A family of four pays $80 at the admissions desk, spends the morning on site, and stops back at the desk on the way out to buy a $150 family membership. Your policy says today’s admission counts toward the membership, so they pay $70 more. Simple at the counter. The harder question shows up later, when finance asks how much of that day was admissions revenue and how much was membership revenue, and the report doesn’t match what anyone expected.
Below: the two ways that money can reasonably be split, how to find out exactly how your Altru configuration posts it, and how to report it so membership and finance stop arguing over the same dollars.
Two reasonable answers to the same question
There are two common ways an organization can think about that $150 membership:
- Admission stays admission. The $80 was earned when the family walked in. Membership revenue for the day is the $70 difference. Attendance and per-cap admission numbers stay clean, but membership looks smaller than its sticker price.
- The membership gets full credit. The whole $150 belongs to membership, and the $80 of admission is reversed or moved. Membership revenue matches the price of the level sold, but admissions revenue for the day drops after the fact.
Neither is wrong. They answer different questions. The trouble starts when the system records one way, the membership team reports the other way, and the GL ends up somewhere in between.
What to confirm in your own Altru setup
How Altru distributes revenue on a ticket-to-membership conversion depends on how the transaction is processed and how your membership programs, price types, and GL mappings are configured. Rather than relying on anyone’s description (including this one), confirm it with a test:
- Run a test conversion in a sandbox or training environment. Sell a ticket, then apply it to a membership the same way your desk staff would.
- Open the resulting revenue records. Look at the amounts posted to the ticket sale, the membership, and any credit or discount line. Note which revenue record carries which dollars.
- Check the GL distributions after posting a test batch. This is where finance sees the result. Confirm which accounts were debited and credited and whether admission revenue was reduced.
- Run your standard daily sales and membership reports for the test date. See whether they show the membership at full price, net price, or both.
- If anything is unclear, ask Blackbaud support how the conversion is expected to post for your configuration. It is better to know than to assume.
Write down what you find. That one page becomes the reference the desk, membership, and finance teams all work from.
Why the split matters more than it seems
Membership goals
If membership targets are set at the sticker price of each level, but conversions record only the net amount, the membership team will look like it is missing goal even while selling exactly the number of memberships planned. For organizations where desk conversions are a meaningful source of new members, understating them can skew budgeting decisions.
Admissions and per-cap numbers
If admission revenue is moved to membership, your earned admissions income and per-capita figures drop for days with strong conversion. Leadership comparing year over year may read that as softer attendance spending when it was the opposite.
Tax receipts and benefits value
If part of a membership is treated as a contribution, the amount you consider deductible depends on the membership’s price and benefits, not on how revenue happened to be split. Make sure your acknowledgment letters reflect your actual policy for converted memberships, and have your finance or tax advisor sign off on it.
Ways to get numbers you can live with
Once you know how your configuration actually posts, pick the approach that fits your reporting needs:
- Accept the system split and report around it. Build a query that identifies memberships created from ticket conversions and adds back the applied ticket amount. Use that query for membership goal tracking, and leave the GL alone. This is often the lowest-effort fix.
- Adjust in the general ledger. If finance wants membership revenue at full price, a periodic journal entry can reclassify applied admission amounts. Base it on the same conversion query so the number is traceable.
- Track conversions as their own measure. Consider reporting “desk conversions” separately: count, gross membership value, and admission credit applied. This keeps both teams’ numbers honest and shows the value of the front desk.
- Standardize the desk process. If some staff apply tickets through the conversion process and others void the ticket and sell a discounted membership, your data will not be comparable. Choose one method and train on it.
A note on time limits
Organizations commonly limit ticket-to-membership credit to the day of the visit or a short window afterward. Whatever your limit is, keep it consistent and visible at the desk. Exceptions processed days later tend to be handled differently by different staff, and those are the transactions that are hardest to reconcile at month end.
Quick answers
Is there one correct way to split the revenue?
No. It depends on whether your organization values clean admissions numbers or full-price membership revenue more. Agree on it with finance first, then make reports match.
Can I change how Altru posts the split?
Some of it is driven by configuration, so test changes in a sandbox before touching production. If configuration does not get you what you need, reporting queries and GL adjustments are the dependable fallback.
Should past transactions be corrected?
Usually not record by record. Document the policy from a set date forward, and use a query-based adjustment if prior periods need restating.
