Finance asks for “the deposit summary for last week.” That sounds like one report. In practice it can mean three different things, and the number you hand back depends on which one they had in mind. Before you open a single report in Altru, it helps to pin that down.
This guide covers what a deposit summary usually needs to show, where to look for one in Altru, how to build your own with a query when the standard output doesn’t match what your bank or auditor expects, and why your totals sometimes don’t line up with the bank statement.
Decide what “deposit summary” means at your organization
Ask the person requesting it which of these they want:
- What went to the bank. Cash and checks grouped by the physical deposit they were carried in, with a total that should match the deposit slip.
- What was collected, by payment method. Cash, check, and each card type for a date range, across daily sales, advance sales, memberships, donations, and online sales.
- What was collected, by revenue category or GL account. The same money, broken out by admissions, membership, contributions, retail, and so on, so it can be posted to the general ledger.
Those three can produce three different totals for the same week, especially once credit cards are involved. Getting agreement on the definition saves a round of “this doesn’t match” emails.
Start with what Altru already has
Altru includes a set of standard reports in its reports area, and several are organized around payments, revenue, and daily sales activity. The exact names and the filters available depend on your version and on which areas your organization has turned on, so rather than trust a list from someone else’s database, search the reports area for terms like deposit, payment, and revenue and run each candidate for a date range you already know the answer to.
A short test like that tells you quickly:
- Whether the report groups by deposit, by date, or by payment method.
- Whether it includes online and web form payments or only point-of-sale activity.
- Whether refunds and voids show as separate lines or are already netted out.
- Whether it can be filtered by the user or drawer that took the payment, which matters if you reconcile by shift.
If your organization records bank deposits in Altru’s treasury or deposit features, check whether those records are being created consistently. A deposit report is only as complete as the deposit records behind it. If staff skip that step on weekends, the report will quietly come up short. If you aren’t sure whether your version supports deposit records or how they are meant to be created, Blackbaud support can confirm that for your specific setup.
When the standard report doesn’t fit, build a query
Most admins end up with a revenue or payment query that matches exactly how their finance office wants the numbers. A workable starting point:
- Source: a revenue or payment-based query, so each row is a payment rather than a constituent.
- Filters: payment date within your range, plus any exclusions your finance team agrees on (for example, test transactions or comp tickets with a zero amount).
- Output fields: payment date, payment method, amount, revenue category or designation, the application (admission, membership, donation, and so on), and the batch or deposit it belongs to if that field is available.
Export the results to a spreadsheet and use a pivot table to total by payment method, by day, or by category. That gives you all three versions of “deposit summary” from one export, and finance can see exactly which transactions make up each total.
Save the query with a clear name and a note in the description about what it includes and excludes. Six months from now, someone else will run it during your vacation.
Why the totals won’t match the bank statement
This is where most of the time goes. Common reasons for a gap:
- Card settlement timing. A Saturday card sale may not land in the bank account until Monday or Tuesday. Your Altru report is dated by transaction; the bank statement is dated by settlement.
- Processor fees. Many processors deposit the net amount after fees. Altru records the gross payment. Compare against the processor’s settlement report, not the bank line, and treat fees as a separate reconciling item.
- Refunds posted on a different day than the original sale.
- Cash and checks deposited late, or two days of cash combined into one trip to the bank.
- Uncommitted batches. If your organization uses batches for gifts or memberships entered after the fact, anything not yet committed may not appear in revenue reports at all.
A simple habit helps: reconcile cash and checks against the deposit slip, and reconcile cards against the processor’s settlement report. Don’t try to make one Altru total match one bank line.
Make it a routine
Pick a fixed rhythm, such as daily for cash and checks and weekly for cards, and keep a log of each reconciliation with the date range, the Altru total, the bank or processor total, and the explanation for any difference. Auditors care much more about a consistent, documented process than about a perfect match every day.
Quick answers
Can I schedule a deposit summary to run automatically?
That depends on your Altru setup and permissions. Check whether the report or query you rely on can be scheduled or exported on a schedule in your environment; if not, a saved query run on a set day works fine.
Should online payments be in the same summary as front desk payments?
Usually yes for a “collected” summary, and usually no for a bank deposit summary, since online card payments settle through your processor rather than a physical deposit. Keep them as separate lines either way.
