Installation Instructions

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The program is distributed as one executable installation file, DONINST.EXE for the full installation or DONDBUPDT.EXE or DONUPDT.EXE for an upgrade to a new version. I will presume that you have downloaded that file from the program's web site. After you have downloaded that file, run it. Just follow the prompts, and it should be quite straightforward. Contact me if you have any problems. For more details, see the Installation Instructions page on the program's web site.

When your are done with the Setup, look on your desktop. There should be a new icon there for Donation. Double-click that icon to run DONATION. If all has gone well, you will now be running the program. The program will prompt you for three things before you can start entering donors and donations:

the first year your will start entering receipts for, which defaults to the current year

your organization's information (name, address, etc.). (This uses the option Maintenance à Organization Info.)

Setting up any donation categories you want to use. (This uses Maintenance à Donation Categories.) It defaults to creating one category called General.

Further details on these steps, and some additional steps you may want to take before you get started, are in the Startup Options page.

You should now be ready to start entering donors and donations! See the Regular Operating Procedures page for an introduction to your daily activities.

This program is intended only for use by smallish charitable organizations, and as such I don't expect that you will have more than one computer hooked up in a network. Do not install this program on the network and attempt to have more than one user simultaneously use it. The version of the Firebird database that this comes with is not capable of doing that. Later versions of DONATION may allow for the use of the full multi-user server version of Firebird, which would enable you to install the Firebird server software and the database file on your network.