Complete Guide to Creating Giving Statements

Breeze makes the task of creating your giving statements easy so we put together an article walking you through some common scenarios you might face. While you can read the whole article if you'd like, here's a quick navigation to jump to the most applicable part of the page for your own context.

Note that Breeze does not require "closing a year" as some accounting systems do--Breeze seamlessly continues into the next year and provides yearly reports. Before finalizing your statements we recommend you make sure all of your online contributions are either imported or associated in Breeze. For more information check out this article: End-of-Year Online Giving Associations

How to Create Basic Statements for All Donors

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.

How to Customize Statements

Breeze allows users to customize statements so that they can appear just how they want them. Here's a quick video showing how you can customize the appearance of your statement:

For more information take a look at our article on Customizing Statements.

How to Use a Template

Here's a video showing how to use a pre-existing template:

Want to build off a template we've already built?  You can use one of our templates by navigating to the statements editor and clicking "Templates" in the toolbar.  More information on contribution statement templates can be found in our help center.

Customize the Columns that Appear

Let's say you want an itemized list of contributions but you only want the date, check number, and amount appearing for each gift without any other columns (such as fund, donor, etc).  You can include exactly the columns you want by tweaking the itemized list code.

Check out the "itemized list" row in this table.

Include Non-Tax Deductible Giving

Breeze allows users to designate certain funds as not tax-deductible.  Contributions given to these funds will not show up on statements by default, but some churches may want to have these non-tax deductible payments show up in a separate area on the statement so donors can see all of their payments and understand the breakdown of what was tax deductible and what was not.  To include non tax-deductible information, just use the corresponding items under the "Mail Merge" toolbar option.

Create Statements for Windowed Envelopes

Windowed envelopes can be a great way to save time by having the recipient's address simply printed on the statement page and having it show up through the envelope window so that a separate address label is not needed.  The challenge is that the address then needs to line up with the window.  Simple tabbing or spacing within the statements editor typically doesn't achieve the goal as the second address line doesn't honor the indentation.  What we recommend is using tables.  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.

Generate Mailing Labels for your Statements

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

• Navigating to "More > Contributions > Statements"
• Click "Print"
• Click the dropdown arrow to the right of "Print Statements" and select "Print Mailing Labels"

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

Change the Statement Margins

We recommend adjusting the statement margins by using the built-in browser controls. While different browsers have different interfaces for how to adjust the margins, my personal favorite is Chrome. The video above shows how to quickly adjust the margins in Chrome and instantly see how it will affect the formatting of your statement.

Remove Header and Footer Information from Printed Statements

When printing from a browser, often times 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.  Needless to say this is a bit unprofessional.  The good news is that it's easy to remove.  This is a browser setting so you'll just need to tweak the 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.

Create a Statement for an Individual

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:

Create Statements for Donors who Gave Over a Certain Amount

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

In the video, the "Search by Sum" checkbox tells the search to look at the sum of all giving for the whole year, rather than the amount of each individual gift. The "Group by Family" checkbox tells the search to look at the combined sum for all family members, rather than each family member individually..

One Statement Per Family or One Statement Per Person

When generating statements, it's easy to specify if you want the statements to be by family (all family members included on the same statement) or by individual (everyone gets their own statement). Here's the setting showing how you can control this:

Include a Summary of Pledges

If you want to include pledge information (either along with giving information or in place of giving information), simply modify your statement to include it. Here's how.

If you're looking for more customization options, see customize statements.

Removing Deceased People from Statements

Below is an example video showing how to remove a deceased individual from a statement:

If you'd like to learn more, check out our documentation on archiving people and moving contributions from one person to another.

Excluding Children's Giving

When printing statements, there may be some contexts where you'll want to remove children's giving from families' giving statements. Note that 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 was originally generated by an adult is tax deductible for the 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. Here's a video showing how to exclude children from a giving statement. Note: if you are emailing statements and click "Group by Children" it will email children who have given (and who have an email address) their families entire contribution statement. So you will want to click Group by Family and click Exclude Children if you do not want children who have given to receive their family's contribution statement.

Print only for People without email addresses

If you'd like to only print end of year statements for people who do not have email addresses, you can do exactly 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"

Note: Breeze will only look at the primary family member to pull email address information. It does not "look" at the family unit to determine if other family members have email addresses. For example, if the Head of Household does not have an email address but the Spouse does, Breeze will still treat this family as one who does not have an email address. If both spouses have the Family Role as "Spouse," Breeze will only look at the first family member in alphabetical order to determine if an email address exists.

Duplicate statements may be generated in the following scenario: John is listed as "Head of Household," does not have an email address, and has not given. His spouse, Amy, does have an email address and already received an emailed statement. When it's time to "Print without email addresses," Breeze will only look to John's profile and notice he doesn't have an email address and will still generate a statement to print, even if Amy already received an email. These duplicate statements are currently expected behavior.

If Grouping by Family and there are two (2) Spouses or two (2) Head of Households, Breeze considers the individual whose name is first alphabetically as the primary individual. If the primary individual does not have an email address and the giving is associated to this person, even if the other spouse or head of household does have an email address, an email will not be sent. If the non-primary individual has an email address and the giving is associated to that person, then an email will be sent.

Add a Logo and/or signature to your statement

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. 

Additional Resources

We hope these videos are extremely useful as you put together your year end statements. If you'd like a little assistance in what to include, feel free to check out our blog article on how to create a great year end statement.

You can also view our full article on statements within Breeze.