A donor mails one check for $500 with a note: $300 for the year-end appeal, $200 because they loved the spring gala mailer. Finance wants one deposit line for one check. Development wants credit split across two appeals. In Altru, those two goals pull against each other, and the way you enter that check decides which reports come out right.
This guide covers why that happens, the entry methods that actually hold up, and the special case of donations taken during a ticket or membership sale.
The core issue: appeal usually lives on the payment, not the split
Altru is comfortable splitting a single payment across several designations or revenue applications. Appeal attribution is a different matter. In most setups, the appeal is recorded once for the payment as a whole, so a single revenue record carries a single appeal. That is why staff entering a split check see room to divide the money but only one appeal field to fill in.
Configuration and version differences exist, so before you settle on a process, test it: enter a sample split payment in a sandbox or training environment, then run your appeal report and see where the dollars land. If you are not sure what your instance supports, Blackbaud support can confirm it for your specific database.
Option 1: Enter the check as two (or more) payments
This is the approach most administrators fall back on, because it gives each appeal its own clean revenue record.
- Create one payment per appeal, each for its share of the check ($300 and $200 in the example).
- Use the same check number, check date, and payment method on each one.
- Put both payments in the same batch, so the batch total still equals the physical check.
- Add a short note on each payment referencing the other (“Check #4417 split with $200 to Spring Gala appeal”). Whoever reviews the record later will thank you.
The tradeoff: the donor shows two gifts on that date instead of one. That can affect gift counts, “largest gift” smart fields, and acknowledgment letters. Decide ahead of time whether you send one combined thank-you or one per appeal, and make sure whoever runs acknowledgments knows the two records belong together.
Keep deposits reconciling
Finance usually cares more about the bank deposit than the revenue record count. As long as both payments sit in the same batch and deposit with matching check details, the deposit total should tie out to the bank. Confirm this once with your finance contact so nobody gets surprised at month end.
Option 2: One payment, one appeal, track the rest elsewhere
Some organizations decide the split is not worth two records. They credit the full check to the appeal the donor responded to most directly (often the one whose reply device came back in the envelope) and record the donor’s intent in a note or a revenue attribute.
This keeps gift counts clean, but your appeal reports will slightly overstate one campaign and understate the other. That is fine if the amounts are small or rare. It is not fine if a board report compares appeal performance closely.
Option 3: Use designations when the real question is purpose, not campaign
It is worth asking what the donor actually meant. “$300 for the general fund and $200 for the education program” is a designation split, not an appeal split. Altru handles that within one payment. Appeals answer “what solicitation prompted this gift?” Designations answer “where does the money go?” Mixing them up is a common source of the problem in the first place.
Donations added during a sale
The harder case is a donation added to a daily sales or advance sales order, such as a visitor rounding up at admissions or adding a gift when buying a membership. Depending on how your sales process is set up, staff may not see an appeal option at all on that donation line.
A few ways teams deal with this:
- Accept it and report by revenue type. Treat point-of-sale donations as their own bucket and report on them separately rather than forcing them into an appeal.
- Edit the revenue afterward. If your security rights allow it, a development staff member can review sales-related donations and add or adjust the appeal on the resulting revenue record. Test first, since edits on sales revenue can behave differently from standard payments.
- Take the gift separately. For larger gifts made at the desk, record the donation as its own payment instead of inside the sales order, so the appeal field is available.
Whichever you pick, run a periodic query of donations from sales with no appeal attached. That shows you how much money is going unattributed, which helps you decide whether the cleanup effort is worth it.
Write it into your gift entry procedures
Split checks are rare enough that each person handles them differently, which is how appeal reports drift. Pick one method, document it in your gift entry guide with a worked example, and include how acknowledgments should be handled. The specific method matters less than everyone using the same one.
Quick answers
Can one Altru payment credit two appeals?
In typical setups, no: one payment carries one appeal. Confirm in a sandbox if you are unsure about your configuration.
Will splitting a check into two payments break the deposit?
It should not, as long as both payments are in the same batch and deposit with the same check details. Verify the totals with finance the first time.
Should I split by appeal or by designation?
Split by designation when the donor is directing where the money goes. Split by appeal only when you genuinely need to credit two different solicitations.
