How to: Create and Send Summary Letters – Bonterra

Summary Letters enable you to provide a customized document that lists all donations made by a donor. Donors will receive an overview for all donations made instead of receiving a thank you letter for each individual donation. The Summary Letter will list:

All donations in the time frame selected during the Summary Letter process.
All previous donations that have the same Summary Letter selected.

Getting started

In order to work with Summary Letters , you will need to be sure that the Task-Related Permission, Summary Letter Processing, is added to your current role(s) within Salsa CRM.

If you do not possess these permissions, please contact the admin for your organization.

If you have these permissions, you can locate summaries in the following location within Salsa CRM:

Select Manage/Documents/Summary Letters/Receipts.
The Letter Field on the any Donation Record Screen will allow you to choose a Summary Letter for the donation.

Downloading Summary Letter Templates

Salsa Labs Provides downloadable templates for summary letters that enable you to easily craft and upload form letters into Salsa CRM. To create a Summary Letter, you will first want to download the customizable document template on your computer, then use a word processing program to modify the template, as needed, or utilize the Google Docs Integration within Salsa CRM.

Summary Letter Template Name	Summary Letter Template Description
Summary Letter to print on letterhead no donation table	Summary letter content with only the 'total amount' variable and margins set to print on letter head
Summary Letter to print on letterhead with donation table	Summary letter content with donation table and margins set to print on letter head
Summary Letter with sidebar and no donation table	Summary letter content with the 'total amount' variable instead of the table with a left column for Board of Directors
Summary Letter for email content	A .txt document to be used for the 'email content' when creating an email summary letter

Editing Summary Letters

To understand best practices for word processing on form letters, read here.

Editing the Summary Letter within the Salsa CRM can be completed by:

Log into Salsa CRM.
Select Manage>Documents>Search Documents.
Search for your existing document by either typing in the description of the document (if known) and clicking search or (if not known) just clicking Search with the description field blank.

4. Double click on the document you want to edit in the result listing.

5. The document should open in Google Docs Editor within the Salsa CRM.

6. After making any changes, click save and close.

If you don’t have the Google Docs integration activated on your account, click here for steps to activate the Google Doc integration. If you cannot set up the Google Docs integrations, you will have to use an outside document editor program, then follow the steps below to upload your document into the Salsa CRM.

Saving Summary Letters

To save an edited Summary Letter document, go to Manage>Documents>Word Processor to choose your file. You will see either a new document in the Google Editor or Word Processing Options. If you see the Google Editor and a new document, click “Other Word Processing Options”.

Next you will see Word Processing Options, click the dropdown and select “Store a document of any file type that is on my hard drive”.

Once you’ve chosen your file, select “Save To Database” and assign a description to the file.

Adding Summary Letters

Now that you’ve saved a letter template, you’re ready to assign the document as a form letter. This will make your template usable for end-of-year summaries.

Navigate to Manage > Configuration > Form Letters and Receipts. Then, select “Add Form Letter to Screen”.

Assign the summary letter a name and type.

Be sure to click the “Summary letter” checkbox.

Use the “Select Document” button to add your template.

Then, choose whether this summary letter will be sent by mail or email.

Sending Summary Letters

Your summary letter is now ready to run and send by following the workflow:

Navigate to Manage.
Dropdown to Documents.
Select Summary Letters / Receipts.

On this page, you choose which constituents will receive the letter. You can send summary letters to all constituents, those in a particular group, or even individual constituents.

For an example of Summary Letters for Last Year's Donors, read here.

To understand how to query for Summary Letter Recipients, read here.

Complete your selections, then choose “Select Summary Letter” to choose the letter you created.

Once you’ve completed your group selections, choose “Process Letters”. The summary letters will appear as a printable document or a list of emails, depending on your chosen format.

Learn more about printing End-of-Year Tax Summary Letters here.

Learn more about emailing End-of-Year Summary Letters here.

Now, your Summary Letters process is complete and the letters are ready to be sent.

Finding Additional Information

A helpful guide to the best practices of Summary Letters can be located here and is an informative document for improving the Summary Letter process.