Introduction
In CiviPlus any donation or gift is called a "contribution"(membership dues and event fees are other examples of contribution types), and associated with a specific Financial Type. There are a set of default Financial Types that are shipped with CiviPlus, but of course you can easily add your own. The default Financial/Contribution Types are
Campaign Contribution - Campaign Contribution,Accounts Receivable,Banking Fees,Premiums
Donation - Donation,Accounts Receivable,Banking Fees,Premiums
Event Fee - Event Fee,Accounts Receivable,Banking Fees,Premiums,Deferred Revenue - Event Fee
Member Dues - Member Dues,Accounts Receivable,Banking Fees,Premiums,Deferred Revenue - Member Dues
Contribution Types are important from a Fundraising perspective, since they allow. you organise your income into specific categories. This makes it easier to track and report on different types of income, ensuring that your financial records are accurate and organised. The way this works is that each Contribution Type is linked to a particular Financial Account, which itself describes how each contribution payment should be treated from an accounting perspective.
Note: When you create a new Financial Type is created CivPlus automatically creates a new skeleton Financial Account for you, and links it to the Financial Type via a relationship. Once you have completed adding the Financial Type you should add in the missing details in the Financial Account record. This is described in the section below.
Full details on configuring Finance within CiviPlus can be found here.
Adding a Contribution (Financial) Type
To add a new Contribution Type navigate to Administer -> CiviContribute -> Financial Types to see a list of existing ones.
From here you can edit an existing Financial Type by clicking the Edit link on the far right of the row you are interested in. You can also create a new Financial Type by clicking the ADD FINANCIAL TYPE button and following the steps below.
Give the new Financial Type a Name - in this case we are creating one for a Grant that may be received from a trust and/or foundation.
Enter a Description.
If this new Financial Type is Tax-Deductible? (from the perspective of the organisation giving the grant) check this option.
Check the Reserved? option if you want to avoide having this Financial Type accidentally deleted.
Check the Enabled? option if you want this new Financial Type to be available for use in the system.
Now when you click the SAVE button the Financial Type and a new Financial Account which is automatically created will be linked via a relationship. You can view this by going viewing the newly created Financial Type in the list and clicking the Accounts link.
You will now see the set of Financial Accounts that have been automatically linked to the new Financial Type, and you can amend as necessary.
