All you need to do is,

Navigate to Giving > 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 Giving Statements.

If you need to generate a statement for just one person or family, rather than for everyone or a group of people, you can do so right from their profile. Here's how:

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.

Here's an example video showing how to generate statements for families that gave over $600 for the year.

Navigate to Giving > 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.

You may decide that you want to send a unique or special statement out to those who have paid pledges throughout the year as a way to communicate directly with those who have pledged. You can always include the [pledge_summary] mail merge on any statement you send out to include pledge information on the statements you generate. If you want to create a special statement for pledgers, it can be done, but it will take a few steps to accomplish, so roll up your sleeves and let's dive in.

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 actually to tag the pledgers.
This is done by navigating to Giving > 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 ensure you tag all those who have pledged.
Now, navigate to "Reports" in Giving. Run a report based on the date range you would like to include giving from on this statement. Select 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, click the arrow just to the right, and follow the steps below to Customize the Statement.

If you want to generate statements for a specific group of people you can do so. You can filter by fund, amount, or any other filter criteria. Only giving transactions that match the filter used will be included in your statements.

Navigate to Giving > Reports
Run a Giving report for the giving transactions 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, click the arrow just to the right, 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 generate a report on.

1. Navigate to Giving > Reports
2. Run a Giving report for the date range of giving you are wanting to generate statements and include giving from.
3. Towards the upper left of the screen (under the date), click on the Graph Icon.
4. Scroll down to the "Givers vs Non Givers graph"
5. Click on the "Non-Givers bar" to generate a list of nongivers.
6. 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.

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Customizing your statements

Once you have decided who you are sending your statements, the next step is to customize your statement! Because Breeze allows 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 do this through the Email option, as this allows for a great, quick preview of the changes that you make.

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:

This is a very basic statement that looks like the image below, and it provides the donor with the total amount of their giving to your organization and the start and end dates of the giving:

Provides a simpler statement that includes an itemized list of all giving, as you can see below:

This statement includes all of the mail merge options! Leaving nothing off when it comes to including giving break downs on the statement for your donors. You can certainly remove any options you do not want to include. Image_2020-11-16_at_7.48.16_PM.png

This template option allows for you easily use window envelopes to mail your statements out, placing the address in the correct place when folded. This template can be further customized to be unique to your needs.

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.

Uniquely set up to be folded and fit a double window envelope to mail your statements out.

Allows for a cover letter to be created and attached to the statement. The cover letter will print, with a page break and the statement will generate on the second page.

If your account is set to Canada in the Account Settings, you can easily use templates created specifically for this. The Canadian Donation Receipts article will have more information.

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.

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 giving transactions, 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 the specific columns you want to display by adding the itemized mail merge option. See the available options below:

Itemized List Options

The Itemized List Options (Itemized and Itemized Non Tax Deductible) that can be included in the mail merge are below.

The standard mail merge option of [itemized] list each tax-deductible donation 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 not to include any spaces, not to capitalize, and to keep the amount as the last word.

While the margins cannot be adjusted, be sure to keep the date as the first option and amount as the last for proper spacing of the margins.

Example of Customized Mail Merge Options:
[itemized:date:name:method: amount]
[itemized:date:envelope:amount]
[itemized:date:fund:method: amount]

Text	Description
date	Date of the giving transaction
name	Name of the donor
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 giving transaction
batch	Giving transactions batch number
batch_name	Giving transactions batch name
envelope	Donor's envelope number
note	Note on giving transaction
check	Check Number
account	Checking Account Number

Pledge Summary Options

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 giving 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.

Examples of Pledge Summary Customized Mail Merge Option:
[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]

The Pledge Summary Options that can be included in the mail merge are:

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]

Breeze allows users to designate certain funds as non tax-deductible. Giving to any non tax-deductible fund will not show up on statements by default. You may want to include these non-tax deductible payments on the statement though, so donors can see all of their payments and understand the breakdown of what was tax deductible and what was not.

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.

When customizing your statement, it is important to understand the resources available to you in the Modify Statement window. Regardless of if you are modifying your statement through the "Email Statement" option or the "Print Statement" option, the Modify Statements editor box allows you to customize your statements to be exactly as you want them to appear when you send out a statement from your organization.

Image_2020-11-12_at_12.30.26_PM.png

Options within the First Row of the Formatting Tool Bar:

Image_2020-11-12_at_1.16.55_PM.png

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)

Image_2020-11-12_at_1.03.47_PM.png

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. Before sending the statements you must decide if you want to Group by Family and how you would like to include children. To learn more about these options, Simply click the options below.

When sending statements, it's easy to specify if you want the statements to generate by family or by individual. Let's look at some scenarios:

"Group by Family" Scenarios:
- If all the giving transactions 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 giving transactions 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 giving transactions are credited to Fred and others are credited to Wilma, and you deselect "group by family," a separate statement will generate for each person.
- If all the giving transactions 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:

While we are not professional accountants, and you should contact your church's accountant (i.e., this is not professional advice), our understanding is that money given by children that an adult originally generated is tax deductible for that adult. In other words, the only child giving that would not be tax deductible for the parents would be for children who have their own jobs and are giving from the income they receive at their job.

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 separately, review this article: Printing Statements of Children.

Note: If you group by family while emailing statements and you include children, children who have given, and have an email address in their profile, will receive a copy of the family's giving statement. Reference Using Family Roles to understand what to do with adult children who should receive their own statement.

Printing Statement Options
Statements can be printed for a specific person, or a group of people based on a
filter, or for everyone in the church.

Navigate to the person's profile you'd like the statement for.
Click "Giving" on the left navigation bar.
Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it.
Select "Print Statement" from the dropdown list, and then click the "Print Statement" button.

Printing a giving statement based on a report filter allows more control over what appears on the giving statement. You can filter by fund, amount, or any other criteria, and only giving transactions that match the filter will be used when creating the statement.

Get Giving reports for the giving transactions you'd like to include in the giving statement.
Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it.
Select "Print Statement" from the dropdown list and then click the "Print Statement" button.

To print a statement for all donors¹:

Navigate to "Giving > Statements."
Click "Print."
Select the desired date range if you are grouping by family, or including children and click "Print Statements."

¹Printing statements for all donors will print statements for people who have given in the specified date range (including archived people, even if the person running the statements does not have access to view archived people). People who have not given in that date range will not receive a statement.

To print a statement for all donors without email addresses¹:

Navigate to "Giving > Statements."
Click "Print."
Change "Print For" to "Donors without Email Addresses"
Select the desired date range and click "Print Statements."

¹To further understand the logic of who gets an emailed statement, and why some families will generate both an emailed statement and printed for those without email addresses view this article Which family member gets an emailed statement?

Emailing Statement Options

Emailing statements allows users to send statements to an individual via email. Statements are sent as attached PDF files. If sending to multiple people, each recipient will receive only their giving statement as the attachment.

Navigate to the person's profile you'd like to email the statement for.
Click "Giving" on the left navigation bar.
Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it.
Select "Email Statement" from the drop-down list.
Compose your email and click "Send."

Emailing a giving statement based on a filter allows more control over what appears on the giving statement. Users can filter by fund, amount, or any other criteria, and only giving transactions that match the filter will be used when creating the statement.

Find Giving reports for the giving transactions you'd like to include in the giving statement.
Towards the upper right of the screen, find the "Download as Excel" button and click the arrow just to the right of it.
Select "Email Statement" from the drop-down list.
Compose your email and click "Send."

Emailing statements to all donors will email statements to people who have given in the specified date range (including archived people). People who have not given in that date range will not receive a statement.

Navigate to "Giving > Statements."
Click "Email."
Select the desired date range and click "Continue to Compose Message."
Compose your email and click "Send."

If a person is on the "do not email" list, statement emails will still go through If you'd like to print a group of statements for everyone, yet keep some as individuals and others grouped as families, you can group by tags, and then filter by tags in the reports.

Additional Options when Printing Statements

Click on an option below to see more information about the options available when printing.

When printing from a browser, oftentimes you'll encounter text on the very top and bottom of the page that the browser puts there - usually a web address and sometimes a date or a page number.

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:

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- Navigate to "Giving > Statements"
- Click "Print"
- On the "Print For" dropdown, select the option "Donors without Email Addresses"
- Click "Print Statements"

To understand why a statement may print for someone who also received an email statement, resulting in a "duplicate" statement, the following examples should help,

If all the giving transactions 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 giving transactions 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 others 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 others 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.

If you need to adjust the statement margins, you can do so by using the built-in browser controls.

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:

You can quickly print out mailing labels that correspond to the statements you've printed out from statements by:

Navigating to "Giving > 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 Giving report, you will:

With your Giving 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"

Here is a video that shows you how to print mailing labels for statements you have printed:

Note: Avery 5160 is the label default size (this cannot be changed from the Statements section).

Notice

Ensuring data is ready for statements

Determine who you want to generate statements for

Customizing your statements

Sending your Statements

Additional Options when Printing Statements

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