Donation Management System

Overview

The SCI Donation Management System (DMS) is a comprehensive system designed to handle all of your organizations’ needs from Fund Raising and Donor/Member Management to Purchasing and Funds Accounting. DMS also handles receipting and thank-you letters, sales and inventory including premiums, donor development, accounts payables, and annuities. DMS was designed to utilize relational database and can be installed on PC’s for a few users, and Networked PC’s and mini/mainframe systems for hundreds of users, so you’ll never outgrow your DMS software investment. Originally installed in 1984 , DMS has proven itself worldwide.

In today’s demanding world, distributors like you know that customers are hard to come by and harder to keep. You must provide competitive pricing and superior service. You are constantly looking for ways to maximize your profits and operating efficiency.

The SCI Distribution Management System (DMS) is an extraordinary and comprehensive system designed to fulfill all of your needs from inventory control and sales reporting to purchasing and general ledger.

DMS Saves Money…

Until now, the cost of designing and maintaining a comprehensive computer system has been prohibitive. You may have settled for less efficient methods of administration like separate systems for each part of your organization. DMS gives you the ability to get precisely the system that you need, affordably.

The SCI Distribution Management System was designed using a very popular database management environment renowned for its cost effectiveness and user-friendliness.

DMS can be used on hundreds of different computer systems from PC’s for just one or two users to very large mainframes for hundreds of users (e.g. IBM, DEC, Hewlett Packard, Data General, virtually all UNIX systems, and dozens more!). You can use the computer that best fits your needs today, and if your organization outgrows the computer you selected, you won’t lose your DMS software investment.

DMS was designed with the non-technical user in mind. This makes upkeep on the system easy and inexpensive. Most requests can be filled by your existing employees so there is no need to have a staff of computer people to maintain your system. In fact, most organizations using DMS don’t have any computer staff at all!

Thoroughly Tested…

The SCI Distribution Management System was originally installed in 1984. Since then it has been put to use in locations around the country. Today, at any given time, hundreds of users are accessing the system. DMS has passed the most rigorous test possible…daily usage!

DMS helps you improve Customer relations…

With SCI Distribution Management System, you can maintain extensive information about all of your customers. DMS, for example, will maintain an on-screen 36 month illustration of how many days your customer is paying you in. Also, every invoice is maintained complete with sales detail, payments detail and notes for future reference.

Also, with all of their information at your fingertips, you can answer any question that a customer might have, within seconds.

Finally, the simple fact that your operation is more efficient indicates to your customers that you will remain competitive.

Inventory Control With DMS…

DMS makes use of many of the techniques prescribed by Gordon Graham for replenishing and maintaining inventory efficiently. You can choose, at the time of system setup, your costing method (e.g., Lifo, Fifo, Average, Standard or Last Cost.) The system will handle up to 99 warehouses. You can use daily cycle counts or physical inventory.

Sales Reporting…

DMS comes complete with a very powerful sales report generator. You can pick an output format and specify the select data to be reported. You can rank and sub-rank and include or exclude sales dollars, units, profits. Additionally, in a multi-year comparison, you can include or exclude change and percent of change.

DMS makes your operation more efficient…

The SCI Distribution Management System consists of several modules. You choose just those that are important to your organization. All of our modules are thoroughly integrated to ensure that your information is up-to-the-minute and accurate and that there is no error-prone duplicate data entry. With DMS, all the information and control is right at your fingertips so you can finally use your computer as the tool it should be to help you reach your goals.

Corporate Profile…

Software Co-op, Inc. is one of the premier application software suppliers for the distribution marketplace. Starting with one programmer over 15 years ago at the request of a few local users, SCI has grown to include a full staff of programmers, analysts, technicians and support professionals. Our philosophy has always been to provide reliable and cost effective solutions to our customer’s problems and to maintain a superior customer service standard.


Development

Effective fundraising is the hallmark of every successful organization. Many organizations still seem to use inefficient techniques like untargeted mailings or massive phone solicitation campaigns to raise funds. Although these techniques are at times useful, better use of your donation information and more thorough analysis of fundraising campaigns can give you yields that you never thought were possible.
 
The Development Module is thoroughly integrated with the entire DMS system. As soon as you enter a receipt through the Receipts Module or an expense through Accounts Payable, all appropriate motivation, appeal, and project files immediately reflect the new information.
 
With just a couple of keystrokes, you can get a meaningful overview of any of your fundraising campaigns including up-to-the minute income and expenses. With just a few more keystrokes you can call up detailed information for an even more in-depth analysis.
 
The Development Module was created to be a tool to make your fundraising more effective. An intuitive structure of projects, appeals, and motivations makes analysis easy.
 
Multi-layered list segmentation and subgrouping of projects, appeals, and motivations allow meaningful statistical analysis.
 
Unlimited motivation information in maintained.
 
An English-like query language makes segmentation and ad hoc report generation very easy, even by your existing employees!
 
A menu-driven report generator enables you to easily create hundreds of different reports for detailed analysis.  Quick analysis screens show the effectiveness of your different fund raising efforts and the progress towards your goals. These summary screens give overviews of income and expenses with both projected and actual numbers.
 
Extensive historical information is maintained for long-term fundraising projects and meaningful comparative analysis.
 
And much more


Donor / Member

Your Donor / Members are the most valuable asset of your non-profit organization. With this idea in mind, we have made the Donor / Member Module the heart of DMS.
 
With DMS you have the ability to maintain as much or as little information about each donor / member as suits your organization. For most important fields, (including comments, requests, and profiles to name just a few) you can have multiple entries.
 
The locator gives you many ways to quickly look up a particular donor / member ever if you don’t have all of their information. Cross-references are based on combinations of last name, first name, and zip code.
 
Basic data about each donor / member along with important fundraising and profile information are displayed in a concise, easy-to-view format. The main screen displays extensive information including: name, address, phone numbers, date entered, initial motivation, and the profile data that you think is most important.
 
Detailed information screens can be accessed with a single keystroke. These screens include: Profile Information, Custom Data, Financial History, Letters Sent, Requests, Comments, Pledge Detail, and Alternate Mailing Addresses.
 
Profiles are user-defined and can reflect any interest, grouping, etc. that may be helpful in segmenting your donors. Profiles can even be updated automatically from receipting.
 
The Custom Data screen enables you to define you own fields and should include those donor characteristics that are uniquely used by your organization.
 
Extensive financial history is maintained. You can get a quick summary of giving history including first, last, and largest receipts; or you can display any past receipt in its entirety. (If you sell products, all sales information is similarly maintained.)
 
DMS keeps track of every “Thank you” letter sent to a donor so that you don’t send the same correspondence twice.
 
You can keep track of donor requests (such as literature requests) with followup reminders automatically produced.
 
Multiple comments can be entered for any donor.
 
Pledge information, both past and present, is easily accessed.
 
Alternate Mailing Addresses can be stored for date ranges on a one-time or annual basis.
 
An “English” query language is included which enables you to effortlessly create labels and ad hoc reports, as well as segment your donors by using any criteria.
 
Donor information can be used in a mail merge with many commonly used word processing packages.
 
And much more!


Funds General Ledger

The General Ledger Module of DMS is a true Funds Accounting system. It was designed by a group of CPA’s in conjunction with several non-profit organizations so it accurately reflects the workings of your organization. Because of this, we have eliminated the need for you to “fit” your general ledger and reporting functions into a prepackaged system.
 
The DMS Funds General Ledger provides for up to 99 separate Companies, each of which may contain virtually an unlimited number of different Funds. The system is completely flexible in its analytical and reporting functions, so that any information may be generated separately for each Fund, each Company, on a consolidated basis, or for any group of Funds and/or Companies you choose.
 
Provision has been made for tables of interfund General Ledger accounts which are easy to set up and maintain. This allows for the “automatic” balancing of all entries posted to the General Ledger, and means that transactions which affect more than one Fund may be entered with a single entry rather than multiple entries.
 
The system features a “spreedsheet-like” reporting function which allows you to define in each column of any financial statement any combination of Companies and Funds as well as any individual or combination or accounting periods.
 
The structure of the General Ledger has eliminated the need for monthly “closings” as well as the loss of data associated with this procedure. You therefore never lose the ability to generate comparatives with or combinations of data from any and all prior accounting periods.
 
A feature is also included which enables you to allocate expenditures among different organizational functions that you define. You can then generate reports based on these functions, even crossing over fiscal year boundaries.
 
Budgets can be entered in several different ways including: annually, equal by period, variable by period, or as a percentage of a different account. A “budget entry” mode allows you to quickly enter budgets for each of your GL accounts.
 
All analyses and reports can be viewed on screen or printed. You may preview your reports prior to their being printed, and previously generated information is maintained so you don’t have to re-process a report if you just want to see it again.
 
Funds General Ledger is fully integrated with the rest of the SCI Donation Management System, so all transactions are automatically updated to the correct accounts. Accrual journal entries are automatically reversed. Recurring journal entries can be posted one month at a time or for up to twelve months in advance.
 
Batch posting mode enables you to easily enter data from other systems if your DMS Funds GL is not interfaced with SCI’s other accounting packages.
 
And much more!


Leters

One of the most beneficial features of the SCI Donation Management System is the Letters Module. This module gives you the ability to construct “Thank You” and appeal letters that are automatically sent to your donors based on a specific motivation or gift. A history of the letters sent is kept for each donor so the same letter does not get sent twice. This can save your organization considerable time, and it adds a “personal touch” which can strengthen the ties to your existing donor base. Just a few of the many features are:
 
Commonly used paragraphs can be entered and linked together to form specific “targeted” letters. The paragraphs can be set up to include critical donor-specific information (eg. donation amount, date, donor name, etc.) that is automatically inserted when the letter is printed.
 
A “letter table” can be created which gives the sequence of letters to be sent to a donor based on the designation, motivation, or appeal of the gift.
 
Letters can be easily formatted to fit into your special forms or letterhead.
 
And much more!


Receipts

The Receipts Module is a comprehensive transaction processing system that provides the ability to easily process donations, pledges, or any other receipt you might have. Of course, all the standard functions are easily handled, from invoicing to generating receipts and “Thank you” letters, however, the SCI Receipts Module provides much more.
 
Each receipt is part of a batch which is assigned to a specific operator. Batching of receipts helps to catch errors when totaling amounts for a bank deposit.
 
All aspects of receipt entry have been designed with ease-of-entry and access in mind. All processing and lookups can be accomplished within the entry screens. Advanced entry techniques such as scanning and OCR can also be incorporated.
 
The powerful “Donor Locator: is used when entering receipts. This lets you find the correct donor based on many different possible cross-references. In fact, the entire Donor Module is at your fingertips, from within the receipt! You can display, print, or enter information about a donor as if it had been accessed right from the donor module.
 
Multiple donations as well as pledges and premium item orders, or any combination, can all be entered in the same receipt. Each entry can be associated with its own motivation and gift designation.
 
When a pledge donation is encountered, you can transfer control to the pledge screen where detailed pledge information is maintained.
 
When a premium order is entered, the operator needs only specify how many of each item has been ordered. The system automatically determines how much of the gift amount goes towards the premium and how much is a donation. These amounts are reflected on the receipt and become part of the donor’s donation history. A packing list can even be generated for shipment of the premiums items ordered.
 
Donor “Thank you” letters are automatically chosen by the system based upon which letters have already been sent to the donor, as well as other user defined parameters such as motivation and gift designation. This ties in directly with the Letters Module where used designed letters add a personal touch to acknowledging your donors’ gifts.
 
Special comments can be entered that will print on the receipt or on the “Thank you” letter.
 
Miscellaneous cash entry enables you to keep track of any non-invoiced cash received.
 
Full accounts receivable functionality exists including: on-account payments, credits, and the ability to automatically generate a refund check through the Accounts Payable Module.
 
And much more!


Zero-Based Budget

Zero-base budget is a budgeting method developed by a former President of the United States in which funds are allotted based on a prioritized list of needs. The SCI Zero-Base Budget Module goes a step further, however, by allowing the process to be multi-departmental with up to 4 priority levels.
 
Request for funds are initially made and prioritized by each individual. All pertinent information in entered including: description, category (eg. fixed asset, operations improvement), time and period of expenditure (eg. Month beginning June, quarterly), and cost. All requests from within each department are prioritized on the departmental level. The departmental requests are sent to the corporate level for final discussion. Available funds are then allocated to the items in priority order. After all the funds are allocated, the remaining requests are denied.
 
At each level, numerous reports are available to sort and select the available data to make analysis easy.
 
In addition, the Zero-Base Budget Module is tied very closely with the Accounts Payable Module. All payables are associated with a specific budgeted item, so comparisons of actual amount to budget amount can be generated at any time. Furthermore, budgets are checked during voucher entry and warnings are indicated if the budgeted amount is exceeded.
 
Also included are cash forecast reports based on budgeted funds.