General Recommendations

• You may want to keep the Platform open in another tab in your browser so that without leaving the Batch Manager Tool you could quickly:
  • Search for related Donor, Program, etc. details,
  • Use tools like the Add/Edit Family Tool, and
  • Run reports on these batches from the Batches page during or immediately following your data entry.
• It is not necessary to finalize each Batch one at a time. You can create all your Batches and do all your scanning first and then go back to each Batch and assign Donors, dollars, etc. and finalize. The scanning, assigning and finalizing duties may also be split among various volunteers and/or staff members.

Batch Composition

You can assemble multiple Batches into a single Deposit in MinistryPlatform for your bank. Dividing your check and cash donations into Batches based on the following recommendations will save you time in the Batch Manager Tool:

• Keep batches small enough to be manageable during counting and entry. Between 50 and 100 items is best.
• Group checks into batches with only one payment type (e.g., checks).
• Group checks with a single designation into batches.
• Group checks with multiple designations, bill-pay checks, or mission trip donations into batches.  These items require more scrutiny.
• Batch items by campus or service if your church reporting and reconciliation requirements call for this.

Navigation & Data Entry

Tab

Once your file is imported or your checks are scanned, the Batch Manager Tool is designed to find data entry without the use a mouse. Tab to quickly and easily navigate through the Donation details rows to assign Donors, dollars and Designations, as needed.

In addition to the ability to navigate via tab, you can also control what fields you want included in your "tab scope". By clicking the checkbox next to a column header, you can turn on or off the tabbing for that column. For example, you can select just the Donor, Amount and Program columns to limit your tabbing to these fields for each record (you can still access any field using a click of the mouse).

Column Selection (tab scope) is retained between sessions (until browser cache is cleared).

Expand/Collapse

Also, to assist data entry and navigation, you can use "View" to expand and collapse the Donation rows to hide/show the images.

Sort

Additionally, clicking on a column header sorts the records by that column. For example, clicking on the Donor column would allow you to quickly sort all the records needing Donor assignment together to ease data entry.

Zoom

With the Donation rows expanded so you can see the check image if you click Zoom In on the check image, it zooms into the check image in the location corresponding with the field your cursor is in and move the zoom accordingly as you change fields. For example, if my cursor is in the Account # field, and I click Zoom In, the check will zoom to the MICR. Then, if I tab to the Item # field, the check will zoom to the check number.