Generating receipts/thank-yous in Word

[GinaWhipp]

It would be easier with the multiple donations to do in Access. It can be made to look like a Word document, not sur why you didn't think so beofre. And yes, we can set it up to, once folded, the address shows thru the envelope window.

 

[Bham45]

Huh?

Are you saying that in a REPORT you can say "Dear Joe Schmoe, Thanks for the following donations?" Then list the donation(s)? Plus have an address placed correctly for a window envelope???

I've never seen an example of this: reports have always looked like...reports. Not letters. Then why would there even BE an option to have a mail merge?

I'm so confused!

 

[GinaWhipp]

Yep, can that real easy!

Reports look the way you want them to look as you make them. You want them to look like a letter then that is the way it will look.

Why Mail Merge? I have Clients that use the Mail Merge because of Letterhead and/or they want the option to change the text which in Access is not that easy to do if you are just the End User, i.e. my Clients have no access to the Reports Design View so they would have to call me to change the wording. If I do the Word Mail Merge they can change the wording 100 times plus add new Word documents.

 

[Bham45]

Ah...so if I can design a header that looks like our letterhead, could you help me figure out how to add the personalization? ("Dear Mr. Schmoe") And how to place the address properly for a window envelope (although we don't have them right now, we could have some printed).

I'm at the org right now--just installed Access 2007 here--I assume it would be compatible (enough) with my Access 2010.

Last question: if things are this simple do you think I should stick with my own database or use the "Charitable Contributions" one and modify it?

 

[GinaWhipp]

Hmm, been so long I don't remember, did you ever post your original one? Just looking to confirm it is set up in a way we can use. If not, can you post an screen shot of the Relationships window?

Yes, the two will work, you just need to be careful not to use anything that is only available in Access 2010 or it won't open in Access 2007.

 

[GinaWhipp]

Oops, forgot, yes you can design a report that looks like a letter with letterhead and all.

 

[Bham45]

Okay, I'm back at this thread (as opposed to the thread in Tables about calculated fields), because I want to ask for opinions.

There are two companies (that I know of) who create add-ins for QuickBooks that will create a donations letter as I'm trying to do. Neither one are terribly beautiful, but they do appear to get the job done. I'm trying trials of both of them.

The first one, less expensive, less polished--when I ran the trial I experienced a run-time error that they say is because there's some odd character(s) in our data somewhere (like an accent mark or an umlaut). If I send them an Excel export of the data, they can find them so I can delete them from our QB file. They say they have no interest in our donations data and they'll delete it as soon as they complete the search, but I really doubt my boss will go for this plan. (He's away this week.)

The other trial did work with no errors--would just need some heavy tweaking to make more attractive as letters--but I will need to go in and change how our donors are listed as the letters come out "Dear John Smith" or "Dear Attn John Smith" since the donor info was input with no thought to consistency or addressing letters.

I told the owner of the first company that I was trying to design an Access db to do this same thing and his reply was, "The Access (or Excel, or Word. or whatever) approach, when managed manually, seems attractive initially but unless the data on donors and donations is exceptionally simplistic, it turns out that it quickly drives people nuts. That's because QB -- inexpensive, attractively marketed and and dominant among very small businesses -- is nevertheless a lousy accounting package."

I don't quite understand how the second sentence necessarily follows the first one, but he does have me wondering if I"m wasting my time trying to do this and should just go with one of these QB add-ins.

Any thoughts?

 

[Bham45]

Gina, I am going to attach here my bare bones database that generates a report showing a donor's donations. I think my simpler approach may be the way to go (although I'm not giving up on the QuickBooks add-in idea).

Going back to what you said in posts 61 and following that I can make a report look like a letter, can you help me turn my "Donor Report" into a "Donor Letter" with a "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith"?

And (but this may end up being an "or") can you show me how to place the address so that it be inserted into a window envelope?

Oh, and is there a way to get the city, state, and zip to appear properly with comma after the state and not so much space in between?

Thanks!

 

[GinaWhipp]

I told the owner of the first company that I was trying to design an Access db to do this same thing and his reply was, "The Access (or Excel, or Word. or whatever) approach, when managed manually, seems attractive initially but unless the data on donors and donations is exceptionally simplistic, it turns out that it quickly drives people nuts. That's because QB -- inexpensive, attractively marketed and and dominant among very small businesses -- is nevertheless a lousy accounting package."

Would you expect him to have said different? He's trying to sell his product. I always wonder about people that feel the need to trash the other guy in order to sell their product. Just my opinion...

That said, you need to *value* what you're doung, i.e. my time is worth $100.00 an hour. If I build a database that will take me 40 hours it will cost $4,000. Now, if someone has that database that I can tweak and make work in a 4 hours and the cost of that software is $1,000 which one do you think I'm going to go for. So, that is what you need to decide.

I will look at your file tomorrow, grandkids here and they have run me ragged. Youngest finally feel asleep and I'm not far behind!

 

[Bham45]

I understand that you're probably busy with the kiddos, but I'll just add one more question till you can get around to it.

Have started using my database and am pleased--so far. EXCEPT that I found a flaw in my calculated Greeting field (in the Donors table) that takes the Title (Mr./Mrs./Ms. etc) and combines with Last Name, so I get "Dear Mr. Smith". If the donor is a Catholic priest, his title is "Rev." on the envelope but would be addressed in a letter as "Dear Father Smith." Have no idea how to deal with that particular exception. Any suggestions?

 

[Bham45]

Hello Gina,

Very proud of myself at this moment because I FINALLY have a functioning database that has produced donation reports that can be mailed out! What's kind of funny is that today we received our own 6-month donation report from our church, and my design looks a 100 times better.

At this point, I decided to forget about trying a letter format and simply have the name and address, the list of donations, and year-to-date total. The things I still need to do are:

1. Format the addresses for a window envelope.
2. Figure out how to make the City, State, Zip appear without big spaces in between them.
------
Edit: #3. Discovered in my report that donors with the same last name have been combined together. For instance, 2 sisters with the same last name at the same address are combined under the name of one sister. Two donors named Smith are also combined into one report.
------

For point number two, would I do some kind of Select statement as you had me do before with the Title, First Name, and Last Name?

I also have to separate out the reports to go to the different campaign areas, but I think that shouldn't be a problem. Then I have to make the whole thing pretty and usable by people who know nothing about Access.

Must get some sleep--it's been an EXTREMELY long day working on this!

 

[Bham45]

To answer my own post, I did create a calculated field to combine the city state and zip: =([City] & (", " + [State]) & " " & [ZIP]) for anyone who's interested.

vbaInet helped me get the sort/group right, so now the last item is to figure out the window envelope trick. I may have to wait till I get my next bill with a window envelope to see how to format--but I don't get many through the mail anymore.

 

[GinaWhipp]

I finally am getting caught up and I see you are okay... kind of. As for window envelopes, you need to make it fit your envelopes. I get things in the mail and window is never in the same place so you can't count on the windows being in the same place for every bill you get. Are you purchasing envelopes?