Additionally, having summary fields for Received & Soft Credited (Last, First, Lifetime, etc.) would make reporting much more versatile and allow me to add this info to reports on recent or last contacts made with donors. This is currently not possible to put in one report based on my understanding.

This is helpful, but not with all reports. Since the query is set to the Return Type Journal Entries, the report will only show those accounts that have a value for a previous gift or soft credit. I cannot run a list of constituents (some that have given and some that have not), and list the recent gift/soft credit for those that have given and show nothing or a $0 for those that have not. I especially run into this issue when pulling data for our direct mail and newsletters, as these lists sometimes contain both accounts that have given and have not given but should still receive a mailing. It seems that it would be more efficient to just have a single summary field when building a report to represent Received & Soft Credited.

Here are steps for creating a report that shows the last gift or soft credit  date and amount (whichever is the most recent), along with the lifetime gift and soft credit amounts.

First set up query to include the gifts and soft credits you want to pull the last entry from, here’s an example:

• Click Queries > Manage Queries
• Click on the category you want to store the new query in
• Click New Query
• Enter a Name for the query, something like "All donations and soft credits”
• Set the Starting Query to Base: All Constituents
• Set the Data Return Type to Journal Entries
• Under Criteria, click on Journal Entry Types and mark the check boxes next to:
• Gift
• Payment
• Soft Credit
• Soft Credit w/o Hard Link
• Recurring Gift
• Split Transaction
• Click Save

Next, you’ll set up the report

• Click Reports > Manage Reports
• Click on the category you want to store the new report in
• Click New Report Enter a Name for the report something like “Last Transaction and Lifetime Information”
• Set Group By to Account and in the drop-down menu that appears select Collapse Groups
• Under Report Columns, select Sets and click Name and Address
• Under Report Columns, select Commonly Used Fields and click on the following columns:
• Type
• Date
• Received & Soft Credit
•  
• Under Report Columns, select Summary Fields and click on Lifetime Received & Soft Credit Amount or the Lifetime Received (depending on whether you want the donor’s received + soft credit amount or just the received total for the donor)
• Click the vertical ellipses to expand the options next to the Type field, set Aggregate to Last
• Click the vertical ellipses to expand the options next to the Date field, set Aggregate to Last
• Click the vertical ellipses to expand the options next to the Received & Soft Credit field, set Aggregate to Last
• Click Save And Run
• Select the query you created above, it might be named something like "All donations and soft credits”
• Select a Report Format and click Submit