Two questions come up again and again with the group sales revenue report in Altru: “Can I see this for just one program?” and “Can I see what’s booked for next month?” The first matters to whoever manages school field trips separately from adult tours. The second matters to anyone forecasting staffing or cash flow. The standard report doesn’t always answer either one cleanly. Below is how to check what your version can do, and the workarounds that hold up when it can’t.
Start by confirming what the report actually offers
Report parameters in Altru change between releases, and what one organization sees isn’t always what another sees. Before you build a workaround, open the group sales revenue report and look closely at its parameter screen:
- Date options. Many Altru reports offer relative ranges like “this month” or “last quarter” plus a specific date range. Look at whether forward-looking choices exist. If they don’t, check whether a specific start and end date is allowed.
- Program or event filters. See whether you can narrow by program, event, or another grouping. If the only choices are dates and maybe a site, the report wasn’t built for program-level slicing.
- What “revenue” means here. Find out whether the report totals payments and deposits received in the period or the value of visits scheduled in the period. Those are different numbers, and for future dates the difference is large.
If any of this is unclear, run the report in a sandbox or a test period against a few reservations you already know, and compare the output. Blackbaud support can also tell you what the report is meant to include in your current release.
Looking ahead: next month, next quarter, next year
When the relative date list only looks backward, the simplest fix is a specific date range. Enter the first and last day of next month (or quarter, or fiscal year) and run it. That works, but it has two weaknesses: someone has to remember to change the dates every time, and a saved or scheduled version will keep pulling the same fixed window forever.
Before you trust the numbers, settle the revenue-versus-bookings question from the section above. If the report counts money as it’s received, a “next month” range will show very little, because most of that money hasn’t come in yet. That isn’t a bug. It means the report answers a different question than the one you’re asking.
For a true forward view of booked groups, a query on group sales reservations is usually the better tool. Filter on the scheduled visit date instead of the payment date, and include fields such as the reservation’s program or event, group size, total amount, amount paid, and balance due. Many Altru query date filters support relative values, so check whether “next month” or a similar option is available on the visit date field. If it is, you have a forecast that rolls forward on its own.
Filtering by program
If the report has no program parameter, three approaches work, from least to most effort:
- Export and filter. Run the report, export it to Excel, and filter on the program column if the export includes one. Fine for a one-off, tedious for a monthly routine.
- Build a reservation query with program as a criterion. Add the program (or event) as a filter and as an output column, then save one query per program or one query with program as a column you group on. This is the most flexible option inside Altru.
- Use smart fields or a custom report. If leadership wants a polished program-by-program summary on a schedule, a custom report built on your query is worth discussing with whoever handles Altru reporting at your organization or with a Blackbaud partner.
One caution: reservations that include several programs or a mix of admission and add-ons may show up in more than one program’s results, depending on how the query joins the data. Compare the query’s grand total against the standard report for the same dates before you hand it to anyone. If the totals don’t match, find out why before the finance team does.
Make the numbers agree with finance
Group sales figures get questioned more than most, because deposits, balances, cancellations, and refunds all land at different times. A few habits help:
- Label every output as either collected revenue or booked value. Don’t mix the two in one column.
- Decide how cancelled reservations are treated (excluded, or shown with a status) and apply the same rule to every query.
- Keep the standard group sales revenue report as the reconciliation check. Your custom queries should explain it, not compete with it.
Getting the query in front of the people who need it
Once the right reservation query exists, the remaining chore is distribution: someone exports it every week and emails a spreadsheet around. Data Bridge from Social Good syncs Altru query results to Google Sheets and other tools, so a forward-looking, program-filtered group sales query can stay current in a shared sheet without manual exports. The query logic still lives in Altru.
Quick answers
Why does next month’s group revenue look so low?
The report is probably counting money received, not visits booked. Use a reservation query filtered on visit date for forecasting.
Can I save a “next quarter” version that updates itself?
Only if the date filter you’re using supports relative values. A fixed date range has to be changed by hand each time.
