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Cecily Clemons
Development Director
Predator Conservation Alliance
[EMAIL PROTECTED]g
406.587.3389
406.587.3178 (fax)
Shopping for holiday gifts? Choose from Predator Conservation Alliance's gift ideas at http://www.predatorconservation.org/merchandise.html and feel good about saving a place for America's predators.
From: Larry Bednar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "TechRocks Support" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:46:12 -0800
To: "TechRocks Support" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [support] Gift memberships
I'm working with an organization that has a history of selling "gift
memberships". Handling this information in Ebase presents a few
problems. I would appreciate the sage advice of any of you who might have
thought about this already.
The main difficulties seem to me to arise because, the "gift membership"
payment comes from someone different than the person whose "membership" is
affected.
At present, I've added a "Gift From" field to the "payments" database, as
suggested by M.Scholtz (I THINK it was Matthew) in an email to this support
group a few months ago. In many respects this works decently. I do need to
modify some layouts to display this information, but it can basically be
added to the layouts where it should be expected without heroics.
The one thing uncomfortable about this approach is that the actual
"payment" didn't come FROM the person who got the membership. The Ebase
"dues summary" field for the person getting the membership then includes
the "dues payment" tallied in his name - even though this payment was
actually MADE by another person. Someone else once commented here that a
payment should indicate the last person who touched the money before the
organization got it. This makes sense to me, but that ISN'T what happens
in this approach...
A related problem is that the amount of the gift membership isn't added to
the purchaser's "dues" or "contribution" total either - even though they
actually provided the money... Because the amount is tallied with the
membership, the actual contributor doesn't get credited.
I've considered the alternative of actually entering two payment records
for a "gift membership", one for the recipient indicating a payment of
zero, and one as a "contribution" or "merchandise purchase" for the person
providing the money. This seems a little bit yucky, since it relies
heavily on the operator following the correct entry procedures...but at
least the dollars tally to the correct individuals.
Any comments from folks who have dealt with/thought about this would be
VERY welcome...
**************************************************************
Larry F. Bednar
Consulting in Statistics, Quality, Data Managment
Portland, OR 503.493.8542 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**************************************************************
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