Method Community

We are a charitable nonprofit organization.  One of our programs involves receiving money from donors and then turning around and giving money to grantees.  Our donors are "Customers" in QuickBooks and Method, and our grantees are "Vendors".  We are looking to expand this program, but we need a way for our grantees to be a little more self-sufficient in solving their own problems and answering their own questions.  The logical approach is to have them access information via a portal.  However, I'm not sure what to use as the common key in order to produce a portal that will give them just information related to their project.  Customers have TAGS, but vendors do not.  Vendors have a VENDOR TYPE, but customers do not.  In QuickBooks, we link them together using a different CLASS for each project, then all transactions are coded with the appropriate class so when we produce a detailed P&L in QuickBooks, I see all donations and grants for a single project/class.

We want our grantees to be able to go to their portal and see something that reflects all donations given for their project including amount, name, address, etc, as well as something that shows all grants received from us.

PROBLEM:  I'm not sure what to key off of so they get all information in one shot.  A left side equals donations and right side equals grants format would be fine, but is this possible without creating an entirely new table?  I have previous experience with Method, so I'm familiar with the basics in field/table/tab/tablink creation, but I also know that I would rather not have to go that route if at all possible.

Mario

Hi Mario,

What exactly are you trying to show to your grantees (Vendors)? Give me an idea of what you want them to see, and what you want it to look like. What types of transactions do you use for Customers/Donations vs Vendors/Grants?

Have you used your free consulting hour? If not, it might be a good idea for you to speak with a member of our Professional Services Team about this.

- Justin

Justin,

I'm waiting on the free hour.  They are apparently scheduling into April now.

What I’m trying to do:

I want our grantees to be able to login to a portal and see:

1)  All money that has been donated to us for use by the grantee (date, amount, name, address of donor/customer)

2)  All money that has been granted to them so far (vendor payments)

3)  A list of money currently available to them.

4)  A collection of documents that will assist them in performing various tasks such as requesting funds, providing information, our banking information for mailing checks or sending wires, etc.

 I would like them to be able to print a copy of the donations and the grants, but they don’t have to be on the same printout.

 For transactions we use Sales Receipts and Invoices for the Donors, and Bills/Bill Payment Checks for the grantees.  There are is also a General Journal entry associated with each donation.  This shows money that has been deducted from the donation such as our fee (5%), banking fees, etc.

 The common link in QuickBooks between the vendor and the customer is classes.  Each project has its own class.

 Now, having said all that, they don’t have to see any grids at all, if it’s even possible.  If they can just click on a button that will produce the information, that would be plenty.

 Hope that helps.

 Mario

Hi Mario,

Based on what you've explained, you should be able to show this information to your grantees via a portal. You would want to display a grid based on the appropriate Transaction, filtered to show only transactions that match the user's Class.

If you simply want them to have a printable report of the data, it may be more practical to design a report with the Report Designer to display that information. We do have a Report Designer section in our Help Center, which includes documentation in addition to video tutorials on how to use the software.

- Justin

Mario,

Based on Justin's suggestion, add a field to your vendor  table in Method that associates the Grantee with that class.  Then you can use that as your filter for your portal. Or better add field to Class list in Method that associates Grantee with Class. Then your vendor could have multiple projects(class) and they would all show up. 

OR... use two sided Items instead of Class. Item represents your program.  When donor gives money use Item A.  then when you pay Grantee, use Item A also.  Its like job costing.  Then if you do a report by Item all transactions show up.  In Method portal, filter would be on Items assigned to Grantee.   

Just some thoughts.....