Customizing Statements

 

Where to begin with customizing

When customizing a statement we strongly recommend you customize in the "Email Statement" option, as this allows you to easily be able to preview changes you are making to the statement. You do not have to actually send statements by email to use this option while customizing the statement. 

  1. Click "Email Statement"
  2. Click the Blue "Continue to Compose Message" button.
  3. At the bottom of the Compose Message Window there should be a "Giving Statement Preview" hyperlink, click on this.
  4. This will open a new "Preview Statement Window" where you can hit the blue "Customize Statement" button to access the Modify Statement Editor where you can make changes to your statement.
  5. Once you make changes, immediately preview the changes you are making to the statement in live time, by clicking "save"
    • If you want to view what the statement will look like for other donors, click the name dropdown on the right hand side to see a preview of their statement. 
    • Make sure to save what you created as a new Statement Template.
    • The statement in the "Modify Statement Window" at the time you send your statements will be what is sent to donors (printed or emailed). 


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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 formatting toolbar.  Click on the options below to view different templates breeze provides: 

Minimalist Standard Kitchen Sink Window Envelope Double Window Envelope With Cover Letter Canadian Donor Receipts
This is a very basic statement that looks like the image below, it provides the donor with the total amount of their giving to your organization, and the start and end dates of the giving:

mceclip0.png

Saved templates will be accessible by all users with permission to access the customize statements section. For more information on custom templates, view Statement Templates

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

Customize the Columns of Itemized and Pledge Summary Mail Merge Options Include Non Tax Deductible Payments on Statements Add a logo or signature to the statement Formatting Options Mail-Merge Options

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: 

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 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. You'll only be able to have one customized line of [itemized] mail merge per statement template. This means that if you have two [itemized] mail merges, the first will merge properly, while the second won't work. 

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 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

 

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 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. You'll only be able to have one customized line of [pledges_summary] mail merge per statement template. This means that if you have two [pledges_summary] mail merges, the first will merge properly, while the second won't work.

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]

 

Why You Shouldn't Copy/Paste into Statements

We understand that sometimes a pastor or financial secretary want to write a letter to be included in with the statements you are generating.

The Email and Modify Statement Editor windows don't handle copying/pasting from other platforms. When you copy and paste there is hidden formatting that is brought into Breeze, which can cause your statements to break when sending, or look very messy. 

If setting up the letter in Breeze with the formatting tools available is not an option, we recommend creating the content as Plain Text this can be done using Note Pad (Windows) or using Text Editor (Mac). Creating content in these resources ensure no additional formatting coding is hidden in the back ground. 

Another option that may work to remove source formatting, is to use COMMAND+SHIFT+V (on Mac) or CTRL+SHIFT+V (on Windows) to paste as this is supposed to cause the pasted content to exclude or remove any formatting. However, we cannot guarantee this will work.  

 

Additional Information

Click Here to Understand Our Advanced Statement Functionality

Statement Logic

Breeze has built-in logic that intelligently retrieves the list of statements the user most likely desires. While most users will never need to reference this section, for users who would like a peek under-the-hood to better understand this logic, here is how Breeze determines what statements to retrieve:

When Printing/Emailing Statements for a Specific Person

When printing or emailing statements for a specific person:

  • Breeze will generate a statement for that person. The option to generate a statement only exists if that person has giving history within the specified date range.


When Printing/Emailing Statements from a Contributions Search Result

When printing or emailing statements based on a specific contributions search result.

  • Breeze will generate a statement for everyone in the list.


When Printing/Emailing Statements for Everyone

When printing or emailing statements for everyone using the buttons located at "More > Contributions > Statements":

  • If the church's customized contribution statement does not include any of the non-tax deductible mail merge fields:
    • Statements will be generated for people who have tax-deductible giving
    • Statements will be ignored for people who do not have tax deductible giving (even if they do have non-tax deductible payments)
  • If the church's customized contribution statement does include any of the non-tax deductible mail merge fields:
    • Statements will be generated for people who have tax-deductible giving
    • Statements will be generated for people who have non-tax deductible payments (even if they don't have tax-deductible giving)
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