Video: Year-End Letters

At the end of the year, every donor needs one letter that lists all of their gifts, with the total for their taxes. CMS builds them for you, one letter per family, in a single batch. First, the letter. In Settings, Communications, Letters, set the type to Year End, and click Add letter. Give it a name and a subject, and say who it comes from: a name, and a mailbox on your own email domain. Templates has a ready-made Year End letter to start from. Two merge fields make it a year-end letter. Transaction List fills in a table of every gift the family made, and Total Amount adds them up. Now open PDF text, for the printed letter. Start with the salutation, and a word of thanks. Then insert the Transaction List, with the Total Amount below it, and end with the line a tax receipt needs: no goods or services were provided. Under PDF template, choose the letterhead it prints on, and save the letter. Now the batch. Under Batches, open Batch Letters, and click New Batch. If CMS reminds you about earlier batches that weren't marked sent, click Continue. Choose Year End. CMS sets the dates to the whole year, January first through December thirty-first. Under Select Letter, pick the letter we just made. Output Type decides how the letters go out. Email sends each family their letter, and PDF gives you printed letters to mail. We'll choose PDF. Email Criteria and Mailing Address can limit it, for example, to families with no email, or with a complete address. Additional Filters narrow it down by category, department, family, or a minimum total. For this example, we'll pick three families. Search for each one by name, and check it. Normally, you would leave this open, and send to everyone who gave this year. Click Preview. Each family is listed once, with the total of everything they gave this year. Click Generate PDF, and confirm. CMS saves the batch, and prepares the letters in the background. When they're ready, open the batch's menu, and choose Download Letters. Here's one family's letter, on your letterhead: their address, every gift they made this year with its date and amount, and the total at the bottom. The same menu makes mailing labels and envelopes. And once the letters are in the mail, Mark Sent records that they went out. Year-end letters give every donor one clear record of the year's giving. Set up the letter once, and CMS builds a letter for every family in a single batch, printed or emailed.