<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS > Importing Donors and Donations from Easy Tithe

If you use Easy Tithe to accept online donations, they have an option to export data files for importing specifically into DONATION.

 

To get that import, select Settings (the gear icon), then Data Export, then select Software4Nonprofits in the drop-down list of Export Profiles. Set your desired Start Date and End Date, then click Export Data. That will download the exported donations to a file that you specify.

 

You can import that file with the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors and Donations menu option, in order to import both donors and donations that are included on the same lines of the file.

 

Please first read the Help topic Importing Donors and Donations from One File to understand the general issues about doing this type of activity. What follows are the specifics for Easy Tithe. This page will not repeat the details from that overall instruction page.

 

Importing from a Easy Tithe Activity Download does have some potential issues, as explained in the details below.

 

Here is a table of a sample Software4Nonprofits export from Easy Tithe.

 

We have actually turned the data sideways to make it understandable (and fit on a page!). So if this was in Excel, the rows would be columns and vice-versa. We added a first column to the table below to count the field numbers. What I have listed as Field 1 is really Column A in Excel, Field 2 is Column B, etc. The 2nd column of the table below is the row of headings from the data, and the 3rd column is a made-up sample data row.

 

 

 

Importing Donors and Donations

 

Based on the fields above, the following list of columns could be selected in the Fields to Import list of the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors and Donations window:

 

•First Name

•Last Name

•Addr1

•Addr2

•Addrr3 (Merge 2 Fields)

•Postal Code

•Email

•Phone

•Total Amount

•Date Received

•Donation Category

•Description

•Member/Env. #

•Skip 1 Column

 

The Transaction Type column is irrelevant, so we skip it.

 

Issues with the Easy Tithe Download for Importing

 

There are a few possible issues with the data, however, that you need to be aware of.

 

First, refunds with negative dollar amounts could be included in the Easy Tithe transactions in the downloaded file. If that is the case, during the import you will be given an option of whether to ignore negative amounts. If you answer Yes to ignore them, the transactions with negative amounts will be shown to you after you complete the import, so that you can deal with them later. If you answer No, to not ignore them, the import will be cancelled.

 

The most sensible way to deal with refunds in DONATION is to answer Yes to that question. Then when you are finished doing the import, find the original recorded Easy Tithe donations for each refund and delete them. If that donation has already been part of a receipt, though, you will have to create and send out a corrected receipt. (The program will tell you that when you delete it.)

 

The other issue is that the Easy Tithe exports use the MM/DD/YYYY format for the date. If that does not match the short date format you are using on your computer (at least in terms of the order of the month, day and year components) the dates will not import correctly, To get those dates to import properly, you would change the Short Date format in Regional settings in Control Panel to match the Easy Tithe format - MM/DD/YYYY. Otherwise a date in the Easy Tithe file like 05/01/2020 (for May 1) would be imported into DONATION as January 5 if your short date format was DD/MM/YYYY! See Dates in DONATION for details on making changes.

 

Doing the Import

 

Import that possibly edited file now, with the following other settings:

 

•1 header row

•Email Address as the unique identifier for donors

•either Update existing donors from data in matching rows from the file or Ignore rows from the file matching existing donors (whichever you prefer)

•In Section 5, choose Specified Value and enter the value "Easy Tithe", without the quotes.

 

One concern you might have about choosing Update existing donors ... with the field selections above is that the exported phone number format is just 10 digits with no dashes or other punctuation. Fortunately the import routine will reformat a number like 1234567890 to (123) 456-7890, so that should not cause a problem.

 

Saving the Settings

 

You can repeat these imports each time you download a new file from Easy Tithe, using the same settings, which the program remembers for you unless you do other different imports in this same window in between, that get memorized in place of these settings. To be sure you can get back to these settings, we recommend using the Save Settings button and saving them with the name "Easy Tithe", without the quotes. Then if you have used this same window for some different importing, you can get back to these Easy Tithe settings with the Load Setting button.

 

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This topic was last edited on Feb 17, 2023