The Database ⇒ Merge Duplicate Donation Categories menu option brings up the Merge Duplicate Donation Categories window.
Selecting that menu option brings up a window such as the following:
The purpose of this window is to allow you to merge pairs of donation categories. The effect is to change all donations using one of the categories to the other one, and then delete the first of those categories (the donations for which were changed).
Changes made by this window only affect the current working year's categories and donations.
If the one you want to merge into another one has no donations in the current year, instead of using this window, you could instead just delete it in the Maintenance ⇒ Donation Categories window. But this window can still also be used in that case.
There are a couple of fairly obvious cases in which merging donation categories might be required:
First, your list of categories might have grown over time, perhaps being edited by multiple people, and you realize that two of them really have the same meaning.
Or, you might be importing donations from a file, and new category names are imported from it that really are the same as existing categories in your database.
In the Merge Duplicate Donation Categories window, there is a list of all of your donation categories on the left. Click on two categories that are the duplicates (or at least have the same meaning) that you want to merge. As you click on them, they will appear in fields on the right. If you have made an incorrect choice, click on that choice in the list on the left again to unselect it, then select a different one.
Along with the category name on the right, there is a field for "Receiptable". That tells you whether or not donations using the category are receiptable. (See Non-Receiptable Donors and Donations for more details.) Depending on the receiptable status of the two categories you pick here, it may or may not be possible to do this merging.
There are also two radio buttons to the right of the two selected names and their Receiptable status, with the heading "Keep this One?". You need to select the radio button for the one that you want to keep, which should be the one with the more standard or obvious name.
When you have the selections the way you want them, click the Merge button. After a confirmation, it will do the merge, and inform you of whether it was successful. As mentioned above, it will change the category of any donations using the one you aren't keeping to the category you are keeping, and will then delete the category you aren't keeping. Please note that this action cannot be undone, other than by restoring a backup of your database.
If you realize after doing the merge that you clicked Keep this One for the wrong one (and didn't notice that from the confirmation message), it's easy to fix. Just go to the Maintenance ⇒ Donation Categories window, and edit the name of the newly-merged category to be your desired name.
After this, if you have more duplicate donation categories to merge, you can continue doing so on this window.
When you are finished with this window, click Close.
This topic was last edited on Feb 17, 2023