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Adding Soft Credits
Soft credits are used as a recognition tool for donations. For example, if a constituent makes a donation but you want to indicate that another account in your database (such as their spouse) was also responsible for the contribution, you can use a soft credit.
Another common scenario is when you receive a donation from an entity like a Family Foundation, Donor Advised Fund, United Way, or via a third-party event, but want to give credit for the gift to the individual donors who supported your organization by way of the entity.
After adding your donation, membership, or event registration as normal, click Add Soft Credit at the top of the summary page.
Use the magnifying glass icon to search your database for the Soft Credit Recipient - this is the account you wish to credit.
Enter the Soft Credit Amount or Rate - this is the portion of the total amount you wish to credit. You can give credit for the entirety of a donation, a certain amount, or a percentage.
Optionally, check the boxes to send a system email and/or letter to the Soft Credit Recipient. The Soft Credit Distributor will have already received an acknowledgement when the donation, membership, or event registration was entered. This additional communication can be sent to thank the soft credit recipient - keep in mind that this communication should not contain tax receipt information. For more details about configuring and customizing the Soft Credit Recipient system email, review the Creating System Emails guide here. For letters, click here.
Click Submit to create the soft credit record.
The soft credit now appears on both the donor and the credited constituent's accounts.
On the soft credit recipient's account, it is visible under the Soft Credit Received section.
On the donor's account, it is visible under the Soft Credit Distributed section.
The soft credit will also display at the bottom of the donation record. You can edit or delete the soft credit from here.
If you triggered the system to create a Soft Credit Recipient email, it will be sent immediately. If you created a Soft Credit Recipient system letter, it will be ready in Letters > Letter Merge to be printed and sent.
Soft Credit Distribution Rules
Soft Credits can be distributed automatically in Neon CRM by creating Soft Credit Distribution Rules on accounts. These rules will distribute a soft credit to another account every time the constituent in question makes a donation or registers for a membership or an event.
Note: These rules also apply to imported transactions.
To create a distribution rule, navigate to the account of the constituent who will be making the contribution. Navigate to the Soft Credits section, click Distributed, and then + Distribution Rule.
Select the recipient by searching the database.
Select the type of transaction that you want to be automatically soft credited. There are three Soft Credit Types: Donation, Event Registration, and Membership Registration.
Set the active period.
You can elect for the soft credit to either be a defined amount or a set percentage of a transaction.
Finally, you can decide whether to send a Soft Credit Recipient system email and/or generate a Soft Credit Recipient system letter automatically for every new soft credit created by the rule.
After clicking Submit, the soft credit distribution rule will be active and it will apply to any future transactions that meet the criteria.
You can also see and edit the distribution rule under the donor's Neon account, as shown in the example below.
Reporting on Soft Credits
The Soft Credit Report is found by navigating to Reports > New Report > Fundraising > Soft Credit Report.
Soft credit information can also be captured in transaction-based reports, including donation reports, membership reports, and event reports. These types of reports have a Soft Credit search category to filter your results based on soft credit fields, as shown in the example below. The Soft Credit Report will pull ALL soft credit types (i.e., donations, memberships and event registrations), whereas the Donation Detail Report, for example, will only have donations.
Click Edit Columns to add Soft Credit and Distributor fields to your report results as Output Columns. The available columns for the Soft Credit Report are slightly different from the soft credit fields available in the other transaction-based reports. The Distributor fields refer to the account that distributed the Soft Credit to the recipient.
Note: You are able to use the report criteria and output columns to total soft credits and donations for each account and household.
The Soft Credit report is transaction-based, which means each row will be a different transaction record. The Soft Credit Type column tells you the kind of transaction. This field is only available as a column in the Soft Credit Report.