Improve Your Data Hygiene with These Eight Tips for Data Entry Documentation
Data entry process documentation is one of your most important data hygiene tools, and a critical component of your standard operating procedures. Documentation is how you describe step by step, in detail, how to accomplish tasks in your database. Good documentation helps ensure that information is entered accurately, thoroughly and consistently. It’s a buffer against staff turnover, and the first step toward process improvement.
Your vendor should provide general documentation that shows how your database system works, but it is up to you to create customized documentation that describes how your organization uses your system. For example, you should have gift entry documentation that describes how to use your database’s gift fields in general, and then goes step by step through different types of gifts, e.g. cash/credit card/check, tribute gifts, donor advised funds gifts, etc. (Here’s a list of gift types to consider as you develop your gift documentation.)
Here are eight tips for creating awesome, thorough and informative documentation.
Inventory your business processes
You may have noticed that inventorying your business processes is often the first step in any Fundraising Nerd recommendation. (For example, when improving your reporting or your gift processing workflow.) That’s not by accident. If you don’t first understand what your work looks like, it’s hard to make improvements to it.
Prioritize based on frequency and complexity
It’s going to take many painstaking hours to create all the documentation you will ultimately need, and you must start somewhere. Identify which database processes you do most frequently, as well as those that are most prone to error due to their complexity. That’s where you should start.
Make regular time to work on documentation
Documentation is almost always going to fail the urgency test, but it is important. It can also be a slog, depending on how naturally detail-oriented you are. For many people,, the best way to tackle documentation is to work on it consistently a little bit at a time. Set aside 30 to 45 minutes every week to work on your documentation. Over the weeks, you will build up a procedures manual that will serve your organization well when you win the lottery.
Use documentation to provide context where needed
In addition to your step by step instructions, use documentation to convey important information about your data and processes. Start your documentation with a why: why is following this process important. For example, your tribute gift data entry process may state, “This process is designed to ensure that tribute gifts are entered and receipted within 3 business days and that notification to honorees/next of kin is provided within 5 business days. Demonstrating our gratitude and financial accountability are critical components of donor stewardship.”
Also include notes on data management practices that have changed over the years, leading to data inconsistencies. This is essential in reporting documentation and is good practice in other documentation also.
Write down each step of the process in detail
Think back to writing out proofs in geometry class. Documentation is a similar step by step process. Don’t leave any clicks, fields, screens or data entry steps out. Break each step into small pieces so it can be easily understood and digested in bite sizes.
Use screenshots, bullets, numbering and other formatting for clarity
It’s important that your documentation be easy to follow. For step by step processes, use numbering, which makes your instructions easier to follow. For other lists, use bullets to help the eye move down the page. In addition to words, use copious screenshots. Circles, arrows and callout boxes are all great tools for clarity as well. And don’t be afraid of leaving some white space. It’s easier for other people to read your document if your steps aren’t all crammed together with single spacing.
Have another person test your instructions
The person who most frequently performs a data entry process should be the one to create the documentation for that process, since they know it best. However, the curse of knowledge also means that we have blind spots and may leave vital steps out when creating our documentation. Have someone else in your office follow your instructions to be sure they are clear, and no important steps are missing.
Review annually and update
Your business and data entry processes are not static, and your documentation should not be either. Make sure to review your database documentation on an (at least) annual basis and make updates to processes that have changed since the last revision. And build documentation review and update into your “offboarding” process when one of your data management team members departs for new horizons.
To learn more techniques for keeping your data clean, please check out Data Hygiene: Clean Up Your Database and Keep It Clean, from Fundraising Nerd’s Make Your Donor Data Work webinar series.
Make your fundraising data management more awesome by subscribing to exclusive tips and updates, free downloads, and invitations from Fundraising Nerd. You’ll hear from us a few times each month, and we’ll never share your information.
And if you’d like to make sure you never miss a blog post, sign up here to receive an email each time we publish.
To learn more techniques for keeping your data clean, please check out Data Hygiene: Clean Up Your Database and Keep It Clean, from Fundraising Nerd’s Make Your Donor Data Work webinar series.
Make your fundraising data management more awesome by subscribing to exclusive tips and updates, free downloads, and invitations from Fundraising Nerd. You’ll hear from us a few times each month, and we’ll never share your information.
And if you’d like to make sure you never miss a blog post, sign up here to receive an email each time we publish.