Purposes are used to track the different types or categories of donations your organization receives. You can set up as many purposes as you need within Aplos. Purposes can also be set up to be linked to an income account and fund so the donations you record will be linked to your accounting.
What Is A Purpose?
A purpose is a way your organization receives money through donations. You will want to create a purpose for every way you will be receiving a donation. Examples include Missions, General, Building, In-Kind, and Fundraiser.
Once a purpose is created, you can begin using them to record donations. Either assign a purpose to an online donation form or select it when manually entering donations.
Creating A Purpose
To navigate to your purpose screen you will select the Donations tab then Purposes. You can see and manage your purposes, as well as donation details for each, from this screen. Click the green plus (+) button on the top right corner to create a new purpose for your organization.
When creating a new purpose, or editing an existing one, simply assign an income account, fund, and a tag (if applicable) to the purpose, and click "Save." This will ensure that any donation recorded using this purpose will also post as a deposit in your accounting records.
Link A Purpose To Your Accounting
If you also decide to use Aplos Accounting for your organization, you can assign an income account, fund, and tags to a purpose so it automatically integrates with your accounting records when it is used.
When viewing your purposes, there will be a link icon indicating the purpose has been linked to your accounting.
The icon will show as unlinked if it is not yet connected to an income account and fund. You can click on that purpose to set the designated accounts.
If you choose not to assign an income account and fund, the donations to this purpose will appear on contribution statements but will not automatically post to your accounting records.
Unlinked Purposes
Purposes may be unlinked to track donations that will need a contribution record but do not need to automatically post to the accounting when deposited, such as in-kind donations. If you choose to not assign an income account and fund, the donations to this purpose will appear on contribution statements but will not automatically post to your accounting records.
Edit a Purpose
If you click on any purpose from the Purpose screen, you can edit the name, description, or the accounts that are linked in the accounting. If you change accounts linked in accounting, this will not change the accounts assigned to donations that have already been deposited and posted in the accounting. It will change the accounts for donations that have been entered into Aplos but not yet posted in a deposit.
How to Disable or Delete a Purpose
You may find that you no longer need a purpose or that you created one in error and need to remove it. You can manage these options within the Purposes page.
To disable a purpose, you will click on it and click the Disabled box. If this purpose is currently being used on a donation form or widget, this action will remove the purpose from the form.
To completely delete a purpose, click on the purpose name from the Purpose page, and click “Delete” on the top right corner. Note that purposes that have donations connected to them or that are currently used on a donation form, widget, or Text to Give cannot be deleted. Any contributions connected to that purpose will need to be reassigned before the purpose can be deleted. Purposes cannot be deleted if they are currently linked to an active donation and being used on an online form or Text to Give.
Any recurring donations that use a purpose that is disabled will continue to process for that purpose until the donor changes it to an active one. If the purpose you wish to remove is being used for a recurring donation, you will need to reach out to the donor to have them select another purpose.
How Donors See Donation Purposes
Purposes on Contribution Statements
When you generate your contribution statements, you will have the option of showing the purpose and fund. If those show, they will appear on your contribution statement like the following:
See our Contribution Statement Guide for more on generating contribution statements.
Purposes and Short Codes in Text to Give
With Text to Give, you have the capability to add the purposes donors can give to from that module. You’ll be able to select purposes on that page based on the ones you’ve already created. For Text to Give, you’ll assign a short code, or abbreviation, for each purpose. This will be used by the donor when they send a text to donate.
Options for Purposes on Online Forms
For each online donation form, you will be able to select the purposes that will be available to your donors. You will make your selection(s) from the purposes you’ve already created.
See our Online Donations Guide for details on setting up and creating donation forms.
Purposes in My Aplos (Donor Portal)
Donors can easily view and manage what purpose they are giving to by logging in to their My Aplos profile. They can view their online donations, see what purpose is selected, and edit the purpose for a recurring donation, if needed.
See the My Aplos Overview for details on how to use the donor portal.
How to Import New Purposes
You have the option of importing new purposes directly to the system. This could save time if you are manually entering each purpose, particularly if you are bringing that information over from another file or system.
You can begin this process by going to Donations and clicking the Purposes tab. Click on the Import button on the top right.
You’ll then download the pre-formatted Aplos Purposes file and import your information.
This template is pre-formatted with the information available to successfully import your purposes into Aplos, including the name, description, income account, fund, and any tags that should be assigned to each purpose. If you do not have the exact account, fund, and tag names available, you can leave them blank on the import spreadsheet and select them later in the import process.
Once all the information is completed in the document, save and upload your document on the Purposes page by clicking the box on the left that reads, “Drag here or click to upload a file” to populate the purposes on this page.
Once imported, you can review and manually edit any of the available fields for each purpose, including the income account, fund, and tags. The green Import button will be highlighted once all the required fields have been entered for each purpose.
For faster importing, you can click the selection box next to each purpose or the Select All box at the top of the table. Then click the Import Selected button at the top of the import column. If all required fields are correct, it will import all selected purposes.
Once the purposes have been successfully imported, they can be used to track donations, and they can be included on online donation forms, widgets, and Text To Give.
What Is a Purpose Partner?
If you have connected your Aplos account to a software partner to import donations, that partner system may automatically create new purposes when the donations are imported. These are called Partner purposes, and the name of the partner will appear in the Partner column on the Purposes screen.