Editing Main Window Options

You use the Maintenance à Main Window Options window to specify some options that affect how the main data entry window works, including how it works for Limited Users who come in to the program by using a Limited User Password. The window has three tabs, that you switch between by clicking on the tab at the top.

You can change the values in the Other 1 Label, Other 2 Label and Other 3 Label fields to give new labels to the three user-customizable fields in the Donor Details area of the main window. For instance, you might change them to be called "Email", "Fax", and "Birthdate".

There are a number of Donor Details fields that not all organizations will be interested in using. You can remove them from the display by unchecking their checkboxes in the "Show Fields" section. The checkboxes that you can use are:

•

Member/Env #: If unchecked, removes this field from both the main window and the File à One Date Batch Entry window. Do this if you don't use Member or Envelope numbers in your organization. Also, unchecking this removes some reports from the Reports menu (that differ from other reports only in that they include the Member/Envelope #).

•	Category 1 and Category 2: The two Donor Category drop-down fields, whose possible values are set up via Maintenance à Donor Category 1 and Donor Category 2.

•	Annual Pledge: If you don't track annual pledges from donors, uncheck this field.

•	Other Info 1, 2 and 3: These are the three fields whose names you can specify with the Other 1 Label etc. fields, also on this window.

•	Charitable #: This donor field is used to track the charitable numbers of donors to your organization, which are themselves charities.

•	Comments: This is the arbitrary-length comments field for the donor.

N.B. The Email Address, Other Info 1 through 3, and Comments fields are not available with the free Lite version of DONATION, and thus you cannot select to display them if you are using that version.

Under Default Values, you can specify initial values for any or all of the Address Line 2, Address Line 3 and Postal Code fields. This would generally only be used by organizations in smaller communities, where most or all of the donors have parts of their address the same. Any of these default values that are filled in will be inserted into any new donors that you create. Of course, you can then edit them if they are not correct for any particular donor.

The Show Fields checkboxes determine which "extra" fields are displayed in the Donation Details area of the main window. The two optional fields are Eligible Amount and Description. It is not recommended to select to display both of them unless you really need to, because this forces each donation to take up two lines on the screen, so you can't see very many at once!

N.B. The Description field is not available with the free Lite version of DONATION, so you cannot select to display it on this window, if you are using that version.

In addition, if you have selected to show the Description field, you can also check the checkbox for "Dropdown arrow on the Description Field, for editing the Appraiser". If that is checked, a dropdown arrow (as for a dropdown list) appears at the right of the Description field. If you click it (or if you right-click in the Description field) a popup menu appears, with an option to edit the appraiser information for this donation. To the best of my knowledge, this is only applicable to Canadian donations, and only required for largish donations. As a result, you are only allowed to select this option if you have chosen a Canadian receipt style in the Maintenance à Receipt Options window. (See Gifts in Kind for more details.)

If you want to be able to enter Donations with an Amount of $0.00 (which is normally not allowed), check the "Allow $0.00" checkbox. However, you can only do this if the Description field is selected to be shown under Show Fields. This is because donations entered with an Amount of $0 are required to have their Description field filled in.

For more details about all of these donations options, including the meaning of Eligible Amount, see Entering New Donations.

This drop-down list allows you to specify that your default donation category for new donations is something other than "General", which is what it is if you have not changed it in this window. This default can also be overridden when you are entering the One Date Batch Entry window.

This field allows you to enter a default for all new donations' Cheque # / Paid By field. This applies both to donations entered via the main window and via the One Date Batch Entry window. (In the latter case, a default set here will apply to donations entered in a batch, even if you choose not to display the Description field on the One Date Batch Entry window.) The reason this option is not called "Default Cheque # / Paid By", by the way, is that obviously you can't enter a default cheque number, since they would all be different! If you do frequently enter cheque numbers in the Cheque # / Paid By field, you would probably not set a default here.

These choices let you pick between Oldest to Newest (the only option in versions before version 3.22), and Newest to Oldest. Oldest to Newest means that earlier donations are higher up in the list on the main window, and the new empty donation that is automatically added is at the bottom of the list. Newest to Oldest means that later donations are higher up in the list, and the new empty donation is at the top.

These choices let you pick between Date and Amount. This determines which donation field the cursor moves to when you press the F2 key. (Previous versions always went to the Date field, but that could waste time if you were entering a number of donations for the same date on the main window, since once you set the date on the first donation, it would stay set.) If you do set this to Amount, however, which is useful if you often enter a number of donations for the same date on the main window, instead of using the One Date Batch Entry window, please be careful to check that the Date field, which you are skipping over, has the correct date in it!

The options on this section of the screen are explained fully under Using a Limited User Password, and are only relevant to users who enter the program with the Limited user password rather than the Program Entry password (or no password). However, changes to this tab (and the rest of this window) can only be made by users who enter the program with no password, or the Program Entry password.

N.B. The Limited User password is not available with the free Lite version of DONATION, so you cannot use the controls on this tab if you are using that version.

When you are done making changes on all of the tabs, press Enter or click the OK button to save your changes. Pressing ESC or clicking the Cancel button reverts back to the unedited version of the Main Window Options.