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Build a Custom Report

Custom reports let you answer questions specific to your affiliate.

Start a report​

  1. Go to Reports → Custom and click New Report.
  2. Choose the data source (e.g., Donations, Volunteer Hours, Sales Transactions).
  3. Pick the columns you want to display.

Filter and group​

  • Add Filters to narrow the result set (date range, tags, status, etc.).
  • Add Groupings to summarize (e.g., total donations by campaign).
  • Add Sorts to control row order.

Filtering a grouped report​

Once a report is grouped, each row is a total rather than a single record, and filters follow that:

  • A Min / Max filter on a summarized column is measured against the row's total. Group volunteer hours by volunteer, sum Hours, and a Min of 50 returns the volunteers whose hours add up to 50 or more — not the ones with a single 50-hour entry, which is nothing.
  • Every other filter narrows the records before they are totalled. A date range, an Activity Type, a Status, or a filter on one of the columns you grouped by all work this way, so the totals only ever cover the records you asked for.

The two combine as you would expect: Activity Type "construction" with a Min of 50 reads as "volunteers with at least 50 construction hours in this range".

About the date range​

The Start Date and End Date at the top of a report are whole days in your affiliate's time zone, and both ends are included. A range of August 1 to August 20 covers everything from the first moment of August 1 through the last moment of August 20, as your office experienced them — a sale rung up at 9 PM on the 20th is inside that range, not pushed into the next day.

Your time zone is set under Administration → Affiliate Management. If it is wrong, records made late in the evening can fall on the wrong day.

note

This applies to the report's own Start Date and End Date. A date filter you add yourself on a specific column behaves the same way.

The Donors source is the exception: it always lists every donor, whatever dates are set. See Filtering the Donors source.

Filtering the Donors source​

The Donors source gives one row per donor with their giving rolled up, so its filters come in two kinds and you can combine them freely:

  • About the donor — Donor Type, Giving Level, Do Not Solicit, name, email.
  • About their giving — Lifetime Giving, Donation Count, Average Gift, Years Giving, First Donation and Last Donation.

So "Gold-level individuals who have given more than $1,000 across at least two years" is a single report, and every one of those columns can be sorted on too.

The report's Start Date and End Date don't narrow this source — it lists every donor, including those who have never given (zeroes and a blank Last Donation; filter on Donation Count if you want them out). To find donors who last gave in a particular period, set the Last Donation Date filter instead.

:::tip Lapsed donors Set the Last Donation Date filter to a range that ends 12 or more months ago. Add Lifetime Giving to rank the list by who is worth calling first. :::

Summarizing volunteer hours​

On the Volunteer Hours data source you can roll hours up two ways that answer the most common questions:

  • Total hours per opportunity — group by Opportunity and add a Sum of Hours.
  • Total hours per activity type — group by Activity Type and add a Sum of Hours.

In the step-by-step wizard, use the Sort & Group → Grouping tab to group by Opportunity or Activity Type, then add a Sum of Hours on the Aggregations tab.

In the visual builder, open a Data Table block and set Group rows by to Opportunity (or Activity Type); then set a column's Summarize option to Sum to total it per group. Metric and chart blocks can aggregate the same way.

Hours and opportunities per person​

To list your people alongside what each one has contributed, pick the Volunteers data source and add First Name, Last Name, Total Hours, and Events Attended.

  • Total Hours is every hour logged for that person, all-time.
  • Events Attended counts the distinct volunteer opportunities the person took part in — whether their hours were logged against the opportunity or they were checked in at it. An opportunity recorded both ways counts once. Hand-entered hours with no opportunity attached raise Total Hours without raising Events Attended.

Accounting columns on donations​

The Donations data source carries the columns a month-end close needs: GL Class, GL Income Account, Fund, Fund Code, Designation Type, and Restriction, alongside the full money split — Gift Amount (Revenue), Gross Amount (Charged), Processing Fee, Net Deposit, and Refunded Amount. All of them can be grouped, filtered, sorted, and summed, so you can produce a one-line-per-Class monthly total. Processing Fee shows what the processor actually assessed once the settlement that paid the gift out has been synced, and the estimate booked at charge time until then; the Fee Basis column says which, and the per-settlement view is on the Payment Reconciliation page.

See Reconcile Donations With Your Accounting System for what each money column means and how to build the report.

Sponsorship payments and event ticket sales have their own data sources — Sponsorship Payments and Event Registration Payments — with the same Deposit Date, Processing Fee, Net Deposit and Fund columns. See Sponsorship and event registration revenue.

Mailing addresses for donor letters and cards​

When a donor has no email address, or you are printing year-end giving statements, thank-you letters, or holiday cards, you need a report you can hand to a mail-merge. Both the Donors and Donations data sources carry the donor's mailing address:

  • Mailing Address — the whole address on one line (123 Main St, Apt 2, Hartford, CT 06103), ready to drop into a letter.
  • Address, Address Line 2, City, State, ZIP / Postal Code, and Country — the same address split into separate columns, for addressing labels or a merge that formats the address block itself.

On the Donations data source the same columns appear prefixed with the donor's name — Donor Address, Donor City, Donor Mailing Address, and so on — so a per-gift acknowledgment run can pull the recipient's address alongside the gift.

To build a mailing list from the Donors data source, add First Name, Last Name, and Mailing Address (or the separate address columns), then filter and sort on the fields that are available — for example, Last Donation Date for an active-donor mailing. Empty addresses come through blank, so scan the list before you print. These address columns are for reading and exporting only; they cannot be filtered, sorted, or grouped on.

Paging through a long table​

A Data Table block shows one page at a time. Page Size (5 to 100 rows) sets how many rows a page holds, and the Previous / Next controls below the table walk through the rest — the footer tells you which rows you are looking at and how many there are in total.

Any report — wizard or visual — loads up to 1,000 rows on screen. If more rows match than that, the count above the report is the full number that matched, and a note under the table tells you the view is only part of it; Export the report to get every row. On a grouped report the count is the number of groups, so a per-volunteer summary reporting 342 rows means 342 volunteers matched.

Date range and filters when viewing​

Filters apply to what you see and to what you export, so the file matches the screen.

A Date Range picker appears on step-by-step wizard reports, which are run for a period. Visual reports show all data instead — they are scoped by the Time Window you set on an individual block in the builder — so no Date Range picker is shown for them, and exporting one returns everything.

Output options​

On the Output step you control what the report includes:

  • Include Summary — the totals cards above the table. Turn it off for a data-only report.
  • Include Data Table, Charts, and Branding toggles.

Export​

From a report's view, click Export:

  • PDF Document — the full formatted report (summary, charts, table, branding).
  • Excel (data table only) and CSV (data table only) — just the table rows and columns, with no summary or charts, so teams can do further processing in another program.

Save and share​

  • Save the report to use it later.
  • Share with teammates by setting visibility on the report.
  • Add it to a dashboard for at-a-glance access.