Once you have your Keycode and Finder Files in place, you are ready to start entering the responses from the mailing as donations.
- Click the Add Donation icon in the Salsa CRM toolbar to open the New Donation screen.
- At the bottom of the screen, click the Barcode button located just to the left of the Save button. The Bar Code Scan pop-up window will appear.
- Scan the bar code on the mailing piece. (Alternately, if you have the bar code numbers, you can copy and paste or type in the numbers. If you type them in, you will need to select the OK button.) Scanning or copying and pasting the bar code information will automatically prompt Salsa CRM to search for the donor.
- If the donor is not found, the Constituent Add Required pop-up will appear. Click OK to add a new constituent record. The Add Constituent window will open.
- Click the Save button, and notice the Finder File Details panel to the left of the screen.
- Once the record is saved, the Add Note button becomes active. Click this button to add this information as a note to the constituent record. Note, you will want to create an appropriate Note Purpose for the Finder File Details.
- Click the Save button on the Add Note screen.
- Back on the Donation screen, you will see that the corresponding Fund, Campaign, and Appeal have automatically populated on the screen based on the mappings you created when you edited the Keycode Mappings. Finish entering the rest of the donation information as necessary.
Notice the Bar Code button has a ‘green circle’ on it, indicating you are in scanning mode. If you have other donations to enter using the bar code scanning, you can select either the Save and Next or Save and New buttons. Doing this will open a new donation record and automatically open the Bar Code Scan pop-up window so that you can quickly and easily enter other donations in the same method.
Donations that are generated from the Finder File will capture the Finder File Details on the Solicitation tab on the donation screen.
Another way you may utilize this functionality is by extracting data from Salsa CRM. Using the Advanced Query Wizard, you can pull the specific data required by the Mail Marketing Company, save it as a .csv file, and give it to them to include in the mailing. This is called a Cultivation file. The way the bar codes are generated is that any constituent information provided to the marketing company is identified in the barcode with a dollar sign ($). Salsa CRM recognizes this as an existing constituent in the database and searches for the corresponding number.
In these instances, when you receive a remittance mailing piece and scan the bar code, it is possible it will be from a constituent who already exists in your database. When you scan the bar code, the constituent name will automatically populate on the donation record.
In summation, if the incoming barcode does not start with a dollar sign, it still came from the Mail Marketing Company, but Salsa CRM expects to find it on Finder File. Salsa CRM interprets the bar code information in this way: "if the barcode starts with $, look up the next numeric characters in the database; otherwise, look up this entire string in the Finder File table".
Potential Duplicate Processing
There may be instances where a Potential Duplicate exists in the database. When this occurs, you will see the Potential Duplicate screen appear. This screen gives you the opportunity to either add this constituent as a new record, or choose to use the Existing Constituent. Simply highlight the proper radio button to add a new record or use the existing record, highlight the constituent name, and then select OK. Continue in the same manner described above.