Auto-populate Check Number and Payment Type on Payment Records auto-created by NPSP

The new Payment Object and reporting functionality that comes with the 10/2/11 relase of the Contacts & Orgs NPSP is great – especially for AR reporting
but I have some clients who really only ever (or mostly) have donations that come in a single payment (not multiple installments) and it’s a hassle for them
to have to click into the payment records to enter the check number and payment type, so I came up with this work-around that keeps the Type (and adds check number) to the Opportunity and then formulas/workflows that copies it to the payment records when they are auto-created. I use the formula + workflow approach so that users could edit the Check number and payment type values on the payment recors if they needed to. If we just used formulas, these wouldn’t be editable.

1. Create new field on Donation: Check Number – text(25); Description: Field for recording check number at the donation level; Workflow copies this to the related payment records when the payment records are created

2. Create new fields on Payment:
Donation Check Number – formula(text)= npe01__Opportunity__r.Check_Number__c;Description: Auto-populated based on value of Check Number field from Donation record; not displayed to user; used only for workflow to populate Payment Check Number
Donation Type – formula(text)= TEXT(npe01__Opportunity__r.Type); Description: Auto-populated based on value of Type field from Donation record; not displayed to user; used only for workflow to populate Payment Type
*Payment Type – text(20); Help Text: This is auto-populated based on what was selected in the donation record. If you need to change this, please use one of the following standard values: Cash, Check, Credit, PayPal, Money Order, InKind

*Note: you’ll need this field (rather than Payment Method) b/c workflow field updates can’t change the value of a picklist field; be sure to remove Payment
Method from the page layout and replace with this one; should be used in reports as well

3. Create workflow rule:
Name: Copy Type and Check Number from Donation to Payment on Payment object
Description: Auto-populates payment Method and Check number based on values from Donation record
Evaluation Criteria: Only when a record is created
Rule Criteria: Opportunity: Opportunity NameNOT EQUAL TOnull

4. Create workflow actions:
Field Update – Payment Object
Name: Update Check Number
Description: Updates check number field to the value calculated in the Donation_Check_Number__c field
Field to Update: Check/Refrence Number
Formula: Donation_Check_Number__c

Field Update – Payment Object
Name: Update Payment Type
Description: Updates Payment Type field to the value calculated in the Donation_Type__c field
Field to Update: Payment Type
Formula: Donation_Type__c

Don’t forget to Activate the workflow

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