Donors
A Donor represents an individual or entity that contributes to your organization. Donors help you identify who your contributions come from and allow you to maintain accurate records of donation activity.
Each donor record stores essential contact and identification details and serves as the point of association for all donations made by that donor. This enables you to track contribution history, generate donation receipts, and manage donor related reporting effectively.
Why Use Donors?
Non-profit organizations interact with multiple contributors over time. Donors allow you to organize and manage these relationships in a structured way, ensuring that every contribution is accurately linked to the right contributor.
How Donors Work in Zoho ERP
In Zoho ERP, donors are created as customer records and are used while recording donation transactions. When a donation is created, it is associated with a donor, ensuring that all contributions are tracked accurately at the donor level.
Once a donor is created, you can:
- Record and manage donations for the donor.
- View the donor’s contribution history.
- Generate reports to analyze donor activity.
Key Points to Note
- Each donor represents a contributor to your organization.
- Donors can be classified using donor types for reporting and organization.
- Donors can be maintained as Domestic or Foreign using donor legal residency.
- Donor records help maintain accurate communication and compliance.
Creating Donors
Creating a donor allows you to record and manage individuals or organizations that contribute to your non-profit, including both domestic and foreign donors. Once a donor is created, you can associate them with donations, generate donation receipts, and track their contributions over time. Here’s how to create a donor:
- Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
- Go to Sales on the left sidebar.
- Navigate to the Customers module at the top.
- Click + New Donor.
- Select the Donor Residency as Domestic or Foreign.
Note:
For FCRA compliance, select Domestic for Indian citizens, including Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who retain Indian citizenship. Select Foreign for foreign citizens, including OCI and PIO cardholders. Donations from foreign sources are treated as foreign contributions under the FCRA, regardless of whether the contribution is received in Indian rupees or foreign currency.
- Enter the required details in the following fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Donor Name | Enter the legal name of the donor. This can be an individual or an organization. |
| Donor Type | Select the category that best describes the donor, such as an individual, NGO/trust, or government or private grant. |
| Display Name | Enter the name that will be displayed in records. |
| Phone | Enter the donor’s contact phone number. |
| Email Address | Enter the donor’s email address. This will be used for communication and sending donation receipts. |
- Scroll to the Identification tab and enter the required details in the following fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| PAN | Enter the Permanent Account Number of the donor for tax and compliance purposes. |
| TIN | Enter the Tax Identification Number of the donor, if available. |
| Passport Number | Enter the passport number of the donor, if applicable. |
| Enable Portal | Enable this option to allow the donor to access the customer portal and view their donation history and receipts. |
Note:
For foreign donors, collecting the Passport Number and TIN helps verify their identity and maintain accurate records for compliance and reporting.
- Navigate to the Address tab and enter the Billing Address and the Shipping Address of the donor.
- Enter the other required details.
- Click Save.
Once saved, the donor will be added to your organization and can be associated with donations.
Donor Transaction Tracking
You can verify each donor’s posted activity from the donor record.
- Open the donor record.
- Click the Transactions tab.
- Verify the linked donation entries.
Some layouts also show a donor option such as Record transactions for this. If this option is available, enable it to explicitly track transactions under that donor.
Importing Donors
Importing donors allows you to add multiple donor records to Zoho ERP at once using a file. This is especially useful when migrating donor data from another system, as it reduces manual entry.
Note: Donors are imported as customers in Zoho ERP. If you want to classify a donor under a specific donor type, map the Donor Type field during import and the records will fall under the corresponding category.
Here’s how to import donors:
- Click Sales on the left sidebar.
- Navigate to the Customers module at the top.
- Click the More Actions icon and select Import Customers.
- Download the sample file and compare it with your file. Make sure that the format in your file is similar to the sample file.
- Under the Configure tab,
- Click Choose File and select the file that you want to import.
- Select the Character Encoding and File Delimiter from the dropdown.
- Click Next.
- Under the Map Fields tab,
- Map the Zoho ERP fields to the imported file headers.
- Click Next.
- Under the Preview tab,
- Check the list of all the donors that are ready to be imported, skipped and also the list of unmapped fields.
- If there are donors that are being skipped, edit the import file and repeat the above steps.
- Click Import.
Once the import is complete, the donor records will be added to your organization based on the mapped fields and import preferences. Review the imported data to ensure accuracy before associating donors with donations.