Someone at the front desk typed “comp renewal, approved by Dana, see email 4/12” while processing a membership. Six months later a member calls to ask why they were never charged, and nobody can find that note. It was saved somewhere in Altru. The question is where, and whether you can see it without opening records one at a time.
This guide covers where membership-related comments tend to end up in Altru, how to pull them into a list, and what to do if the field you need isn’t exposed where you expect it.
First, figure out which “comment” you mean
Staff use the word “comment” for several different things, and Altru stores them in different places. Before you go hunting, ask the person who entered it what screen they were on. In practice, membership notes usually land in one of these:
- A comment entered during the sale itself. When a membership is sold through daily sales or advance sales, the note may be attached to the order or payment rather than to the membership. It travels with the revenue, not with the member.
- A note on the membership record. Some teams add notes directly to the membership after the fact, for example to explain a manual date change or a complimentary term.
- A note on the constituent record. Very common for anything relationship-related (“prefers mail, no phone calls”). These show up on the person, not on any one transaction.
- Batch or revenue-level comments. If memberships were entered through a batch, there may be a comment or reference on the batch row or the resulting revenue record.
Each of these is viewed differently, which is why “I added a comment, where did it go?” is such a common question.
Checking a single member
For one person, work outward from the transaction:
- Open the constituent record and go to their membership. Look at the membership’s history or transaction list, and open the specific join, renewal, or upgrade in question.
- From that transaction, open the related revenue or order. Comments entered at the point of sale are more likely to be here than on the membership itself.
- If you still don’t find it, check the constituent’s notes and any interactions logged around the transaction date.
Exact screen layouts differ depending on your Altru configuration and security role, so if a tab or field isn’t visible to you, ask your Altru administrator whether your role has rights to view it before assuming the note doesn’t exist.
Seeing comments across many memberships
Opening records one by one doesn’t scale when you need to review every comped renewal from last quarter. A query is the better tool.
- Start an ad-hoc query from the source that matches where the comment lives. For point-of-sale notes, a revenue or order-based query is usually the right starting point. For notes on the membership, start from memberships. For constituent notes, start from constituents.
- Browse the available output fields and search for anything named comment, note, or reference. Add it to your output alongside the member name, membership program, level, transaction type, and transaction date.
- Filter on the date range and membership program you care about. Add a filter for “comment is not blank” so you only see transactions that actually have one.
- Save the query so the desk lead or membership manager can rerun it.
If you can’t find a comment field in the query’s field list, that’s a useful signal. It may mean the comment is stored on a different record type than the one you started from, or that it simply isn’t exposed to queries. Try a query from a different source before concluding it’s unavailable.
When the comment isn’t reachable
We’re not certain every comment field on every membership-related screen is available in ad-hoc queries, and it can vary by how your organization has things set up. The fastest way to confirm is to enter a test membership with a distinctive comment (something like “TEST-COMMENT-123”) in a sandbox or on a test constituent, then search for that text from each query source. Whichever query returns it tells you exactly where Altru stored it. If none do, Blackbaud support can tell you whether the field is queryable or whether a smart field or report covers it.
If the answer is that it isn’t reportable, change where staff record it going forward:
- Pick one home for membership notes. Constituent notes with a dedicated note type (for example, “Membership exception”) are reliably searchable and show up where staff already look.
- Use a consistent format. Start each note with the reason category, such as “COMP,” “DATE CHANGE,” or “REFUND,” so filtering by text is reliable.
- Put it in the desk procedures. A short written rule (“any comp or override gets a Membership exception note”) does more than any query will.
Quick answers
Why can I see a comment on the receipt but not on the membership?
Because it was most likely stored on the order or payment. Look at the revenue side of the transaction, or query from revenue instead of memberships.
Can I add a comment to a membership transaction after it’s processed?
Usually the easiest route is a note on the membership or constituent record rather than editing the original transaction. Editing posted revenue can affect your finance reconciliation, so check with whoever owns your batches before changing anything.
