Before you open a single setup screen in Altru, sit down with whoever closes the books in QuickBooks and print out their chart of accounts. Almost every messy Altru-to-QuickBooks setup traces back to one decision made in the wrong order: someone built the GL mapping in Altru first, then tried to bend QuickBooks to match. Do it the other way around. QuickBooks (and your auditor) defines what the accounts are. Altru only needs to know which account each kind of revenue lands in.
This guide covers how the pieces fit together, the order to set them up in, and the places where you should confirm behavior rather than assume it.
Three things that get confused with each other
Altru mixes up three concepts in many people’s heads, and the setup goes faster once you separate them.
- GL accounts and account structure. These are the account numbers Altru will put on each line of a posted transaction. They should mirror the accounts that already exist in QuickBooks, including any segments you use (for example, an account number plus a class or department).
- The fundraising hierarchy (designations). This is how Altru organizes where contributed money is meant to go: the funds, campaigns, and purposes donors give to. It is a fundraising and reporting structure first. It only touches accounting because each designation eventually needs a GL account.
- Mappings. The rules that connect a transaction type (a ticket sale, a membership, a donation to a specific designation, a payment by credit card) to a debit and credit account. This is where most of the real work lives.
A designation is not a GL account, and you do not need one designation per account. Plenty of organizations have many designations that all post to the same restricted or unrestricted revenue account. Keep the hierarchy shaped around how your development staff and donors think, and let the mapping handle the accounting.
Order of operations
- Agree on the QuickBooks side. List every income, cash/clearing, receivable, and deferred revenue account Altru will touch. Decide whether you use QuickBooks classes or locations for programs or restrictions, because that determines whether your Altru account numbers need more than one segment.
- Set up the account structure and GL accounts in Altru. Match account numbers exactly, including leading zeros and separators. A one-character mismatch is the most common reason an import fails or lands in the wrong account.
- Build or clean up the designation hierarchy. Add the funds and purposes your fundraisers actually use. Inactivate old ones rather than deleting them if they have history.
- Map each revenue type. Work through admissions and program sales, memberships, contributions by designation, merchandise if you sell it through Altru, and each payment method. Don’t forget refunds and discounts, which often need their own accounts.
- Test with real transactions. Run a handful of representative sales and gifts, post them, and review the output before anything goes near QuickBooks.
Membership revenue deserves its own conversation
Ask your accountant how they want membership dues treated before you map them. Some organizations book the whole payment as revenue; others split a portion as a contribution, or defer it over the membership term. Altru’s handling of these choices depends on how your membership programs and mappings are configured, and the details matter. If you need deferral or a split between dues and contribution, test it in a sandbox or confirm with Blackbaud support that the posted output looks the way your accountant expects. Don’t build the mapping on a guess and find out at year-end.
Getting the entries into QuickBooks
Altru posts transactions to the general ledger inside Altru and produces an export of those entries. Be careful about what you assume beyond that. Whether you get a file QuickBooks can import directly, or a file you need to reformat first, depends on your Altru setup and which edition of QuickBooks you run (Desktop and Online import differently). Confirm the current export options with Blackbaud before you promise your finance team a one-click process.
In practice, many teams settle into a rhythm like this:
- Post on a fixed schedule (daily or weekly) so batches stay small and easy to reconcile.
- Export the posted entries and, if needed, reshape them in a spreadsheet template that matches QuickBooks’ journal entry import columns.
- Import as a summarized journal entry rather than line-by-line sales. QuickBooks doesn’t need every ticket; it needs totals by account.
- Reconcile the Altru deposit and payment totals against the bank and your card processor statements before closing the period.
Save the spreadsheet template and write down the steps. The person who does this monthly will change, and the template is what keeps the numbers consistent.
Editing the hierarchy after you go live
Changing designations and mappings later is possible, but treat it as an accounting change, not a cleanup task. A few rules that save pain:
- Changes generally affect what posts going forward. Already-posted transactions keep the accounts they posted with. If something posted to the wrong account, fix it with an adjusting entry in QuickBooks, coordinated with your accountant, rather than trying to rewrite history in Altru.
- Make changes at period boundaries. Switching a mapping mid-month makes reconciliation harder than it needs to be.
- Check unposted items first. Before remapping, look for revenue that has been entered but not yet posted, since it may pick up the new mapping. Confirm this behavior in a sandbox if you’re not sure.
- Update reports and queries. Any query or report that filters by designation or account will need to know about new or renamed items.
Quick answers
Do I need a designation for every QuickBooks income account?
No. Designations describe purpose for fundraising; GL accounts describe accounting treatment. Several designations can map to one account.
Does Altru sync directly with QuickBooks?
Don’t assume a live sync. Plan around exporting posted entries and importing them, and confirm with Blackbaud what export formats your instance supports today.
What’s the first thing to check when an import fails?
Account numbers. Compare the exported account strings character by character against the QuickBooks chart of accounts, including segments and separators.
