While your budgets and Donation Reports (DR) both relate to your company's funding on your employee engagement program, they serve different purposes and are not intended to be reconciled.
- Budgets: These function as a limit or cap to track and control corporate spending activity within the platform.
- Donation Reports (DRs): These are your actual records of corporate spend, such as corporate donations, rewards redemptions, and payroll funding.
It is important to be aware of the different dates in Reporting.
| Date Type | Definition | Considerations |
| Transaction Date |
The date of donation, when the user initiates their donation in the platform . *Some exceptions |
Most transactions (user donations (except payroll), corporate matches, reward redemptions) immediately draw down from the program budget on this date. |
| Committed Date | The date the donation is processed in the platform. | For transactions like payroll, external match requests, or other batch imports, this date can be later than the Transaction Date. Committed transactions are included in the next DR issued. |
| DR Date | The date a Donation Report is issued. | DRs are issued the month after the Committed Date. |
The table below clarifies the expected behaviour of different types of transactions and explains why you may have differences between your budget usage and monthly DRs.
| Transaction Type | Employee Engagement Budgets | Donation Reports (DRs) |
| Rewards | When rewards are issued to a user, the full amount immediately draws down from the budget. | Billed when the employee redeems their reward by donating it to a nonprofit. Redemption could happen in the following calendar or fiscal year |
| Matching offers drawing from existing budgets | Corporate matches are drawn from the associated budgets as transactions are initiated | Corporate matches appear on the next DR after the donation is committed. |
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Matching offers drawing from standalone funds
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Transactions are not drawn from employee engagement budgets (offer usage can be tracked in a separate report) | Corporate matches up to the offer limit will appear on the next DR after the donation is committed |
| Reversals | Reversed funds are typically put back into the original budget year from which they were withdrawn | Corporate funds are reversed and appear as a “credit” on the next DR |
| User vs. Corporate Donations | All Corporate funds draw down from the budget, including matching, corporate donations, and rewards issuance. User donations do not draw down from the budget | Captures all client-paid transactions, including user payroll donations and redeemed rewards |
| Payroll | Payroll donations appear in budget reports once they have been processed. One-time or first-time donations are drawn down in budget reports based on the initiated date (when the user donated). For recurring donations, subsequent donations draw down in budget reports on the pay date. Learn more about backdating payroll. | Payroll deductions appear on the next DR based on the date payroll donations are processed in the system. |
For accurate budget reconciliation reports, refer to one of the pre-built reports in our reporting tools.
Benevity Reporting stock reports
- Budget Usage by Transaction: Provides a line-by-line breakdown of transactions drawn down from each budget.
- Budget Usage by User: Shows the amount of budget used from each line, per user.
- Matching Campaign Usage: Indicates if a matching campaign draws down from a budget or is standalone.
Reporting Studio standard dashboards
- Budget Usage Summary: Shows overall budget usage.
- Budget Usage by User: Shows the amount of budget used from each line, per user.
- Budget Usage by Transaction: Provides a line-by-line breakdown of transactions drawn down from each budget.