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Add or edit a fund

Create a fund or change one, with its amount, tags, donor anonymity, parent fund, distribution settings and your own custom fields.

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Select New Fund at the top of Plan > Funds to add a fund. To change one, open its record and select Edit. Both open the same form.

This appears only when it is turned on for your organisation. It needs both the Payments and Funds modules, and you need the Can access Payments permission. Labels that name Fund use your organisation's own term if you've renamed it.

The fields

The form has these fields, in this order:

  • Name. Required, and no two of your organisation's funds can share one.
  • Distribution Amount: what the fund has to distribute. Required, and 0 or more. You can type $12,500 or 12500.5; it is saved as 12500.50.
  • Recalculate Allocations, only when you edit a fund and lower its Distribution Amount. Tick it to scale this year's allocations from the fund down in proportion; leave it unticked to keep them. See Allocating applications to funds.
  • Currency. On a new fund it starts as your organisation's currency; choose another to hold the fund in it. Once a payment carries the fund, its currency can't change.
  • Tags. Type a tag, then press Enter or type a comma to add it. Select a tag's x to remove it. A tag still in the box when you select Save is added too.
  • Description.
  • Notes. These are internal: only your team sees them.
  • External ID: the fund's ID in your other systems, such as your investment manager's. Optional, but no two funds can share one.
  • Accounting Code. See Accounting Code.
  • Anonymous, Anonymous Name and Donor Anonymity. See Keeping a donor anonymous.
  • Parent Fund. Search by name or External ID, then select a match to place this fund below it. A fund kept anonymous shows its anonymous name beside its own. Select Clear parent to make it a top-level fund. A fund can't be its own parent or sit below one of its own child funds.
  • Fund Type.
  • Distribution Mode: Tagged, Contestable or Hybrid. Only Hybrid asks for a Tagged share (%), from 1 to 99; the rest goes to the contestable pool. Tagged is always 100% tagged and Contestable always 0%.
  • Distribution Frequency and Next Distribution Date.
  • Your custom fund fields, under Custom fields, in the order they are set up. Each has the control for its type: text, long text, a number, an amount, a date, Yes or No, or a list of options. A field marked with an asterisk is required.

Select Save to save the fund and open its record, or Cancel to leave without saving. Cancel goes back to the fund's record, or to the fund list from a new fund.

Accounting Code

Accounting Code appears only while an accounting integration is connected for your organisation. Backed doesn't check the code against your accounting system: enter it as that system shows it, up to 50 characters.

If the integration is disconnected, the field disappears from the form and the record, but the code is kept. It shows again, unchanged, when an integration is connected again.

Keeping a donor anonymous

Donor Anonymity has three choices:

  • Named: the fund's own name is shown everywhere.
  • Anonymous to the public: the public sees the Anonymous Name, while the applicants the fund pays still see its own name, such as on their letter of offer.
  • Anonymous: everyone outside your team sees the Anonymous Name, applicants included.

Your team always sees both names.

Anonymous and Donor Anonymity move together. Ticking Anonymous sets Donor Anonymity to Anonymous, and unticking it sets it back to Named. Choosing Anonymous under Donor Anonymity ticks the box, and choosing either of the other two unticks it.

For either anonymous choice, Anonymous Name is required: it is the name shown in place of the donor's. Leave it blank and the form says "Anonymous Name can't be blank".

When a save is refused

Each problem is shown on the field it is about, and the first one is also shown above the form:

  • "Name can't be blank" when Name is empty.
  • "Name has already been taken" when another of your organisation's funds has that name. Names are compared without regard to capitals.
  • "External ID has already been taken" when another fund has that External ID.
  • "Distribution Amount must be 0 or more" when the amount is empty, negative or not a number.

If someone else changed the fund after you opened the form, the form says so. Reload the page to see their changes, then make yours again.

See also

This page uses Backed's default terms, such as Funding Round and Application Template. An organisation may rename them, so read each as your organisation's own term if you've renamed it.