Discount lists in Altru tend to grow one reasonable decision at a time. A reciprocal partner here, a teacher appreciation weekend there, a one-off promo code for a radio sponsor, three versions of “Military” because nobody could find the first one. A few years in, the list your cashiers scroll through is long, inconsistently named, and full of discounts that ended long ago.
Altru doesn’t give you much structure to manage that list. As far as we know, discounts don’t have folders or categories you can file them into, and how much keyword searching or filtering you get depends on the screen you’re on. If you need to know exactly what your version supports, test it in your sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you plan around it. Either way, most of the fix comes from how you name and retire discounts, not from a setting.
Make the name do the work of a folder
Without folders, the discount name is the only organizing tool everyone sees. A consistent prefix sorts related discounts together alphabetically and lets anyone type the first few letters to narrow the list.
Pick a short set of prefixes that match how your staff think about discounts, for example:
- MBR for member pricing and member-only offers
- RECIP for reciprocal programs (add the program name after it)
- COMM for community access, EBT, military, teachers, and similar ongoing programs
- PROMO for time-limited campaigns and partner codes
- GRP for group sales and school pricing
- STAFF for employee, volunteer, and comp discounts
After the prefix, put the specific audience or partner, and for anything temporary, the end date or season. “PROMO – Radio Sponsor – Spring 2027” tells the cashier what it is and tells your admin when it can be retired. “Spring Special” tells neither.
Keep prefixes short and in capitals so they stand out on a crowded screen. Resist the urge to create a dozen of them. Five to eight categories is usually enough, and the point is that a new staff member can guess where something lives.
Shrink the list before you rename it
Renaming 200 discounts is a lot of work if 120 of them are dead. Clean up first.
- Export or list every discount with its name, amount, and where it’s used (daily sales, advance sales, group sales, web forms, memberships).
- Check recent use. Look at your revenue and sales reports, or build a query, to see which discounts actually appeared on transactions in the last year or two. Anything with no recent use is a retirement candidate.
- Find duplicates. Sort by amount and look for discounts that do the same thing under different names. Pick one to keep and note which ones it replaces.
- Retire, don’t delete. A discount that has been used on past transactions may not be deletable, and you probably don’t want it gone from your history anyway. If your setup lets you mark discounts inactive or remove them from sales methods, do that so they drop off the cashier’s view. Confirm in your sandbox how retired discounts behave in reports before you do it in production.
Only after that should you rename what’s left. Renaming is usually safe for reporting because transactions point to the discount itself, not its label, but run one of your regular discount reports before and after a test rename to be sure nothing you rely on keys off the name.
Keep a discount register outside Altru
Since Altru won’t hold notes about why a discount exists, keep a simple shared spreadsheet that does. One row per active discount, with columns for:
- Exact name as it appears in Altru
- Category (matching your prefix)
- Amount or percentage, and what it applies to
- Sales channels where it’s turned on
- Who requested it and who approved it
- Start date and planned end date
- Any verification the cashier needs (ID, card, partner list)
This becomes the answer to “do we have a discount for that?” and keeps people from creating a fourth version of something that already exists. It also gives finance one place to see what’s being given away.
Set a few rules so it stays clean
The list got messy because anyone with the right permissions could add to it. A little governance keeps it from drifting back:
- One owner. Limit discount creation to one or two administrators. Everyone else requests through them.
- No discount without an end date unless it’s a standing program. Temporary promos get the date in the name and on the register.
- A recurring review. Once a quarter, or before your busiest season, compare the register to Altru and retire anything past its end date.
- Channel discipline. Only turn a discount on in the sales methods that actually need it. A school group rate doesn’t need to appear at the daily admissions register, and the shorter each screen’s list is, the fewer mis-rings you’ll see.
Quick answers
Can I put Altru discounts in folders?
Not that we’re aware of. Naming prefixes are the practical substitute. If you find a native option in your version, use it alongside the naming convention rather than instead of it.
Will renaming a discount change past transactions?
Past transactions should still report correctly, but they may display the new name. Test a rename in your sandbox and compare a report before and after to confirm.
How long should a cleanup take?
The usage review is the slow part. Once you know which discounts are live, renaming and retiring usually goes quickly, especially if you block out time when sales are light.
