Offering Deposit Corrections in Auditor
As always, remember to do your best to leave an audit trail. Keeping donor receipts correct is important, so that's a common exception to the "don't make corrections in closed months" rule. But memos should still be added/edited whenever possible or, failing that, notes should be written on printed reports.
Most corrections can be made in the front end, the same way a treasurer would make the correction in the current month.
Incorrect Offering Date
If the correction is in the current month, use the front end.
If the correction is in a previous month, or if the deposit needs to be moved from one month to another, go to Auditor / View Journal. Find the deposit you need to correct. Change the AccountingDate, the Date, the date in the Memo, and the Offerings Date (toward the bottom right of the window) to the correct values. That's four dates! Count them! Also use the Memo to record what you're changing and why. Click Close twice to get back to the front end.
- Note: Each deposit has four dates: the Accounting Date, the Offering Date, the Deposit Date, and the date listed in the Memo. It is generally best to use the same date in all four places. If the Offering and Deposit dates are different, then your Contribution Report will not agree with your Deposit Report, because they won't include all of the same offerings.
Incorrect Donor, Fund, Amount, Bank Account, Memo, Etc.
Use the front end, for both current and previous months. If the correction was in a previous year, remind the treasurer to reprint the donor's year-end receipt when appropriate, and to file a note recording the correction with that year's paperwork.
Duplicate or Unwanted Offering Deposits
Offerings can be deleted. But remember that deleting does not leave a trail, so if the deposit is more than a month or two back, it should usually be reversed rather than deleted.
Deleting a Deposit
Each deposit must be deleted in two places, or the Deposit and Contribution reports will not agree. Go to Auditor / View Journal. Select the deposit you wish to delete, and press the delete key on your keyboard. Click Close, then View Offerings. Select the deposit to be deleted, and press delete on your keyboard. Click Close twice to return to the front end. Again, this leaves no trail, so should only be used for recently-entered deposits.
Reversing a Deposit
To reverse a deposit, use these instructions as a guide. Make sure that your reversing deposit is dated in the same year as the deposit you are reversing, so that donor receipts are correct. New transactions cannot be entered outside of the current Jewel month, even in Auditor, so you will need to use the back end to either a) change the current Jewel month before entering the reversing deposit or b) change the date of the reversing deposit after you enter it. Make good use of the memo to preserve an audit trail.
If a deposit is old enough, it may be appropriate to reverse it as a General Journal Entry in the current year, and not reverse each envelope. This will not correct donor receipts, but for "old enough" deposits that may be acceptable.
Cancel an Unfinished Offering
Treasurers can cancel an unfinished offering themselves, following the instructions here.
Or you can go into the back end, click View Offerings, and delete the unfinished offering. There will not be anything to delete in View Journal because the offering isn't recorded there until Make Deposit has been clicked to finalize the offering.
Entering a Forgotten Offering
See Changing the NextStep Button
AdventistGiving Offering Problems
Partially Imported Deposit
Special Characters in Alphanumeric Fields of Deposit Report: If a donor enters emojis or other special characters in their name or address field, this can cause the import to suddenly terminate, leaving out the remaining envelopes. The solution is to delete the partially-imported deposit (see Deleting a Deposit, above), edit the .csv version of the Deposit Report to remove the offending character(s), then re-import from the corrected file. Jewel imports the envelopes in the same order they're given on the deposit report. And generally, the problem is found in the first un-imported envelope.
Duplicate AG Codes Mapped to a Single Jewel Code: Jewel does not allow multiple AdventistGiving offerings to map to a single Jewel account. Attempting to do so, in older versions, will cause Jewel to terminate the import, leaving out the remaining envelopes. (One more reason to encourage treasurers to upgrade!)
First, delete the partial import (see Deleting a Deposit, above). Then edit the .csv version of the Deposit Report so that only one of the affected AdventistGiving offerings remains on the report. Both the Code and the Category Name must be identical for all offerings you wish to map to the single Jewel offering. Then re-import from the corrected .csv file.
Sometimes this happens because an offering name was changed mid-month, so some donors gave to the old name and some to the new. In that case, the problem won't happen again. But if duplicate offerings exist on AdventistGiving, suggest to the treasurer (for local offerings) or conference (for conference offerings) that the duplicate be removed.
Deposit Stuck in Mapping Loop
Attempting to map duplicate AdventistGiving offerings to a single Jewel account is not allowed. So mapping a new AG account unmaps the old AG account. When duplicate AG offerings exist, this can result in a loop that doesn't allow treasurers to save the deposit.
The fix is to edit the .csv version of the Deposit Report so that only one of the affected AdventistGiving offerings remains on the report. Both the Code and the Category Name must be identical for all offerings you wish to map to the single Jewel offering. Then re-import from the corrected .csv file.
Sometimes this happens because an offering name was changed mid-month, so some donors gave to the old name and some to the new. In that case, the problem won't happen again. But if duplicate offerings exist on AdventistGiving, suggest to the treasurer (for local offerings) or conference (for conference offerings) that the duplicate be removed.
Incorrect Donor Mapping
First, go to Maintenance / Edit Names, find and select the incorrectly-mapped-to name in the left-hand column, click Edit in the center column, and Clear the AdventistGiving mapping. Encourage treasurers to use the tips here to avoid future issues.
Then correct each donation by clicking on the incorrect contribution on the Contribution report and correcting the donor name. There is no real back-end shortcut. In rare circumstances it might be easier to delete the affected deposits (see Deleting a Deposit, above) and re-import them.
Incorrect Account Mapping
First, go to Maintenance / Edit Accounts, find and select the incorrectly-mapped-to account in the left-hand column, click Edit in the center column, and Clear the AdventistGiving mapping. Encourage treasurers to use the tips here to avoid future issues.
Next, determine when the problem started. The mapping may have been incorrect from the beginning, or it may have been changed at any point since then. You'll need to access the AdventistGiving deposit reports for each week that has the affected offering.
Then, depending on how many deposits and how many envelopes in those deposits are affected, you have options to correct the donations:
- Delete the incorrect offerings (see Deleting a Deposit, above) and re-import them correctly.
- Correct each contribution individually in the front end.
- Use View Offerings in the back end to avoid confirming each change. But be careful!
Note that if Conference Funds are affected, these corrections will change the remittance amounts for each month. Be sure the treasurer is forewarned that their next remittance check will not match the monthly contributions, and can explain any large changes to their church board.