Data Entry – Which Tool Should You Use?
DonorSnap has many tools and features built into it to help you enter data in the most efficient way possible. Which tool will work best for you? Here are your options:
- Manual lookup and adding new records (scenario 1 below)
- Mass Entry tool (scenario 2 below)
- Excel Import tool
- Responsive Forms
- Interaction Mass Update tool
How do you choose? Start by asking a few questions:
- What type of information Is it?
This is always the biggest question, and the most important to decipher.
Is it ONLY names and addresses? Do you have donations (or otherwise financial payments, event tickets or registrations, raffle tickets, etc.).
Is it something non-financial such as attendance to the event, but not Paid for. - Do the contacts already exist in your database, are they brand new, or a combination of both?
- How many records do you need to add?
- Are the records similar (e.g. checks for an event registration) or is it a random assortment?
Scenario 1: Three random donations mailed in
You found 3 checks mailed in from people you aren’t familiar with last month that never got entered into your database. Since you have only 3 donations, it’s probably easiest to manually handle these.
We recommend going directly to the database (Community > Contacts).
- Check to see if the contact already exists. Search for the Last Name or Company name in their respective field.
- If the contact doesn’t already exist, add them in by clicking the Add button in the upper left and fill out the contact fields.
- Click the Donation tab and then the Add button. Enter the details of the donation and save it.
- Click the Listing tab to the left, to return to the main contact listing to search for the next contact.
- Repeat for the remaining donations.
Scenario 2: The day after an event a stack of checks from existing contacts
Last night was your annual fundraising event. The attendees registered in advance, but paid at the door by check. In this situation since the majority of your attendees are already in your database and they have very similar donations, your best bet is to use the Mass Entry tool (Community > Mass Entry).
- Add a new Mass Entry batch for the registration fees and a separate one for the building campaign by clicking the Add button in top of the Mass Entry Listing tab.
- Move to the Fields tab to set up the defaults for all of the donation fields.